Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bunker 10 by J. A. Henderson

"At 2000 hours on Monday, 24 December 2007, Pinewood Military Installation exploded. The blast ripped apart acres of forest and devastated the remote highland valley where the base was located. There were no survivors and no offical cause was given for the incident. Inside Pinewood were 185 male and female military personnel - a mix of scientists and soldiers. There were also 7 children. This is the story of their last day."

The seven children are actually a mix of older kids and teenagers. They are all geniuses, they all have specialties, they have all been recruited by the military. Until this fateful day, none of them have ever been down to level ten - the bunker which has the highest security. But something has gone terribly wrong. Terribly, terribly, awfully wrong.

The Good:
There were a couple of absolutely fantastic plot twists. The first plot twist just blindsided me. It came at about 100 pages into the book and just blew me away. It was genius. The second plot twist, not quite so amazing, but very good nonetheless. And no, I'm not going to spoil it for you, but trust me you won't see them coming either.

The Bad:
The writing was not terribly strong. The characters were flat and I had a hard time differentiating between them. They had no development whatsoever and were just basically mechanisms to move the plot ahead. It was like he had a great plot, but then didn't take the time to flesh out the other aspects of the story.

The Ugly:
There is a character named "Diddy Dave" that seemed to be some bizarre imitation of Ali G. I kept going seriously? Is this a joke? Alas, it wasn't (or i never caught onto it) and I kept expecting Diddy Dave to bust out with Booyakasha or whatever it is that Ali G always says while snapping his fingers together. So yah, Ali G if Ali G was a "genius" but still spoke like a total tool that would be Diddy Dave.

Not the best action adventure/science fictiony book I've ever read, but the plot twists made me want to read until the end. It would likely appeal to reluctant readers.

No comments: