Download Legend: An Event Group Thriller (Bk. 2) eBook

I really enjoyed the first book "Event" and was looking for ward to another great action story. What I got was a bunch of stories mashed together without good continuity and too many characters to keep track of. For example Part 1 ch 2 had professor Zachary and her team headed off to Brazil. Then subsequent chapters had a side story. The Zachary story reconvened in part 2 chapter 5 with her group split up, running from some kind of infuriated animal, a mine cave in(when did that happen) and half the team sick (what? How? When did that start?), their boat destroyed (again when? how? why?) and some container going missing. I double checked and yes I had all the pages.
There were a few other stories going on in multiple different years and this just did not work for me. When you diverge at least bring me back into the fold in a coherent manner.

Most of my consternation came from poor editing. The content of the story is good, although the author has a tendency of restating information in various ways multiple times (which a good editor/publisher would have fixed), it moves along and keeps you wanting to hit the finish line. He also ends the book. No cliffhangers, at least so far, which I appreciate. I will finish the series, which I won't do for bad books. Give it a try.

Legend starts off fast, just like Event and hooked me right away. Something I enjoyed more in this book than I did in event was the concept in general. In event we had aliens and Roswell, which are overdone (though Golemon handles the subject with originality). In Legend we deal with the story of El Dorado, the gold mine and a little something extra thrown in for good measure. Of course, we also had some cool creatures, which is always welcome. The end of the book was absolutely page turning and I plowed through it late into the night...and then again in the morning.

So...why four stars and not five? Same reason as Event I'm afraid. I found the middle of the book to be a tad slow for my taste. And again, the cast of characters is absolutely massive. I'm catching on to who the main characters are, but this is after two books. So it seemed like an improvement, but I think that simply because it was book 2. I think Golemon's EVENT books are comparable to Rollin's Sigma books, but Jim has a tight cast of characters. EVENT is a huge organization and a lot of people get lost in the mix. When the good guys started dying I was actually very pleased because then I could figure out who was who. And I think I have the main characters squared away now, so the next book should be an easier read.

That said, I AM looking forward to the next one and will pick it up right away. For fans of Rollins, Reilly, Preston/Child....and me :) the EVENT series will be enjoyable reading. Legend is my favorite of the two published. Keep them coming, David!

-- Jeremy Robinson, author of Pulse (A Chess Team Adventure) and Kronos

The highly trained, super-secret government organization, the Event Group, is back for another adventure when a team of college students goes missing in the Amazon. Led by former Event Group member Dr. Helen Zachary, the group had gone looking for a hidden valley that supposedly contained El Dorado, the lost gold mine of the Incas. Dr. Zachary was far more interested in the unique animal life supposedly living in the valley, but there are others who only want the gold, and still others yet who want another valuable mineral that is also hidden in the mine. A lot is at stake in the Amazon, and when the Event Group discovers that none other than the president's daughter is part of the missing Zachary expedition, they high-tail it down to Brazil to begin looking for the lost mine.

After Golemon's page-turning first effort, "Event," I had high hopes for this novel that soon fizzled. It was obvious before I was even halfway through that the same amount of effort had not gone into this book. First, and most glaring, were the numerous misspellings and bad grammar. Publishers these days have obviously decided to cut corners in the proofreading department, and nearly everything I read is littered with typos, but this book took it to a whole new level (a "vile" of liquid?) that was distracting, to say the least. But that is not the only way in which this book, or those reading it, suffered. It was very hard to keep all the characters straight because there were simply too many protagonists who all had too much in common. History and science were given less than respectful treatment, as well. Probably the biggest problem with this book, though, was the convoluted mess of a plot.

In "Event," the story stayed with the action, and touched lightly on behind-the-scenes politics in Washington. Unfortunately, this book took an opposite approach, and wasted page after page with the president, the secretary of state, and a whole bunch of people in offices pulling strings when what it should have done was stick with the team in the Amazon. I can barely tolerate political machinations in real life and absolutely detest them in fiction. It's simply not believable in any small way, and I don't really care which one of these fake people carries the most weight in an imitation Washington. When I pick up an adventure thriller, I want action. This book delivered precious little of that. Instead of battles with the bad guys, or even having issues with the Amazonian flora and fauna, our heroes simply drift down the Amazon in their supposedly state-of-the-art boat while the bad guys watch them from a few miles downriver and talk about their evil plans. I was expecting some great action scenes where the bizarre lagoon creatures wreaked havoc on good guys and bad, and instead, the creatures in this book only made a couple of cameo appearances before simply disappearing. The most exciting "action" scenes seemed to consist of patching holes in the boat after they ran some rapids. There simply wasn't enough plot to drive the book, so rather than taking the time to develop a more interesting storyline, the author attempted to flesh it out with ridiculous subplots and the oh-so-boring situations in Washington. Several times throughout the book, I found myself rereading paragraphs I had already read, simply because I could not focus on what was happening because it failed to engage my interest.

Had this been the first Golemon book I had picked up, I probably would not have wasted my time on another. However, I know he's got the stuff because his first book was an absolute page-turner of an adventure. This felt more like a thriller-by-numbers that attempted to copy the works of several other second-rate adventure writers, and even descended into the realm of last-minute rescues with blithe explanations that I just didn't buy. Perhaps I would not have been so disappointed if Golemon hadn't set the bar so high with his first novel, but I'm really hoping his third book will be a lot better than this.

I read the first book and enjoyed it. It was easy reading for a weekend. I had a friend tell me to read the second installment, so I first read the reviews and I did not bother because they were relatively poor. He continued to press, so I picked it up. I glad that I did. Once again, I really enjoyed the book and will be picking up the third installment. Some of the lines are a little corny but that is the type of book it is. It kept me interested and I did not want to put it down. Thought it was better than the first. If you are into this genre and want some easy reading just to relax, this is a good book.