Saturday 17 March 2012

Book Review - Oracle: Sunken Earth

Title: Oracle: Sunken Earth
Author: C.W Trisef
Series: Oracle (Book 1)
Publisher: Createspace
Release Date: 22 Jun 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1463559212

Synopsis
Fall, current day, Atlantic Ocean. Another hurricane tears through the Bahamas, headed for FLorida. Among the wreckage: a U.S. Coast Guard rescue boat, one survivor (Ret Cooper) and a spherical object of curious design (the Oracle).
Ret Cooper is a simole young man with mysterious origins, unique physical features and no memory of his past. HIs new family and friends discover he is truly extraordinary, with supernatural powers and strange scars on his hands. But what is his destiny?
The Oracle is the key to Earth's unity and full potential, too perfect to be man-made. Legend claims it can unleash limitless power when filled with Mother Nature's six, pure, original elements. But where are these elements? And which of our planets ancient secrest wil be explained in the process of locating them?

My Review
I was sent a copy of this by the author in exchange for an honest review.
To be honest when approached about this book I wasn't sure what I thought about it, I knew I would either really really love it, or not like it. But I was willing to give it a go, you never know unless you try, right?
The front cover of the book is quite mysterious but really sums up the book, I like the mix of colours and different elements hidden within it, really catches your eye.
The book starts with 'Chapter 0' which made me laugh, but does a great job of introducing the storyline. I was at once put at ease, here was a book that I was sure to enjoy.At 350 pages long I thought I would be finished quite quickly, and when I did sit down to read I would steam through, but this past week has been absolutely hectic and I've hardly been able to read at all, so that partly spoilt my enjoyment as I had to read it in a lot of bits.
 Ret himself is a cool character, quite mysterious and fairly noble. He annoyed me in a  couple of points because he was good at everything and not affraid to show it off and I hate arrogance, but as the story progressed he showed his more compassionate side and became more likeable.
Ana (his 'sister') is a fiesty girl who knows what she wants and will go after it and has no problem with bossing Ret about, I liked her attitude and she often made me chuckle. 
Paige (their friend) was a bit of a pushover, drooling over Ret a lot and sulking that her dad didn't pay her any attention. I hoped she would do something incredible/risky but I was a little disappointed there. Maybe she will factor more in the rest of the series.
I liked Principle Stone, so dorky and a bit thick, but all the more dangerous because of it, you were never quite sure what he would come up with to do next.
The one character that was like Marmite for me was Mr Coy, at times I would love his character and be laughing at his eccentricities, but his constant pun of his name and asking people if they have 'Ben Coy' really annoyed me. I'm not sure I completely get what the author was going for here, but it was used too much in my opinion and I wanted to tell him to get over himself. 
Overall the storyline was good, Hurricane victimm washed up with no memory but some strange scars and awakening powers.  I thought the author did it well and I was intrigued about the connection with Ret's scars. The book did hook me in and I wanted to finish it and find out what happened. I loved the setting of the 'Sunken World' lots of great imagery there.
Overall I did enjoy the book but there were moments that irked me. However I would recommend this as a good read to try. And I am interested enough to want to read the next one in the series when it comes out.

My Rating
 

   

5 comments:

Chad said...

I really enjoyed "Oracle - Sunken Earth". One thing you forgot to mention in your review was the creative tie-in to all of the unexplained world mysteries (bermuda triangle, city of atlantis, bimini road). The author has a really informative website (www.trisefbook.com) that explains more about each of those mysteries. It appears that each of the books in CW's Oracle series will involve different world mysteries. I just bought book 2 in the series "Oracle - Fire Island" and it looks like the world mysteries in this book are the nazca lines, machu picchu, and easter island. I'm not very familiar with these places, so I can't wait to start reading book 2. Anyway, I think this is really cool stuff, good writing, very creative. I highly recommend the Oracle books!

Carole said...

Nice blog. As a lover of books you might be interested in the word play involved in cryptic crosswords. I am doing a series of posts on solving cryptic clues. This was the first one I did. http://caroleschatter.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/cryptic-crosswords-solving-hints-1.html Hope you enjoy.

iPad Man said...

"Oracle - Sunken Earth" is now only $0.99 on Kindle eBook - http://www.amazon.com/Oracle-Sunken-Earth-ebook/dp/B0053ZJU8U/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

iPad Man said...

Hey Becky, I just finished reading book 2 "Oracle - Fire Island" and it was even better than book 1 "Oracle - Sunken Earth"!!! Do you know anything about the author (CW Trisef)? I would like to learn more about him . . . his books are fabulous and he seems to be relatively unknown??? Thanks.

barmybex said...

I'm still waiting to get book 2, but have heard a lot of good things.

I don't know much about him, but here are some links you might find interesting:
His website:
http://www.trisefbook.com/author.html

Goodreads Page:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4969194.C_W_Trisef

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/people/Cw-Trisef/100002163728844

hope that helps