Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Having savored every word of "Pillars of the Earth" and "World Without End", I feel great disappointment in Follett's latest book. What caught my immediate attention were the "thin" characterizations, each one nominally no more than a stick figure upon an epic World War I scene that was described in the same thinness. Further setbacks in my reading were the "chance" meetings of the characters, each one seemingly contrived for convenience of the storyline and smacking of unbelievability. The portrayal of witty characters, both historical and fictional, lacked depth and sometimes purpose. The unusual number of sexual encounters came across as shallow, certainly not titillating to the reader's imagination. I think Follett has become a "commercial" writer now, exchanging a beautiful talent for words governed by the lure of a dollar sign. This book reminds me so much of some of Michener's and Grisham's later works when they, too, had become commercial. I can't see that a trilogy will rescue this initial effort.