Memories of watching the SciFi channel at 4:00 AM

I don't know how to rate this book. Decent marks for what it is, or bad marks for not being what I hoped it was when I bought it. The latter is possibly my fault for not doing my research before buying.

I was hoping for something more in the vein of Lovecraft, rather than just having Lovecraft monsters in it. I suppose creepy horror, moderate subtlety? I expected something scary and a little cheesy, writing/plot predictability around the level of Preston/Child, or Koontz, and it ended up being... less. Like I said in the title, it reminds me of staying up until the middle of the night and watching some cheesy low budget movie I'd never heard of on TV. It would be perfect for the MST3K treatment.

If that's what you're looking for, you've found it, and you can view these as five star ratings. It's got drama-destroying cheesiness within the first few minutes, an unrealistically capable and well-liked ladies man main character, a deadly yet beautiful exotic femme fatale from an exotic military culture, intrigue, backstabbing, military banter, stoicism, teenage-like behavior from professional adults, terrorists, SCUBA diving, explosions, plot holes, the works.

What I liked, well, some of the monster descriptions were cool, and a lot happens in the plot. You can listen to it while doing something else and not worry about missing important details. I don't mean to be a snob (I probably am, sorry), I just want to make sure people know what they're getting into.

15 people found this helpful

Enjoyable but predictable

Where does Book of the Dead rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It sits squarely in the category of "a good listen". The author did a great job of building vivid scenes and filling them with likable characters, and the story was enjoyable. But I kept seeing the plot twists and character revelations coming. I did like the subject and the way the author balanced mysticism, discovery, and action.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I liked the Israeli agent. She was no nonsense, tough, and didn't waste time. I felt she was a used as a device by the author to keep the story moving at an appropriate pace instead of getting bogged down in theory and discussion.

What three words best describe Sean Mangan’s voice?

"Old People Voice". The narrator's voice fit well for general story telling and for voicing the older people in the story. But it just didn't fit well for the thirty-something academics or the young female captain. Also, the narrator kept reading the numbers literally. So "250" was read as "two-five-oh" instead of "two hundred and fifty". It was kind of distracting.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There was a moment near the end of the story between the Israeli agent and the US Army major where they put aside their differences long enough to share a professional word of respect that I thought was well done.

Any additional comments?

The author needs to realize that two Navy SEALs will never look to a conventional Army major (especially a staff major) for guidance and tactics in the heat of battle. That kept occurring during the book, and the artificiality of it was terribly distracting.

One great thing about this book is that the author treated the military characters as human. He didn't fall into the cliche of painting them as killers with cardboard personalities who would destroy anything and everything as long as they won. The military characters weighed the consequences of their actions and felt the repercussions of their decisions.

6 people found this helpful

Whittling Away At It. Keep Jumping To Other Books.

I don't often write a review before I've finished a book, but honestly, I don't know if I'm going to finish this one. It's very H.P. Lovecraft, except it's not Lovecraft.
There have been some parts that held my attention, but mostly I find my mind wandering off to grocery lists and what I need to get done before the end of the week.

It takes a huge stretch of the imagination to try to buy into the story line.

If I could go back and know what I know now, I wouldn't buy it.

6 people found this helpful

Great story

I'm a huge fan of Greig Beck as well as H.P. Lovecraft. This story satisfied the expectation for adventure and discovery that Beck always brings to his books. Beck has also provided a wonderful imagining of the Lovecraft Mythos, supported by his own reoccurring characters.

Recommended for any Fans of Beck or Lovecraft lore.

5 people found this helpful

SCARY GOOD!

Awesome story with good characters. The monsters sound positively nightmarish! I'll be checking out more from this author!

4 people found this helpful

Modern Cthulhu Mythos

Loved it. A great moden take on the Cthulhu Mythos.
The descrptions were just detailed enough to set my mind to work in filling in the gruesome blanks, just as it should be. An excellent horror story Lovecraft himself would be proud of.

1 person found this helpful

Excellent Listen

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

The narrator was excellent, the story (while not even vaguely believable - but, hey, horror novel) was fun, and it moved along quickly.

What did you like best about this story?

The quick pace and author's descriptions.

Which character – as performed by Sean Mangan – was your favorite?

Adira.

If you could rename Book of the Dead, what would you call it?

Cthulhu Rising

Any additional comments?

Mangan is an excellent narrator, but listening to his slow reading can get a tad annoying. Once I sped it up to 1.5x, I was happy, though!

1 person found this helpful

100% PURE WEIRD

WHEN A MAN HAS A HAMMER, EVERYTHING NEEDS HAMMERING
I enjoyed the pseudo science, suicide birds, planets alignment, mass extinctions, insects, Cthulhu, Library of Alexandria, the Lighthouse, Atlantis and the garden slugs. The book starts out fairly well, but was way to long and my mind was wondering from the middle to the end. Something interesting would occasionally happen, especially when I was thinking about going to another book. Beck has an interesting theory for the Mass Extinctions that happen in Earth's history. I was a bit confused on the monsters not liking salt, yet we are told several times that some of them lived under the ocean.

TIME IS THE ENEMY OF HISTORY
Beck uses the monsters of Lovecraft, but he does not write in his style. That could be a plus or minus to some, according on rather you love Lovecraft. The narrator is similar to Scott Brick and that could be a plus or minus, according to your likes or dislikes. Just four stars for me, I like the sophomore type subject, but don't believe it was written well enough to be too exciting.

17 people found this helpful

The Cthulhu book I always wanted... almost.

I liked this book, I really did. There are just some things about it I wished were different. For one, I wish books had ratings on them like movies. If they did, this one would be a solid R with around 30 "F-words" and one mildly graphic sex scene. It didn't need that. The Indiana Jones movies proved you can have a fun, supernatural, action-packed archaeological adventure without resorting to crudeness. I can overlook a lot of swearing, but it almost put me off of this book.
That said, the book itself was a ton of fun! I am a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan and have always wanted a good "modern" treatment of the Cthulhu mythos and this book was a good start, if a little cliched. I wish the author had contributed a few more Lovecraftian themes and characters into the story. Where are the fish-people? The Dunwich Horror? Oh well. A lot of Lovecraft scholars and superfans will write this book off as a mockery of Lovecraft's masterworks, and maybe it is a little, but take it for what it's worth and just have fun with it.
The performance by Sean Mangan was pretty good. It makes me wonder if he went to school in England because though he had an "American" accent, he would pronounce some words in a more British fashion. For example, "skeletal" was pronounced "skel-EE-tle". He would also say numbers in kind of a weird way. Instead of saying 120 "one-hundred twenty," he would say "one twenty." Ex.) The car was easily going one twenty miles per hour. Kind of obnoxious.
Final verdict: This was a very fun, exciting, relatively mindless adventure with some good world history thrown in and a fun take on the Cthulhu mythos. Don't take it seriously and you'll enjoy it. If you like Dirk Pitt, Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon, this one fits in there. Just beware of the swearing and sex scene, if such things bother you.

2 people found this helpful

loved it.

loved it. the plot got me looking into the background story. makes you think it may be true.