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Jake Townsend #1
Near Death
Near Death – A Jake Townsend Thriller
For Jake Townsend, the loss was shattering. And every night for the past two years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The moonless night. The piercing screams. The horrific crash. The night his wife was taken from him. The last time he saw her alive.
Everyone tells him to move on. But for Jake, there can be no closure. A message appears in his dreams—a warning he is reluctant to heed.
The omens ignored, Jake finds himself caught between the desire to see his beloved wife again and disrupting the delicate balance of life and death. The technology he developed has shown him the path, and others will do anything to use it, but at what price?
He must choose, and the consequences may ultimately shatter his world.
For Jake Townsend, the loss was shattering. And every night for the past two years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The moonless night. The piercing screams. The horrific crash. The night his wife was taken from him. The last time he saw her alive.
Everyone tells him to move on. But for Jake, there can be no closure. A message appears in his dreams—a warning he is reluctant to heed.
The omens ignored, Jake finds himself caught between the desire to see his beloved wife again and disrupting the delicate balance of life and death. The technology he developed has shown him the path, and others will do anything to use it, but at what price?
He must choose, and the consequences may ultimately shatter his world.
316 pages, ebook
First published October 24, 2011
158 people are currently reading
793 people want to read
About the author
Richard C. Hale
36 books180 followersRichard C Hale has worn many hats in his lifetime including Greens Keeper, Bartender, Musician, Respiratory Therapist, and Veteran Air Traffic Controller. You can usually find him controlling Air Traffic over the skies of the Southeastern U.S. where he lives with his wife and children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
December 30, 2011
It is always a pleasure to review a novel that kept me absorbed from the first page to the last — which is exactly the case with Richard C. Hale’s, Near Death. After the tragic loss of his wife in a car crash, Jake Townsend is inconsolable. His beloved wife Beth appears in recurring dreams and is trying to send him a message he cannot quite decipher. Meanwhile, Jake has developed technology that might bring him closer to Beth, but at what cost?
We live in a day and age where new technology does things that not too long ago we may have thought to be science fiction. That is exactly why Hale’s book was so gripping. Jake’s new technology, a machine that can produce video from the minds of those who have had near death experiences and come back to tell the tale, is riveting science fiction. Or is it a brilliant precursor of what is to come? Probably the former, but as a reader, I couldn’t help but explore the possibilities and to weigh the endless ethical/moral questions that go hand in hand with the use of new technology.
Near Death is a fast-paced, romance-laced, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining novel with an intriguing premise. Hale doesn’t shortchange his readers on character development. The characters were well-defined, realistic, and had me simultaneously rooting for and against them. Terrific read!
We live in a day and age where new technology does things that not too long ago we may have thought to be science fiction. That is exactly why Hale’s book was so gripping. Jake’s new technology, a machine that can produce video from the minds of those who have had near death experiences and come back to tell the tale, is riveting science fiction. Or is it a brilliant precursor of what is to come? Probably the former, but as a reader, I couldn’t help but explore the possibilities and to weigh the endless ethical/moral questions that go hand in hand with the use of new technology.
Near Death is a fast-paced, romance-laced, thought-provoking, and highly entertaining novel with an intriguing premise. Hale doesn’t shortchange his readers on character development. The characters were well-defined, realistic, and had me simultaneously rooting for and against them. Terrific read!
May 19, 2013
I think I would have enjoyed this book much more, if there hadn't been the unnecessary romance included. Maddy could have been more interesting if she'd been pursuing a resolution to her grief over her fiancée, similar to Jake's frustration with his wife's death. She ended up seeming like a needy nymphomaniac that was not really bothered by losing her loved one.
May 23, 2012
REASON FOR BOOK CHOICE
Due to the lack of eBook reviewers on the Internet and the difficulty it is for a new author to gain traction in the market place, I'm trying to focus my reviews strictly on this area. It also helps that e-books are generally a lot cheaper than their physical counterparts (for various reasons) and occasionally can be picked up for a dollar. This fact really helps keep my reviewing and entertainment budget at reasonable levels.
