February 19, 2005
The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
Ok. I'm letting you know ahead of time that I am spoiling this book in this review. I'm not even going to do a mini review. If you want to read this book, don't read the review.
This book was B-O-R-I-N-G!!!! I cannot stress that enough.
Amazon recommended this book to me because I had read The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. I'm glad I didn't buy this book and instead borrowed it from the library because I would've been really pissed off if I had spent money on it.
The synopsis from Amazon.com:
Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets -- to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline looms, research has stalled -- until an ancient diary surfaces. What Tom and Paul discover inside shocks even them: proof that the location of a hidden crypt has been ciphered within the pages of the obscure Renaissance text.Armed with this final clue, the two friends delve into the bizarre world of the Hypnerotomachia -- a world of forgotten erudition, strange sexual appetites, and terrible violence. But just as they begin to realize the magnitude of their discovery, Princeton's snowy campus is rocked: a longtime student of the book is murdered, shot dead in the hushed halls of the history department.
A tale of timeless intrigue, dazzling scholarship, and great imaginative power, The Rule of Four is the story of a young man divided between the future's promise and the past's allure, guided only by friendship and love.
Guess what? NOTHING happens in this book. The main characters run around, talking about the book, getting involved in murder investigations, and that's it.
The discussion about the history of the book and the puzzles and riddles in it are interesting. In fact, that's about the only thing that didn't bore me. The riddles and puzzles aren't easily solved and the characters spend a lot of time scouring other Renaissance texts to find the answers to the clues.
However, the book spends all this time delving into the history of the books and the characters and it neglects to advance the plot. Halfway through the book, I kept wondering when it was going to get to the point. By the time the first murder happens, I was relieved because it meant that there was some action and now I'd get to see some consequences. Nope. There's just more character development and more history of the book.
The last 20 pages of the book start talking about the hidden crypt and I was like "Finally!" but with only 20 pages left to go, I didn't see how they were going to wrap this up neatly. Guess what? They don't find the freaking crypt! They don't even go to look for the crypt. Not until the last page. I actually thought the book was missing pages because I couldn't believe that I read 370 pages and the characters didn't DO anything.
It was a HUGE waste of my time.
Posted by xinh at February 19, 2005 06:54 PM