However, in saying that, I actually found this novel because Richard Hale is located in my Twitter feed. A while ago he followed me, I followed him back (as you do) and I started seeing the Tweets promoting his book. The countless number of them.
I know that self-promotion is a big thing in this industry (especially when you start out) but it feels like his tweets are always about the book(s) he just wrote and how great it would be if you bought the novel(s). In fact, it appears that Richard Hale has five or six similarly formatted tweets about his novel that he sends out on a regular basis. I respect the fact that he wants to write for a living and that he's been active about it, but sometimes I think Richard Hale goes a bit too far pushing that on Twitter.
Still, I picked up his book, Near Death, because I thought someone with that kind of passion deserves a chance. So maybe it's working. I don't know.
COVER
I own the Kindle version of Near Death and it's cover isn't that great. It's poorly formatted and doesn't take up the whole screen, and there's something in the image that I cannot make out when looking at the grey scale screen. When you load up the high definition colour version, it's actually a woman's face overlooking the city. I just thought it was an orb of light or a thumbprint.
I'm not sure what the generic city image on the bottom of the cover means. Why is the woman looking over the city? What does this mean about the characters? I don't know. Even in the high definition version for the cover (with colour) it feels artificial and poorly placed.
I do like the tag line, 'It's 3:30am. What are you dreaming?' I think that's pretty inspired. Probably not witty enough to make me pick up the book on the basis of it alone, but still well written and engaging.
BOOK LAYOUT
I found the book layout odd. It starts straight into the novel and I think that was a little frustrating. I'm used to reading the credits, acknowledgments, introduction and so on. I found jumping straight in a jarring experience. It's very confronting and not at all a normal experience of how we read (even for printed books). Personally, I think the acknowledgments can be a way to showcase the writer's skill with the written word. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has an incredible thank you section that has made me long for more writers to craft their appreciation notes more carefully.
Near Death has no TOC (Table of Contents). To me, that's quite annoying. Yes, the Kindle has an auto-save feature but that shouldn't replace the ability for a reader to skim through the novel and show off great parts to their friends. It is especially pertinent when you consider that the book is over 50 chapters long. That's a lot of space to navigate with chapter clicks.
I also found some of the formatting of book introductions a little strange. They were too far down the page for the Kindle and the section headings took me out of the experience. I know that Kindle's HTML coding can screw up even the best formatted book (especially if a chapter is too long) but this wasn't an HTML oddity. It was a deliberate formatting decision and having 80% of the Kindle page wasted on empty space became even more frustrating as the chapters got shorter and shorter.
Price wise, I paid $0.99 for Near Death. A really ridiculous price for any full length novel and the work that goes into them. It's listed at $11.53 and discounted to $0.99. I think $11.53 is way too steep for a Kindle version. Richard Hale's charging the exact same amount for a printed book but they are two completely different mediums. So I'm glad that it is discounted, but sad that Richard Hale's asking price does not take into account the different production costs.
STORY
The story is a solid entry into the supernatural thriller genre. It starts out with an attack on a military base and ends with a dramatic chase sequence across America. There's an evil terrorist, a gorgeous woman, a best friend and a few crazy dreams in-between.
It has a three part structure with a 'Part One', 'Part Two' and 'Part Three' breaking them up. I don't why Richard Hale felt he had to break up the novel with these three sections. The story itself is quite linear and has no real narrative break from one section to another. The section headings don't give away any more of the story and they feel very frivolous and non-essential.
I found the ending of the story a little over-written. It's like Richard Hale was trying to tie up all the lose ends of the novel, yet still keep it open for a sequel. I think it ended three or four times and I didn't need that. The minor character arcs didn't need to be resolved and the actual last page was a little frustrating. I know sequels are awesome (for the author's pocket book), but I don't believe you should announce they are coming because it makes the previous ending a non-ending. Why did you even write the other ending when that's not actually the ending?
Overall though, the story's pretty decent and standard fare for the men's action genre.
CHARACTERS
This is my big sticking point. I felt all the characters were pretty artificial and filling genre specific roles. Jake Townsend did not feel like a person to me. He felt like an imaginary human who happens to only exist inside of a novel. I didn't find him interesting and didn't really care about his problems because he just seemed to handle them in a completely non-human way. The writer dictated it, and therefore he did.
I think the tragic part of this book is that I spent a lot of time laughing and sighing at the characters through the novel. There's a romance which happens like a thunderclap and ends up in a wildly descriptive sex scene that lasts for ten pages. Then they promise (in very awkward and precise English) to not be serious about intimacy before falling in love three days later. During this time they have a lot of sex.
There's a platonic friendship between Jake and Terri that gets stretched well beyond breaking point. It's written in a way I would have imagined women reacting to my awesomeness (and desires) at 18 or 19. I think the characters get confused because they act like stock standard heroes, but then we are told by the author they have real emotions. But they don't have real emotions, the emotions are just words on a page that mean nothing because the character's actions give no weight to the phrase used.
At the end, Jake turns into action hero man. No. I mean, no. I can believe Jake's 'no-one should die' shtick or his 'I must kill to save my beloved', but not both. He jumps between the two whilst the writer does not explain why Jake can use a gun. I know that America is full of gun lovers and my friends really appreciate their awesome shotguns, but I couldn't fire a glock. Why would a meek and mild scientist be able to?
So, I feel the characters are forced, trite and painful. Their dialogue borders on the ridiculous and when it is combined with an attempt at sincerity, it would force me to wince and sigh.
WRITING
After reading Richard Hale's Near Death, I actually went back and changed my review of Switched from two to three stars on Goodreads. Richard Hale is writing in my genre. This was my bread and butter as a kid. Action, sex and chiseled men. This was what I looked for when I trolled the bookstores from 16 - 20.
Unfortunately, I found it clunky as hell. I struggled reading the book from page to page and line to line. The sentences are short, nasty and use cliched phrases. A lot of the description sentences I would have sworn I had read somewhere else. And it just drove me nuts.
I mentioned the dialogue previously, but it's too clean. The dialogue is too grammatically correct and too standard for each person. Everyone seems to know what the next person's going to say and they are just speaking their lines of dialogue on an empty stage. When characters talk, my mind would flit somewhere else. I thought about my work colleagues, my friends, my enemies and how they spoke. No-one I know speaks like they do in the book. Dialogue is ugly and full grammar errors.
Grammatically, it's fine. I found one issue with an 'Its' but that was all. If I was teaching English, I would use this book as a good example of how perfect grammar structures can put a wall between you and the reader. It make take no risks, but it fails to communicate what the writer wants to say as well.
CONCLUSION
Bottom line, is it worth 99 cents? Is it worth $11.53? Amazon says 'Yes' with a 5 star rating and 24 reviews. I would say, probably not. If you have nothing better to read, enjoy men's genre fiction, looking for something cheap and don't want to branch out into the classics, then this is probably a good purchase at 99 cents. At $11.53, no way. It's not worth that at all.
I found the characters contrite, the story plot barely survivable (until the real ending ruined it completely), the writing frustrating, and the book's production values lacking the basics. I made it through the book because I made a promise to myself to finish all books I intend to review, but if I hadn't then I would stopped reading this at around the first scene.
Due to the lack of eBook reviewers on the Internet and the difficulty it is for a new author to gain traction in the market place, I'm trying to focus my reviews strictly on this area. It also helps that e-books are generally a lot cheaper than their physical counterparts (for various reasons) and occasionally can be picked up for a dollar. This fact really helps keep my reviewing and entertainment budget at reasonable levels.
However, in saying that, I actually found this novel because Richard Hale is located in my Twitter feed. A while ago he followed me, I followed him back (as you do) and I started seeing the Tweets promoting his book. The countless number of them.
I know that self-promotion is a big thing in this industry (especially when you start out) but it feels like his tweets are always about the book(s) he just wrote and how great it would be if you bought the novel(s). In fact, it appears that Richard Hale has five or six similarly formatted tweets about his novel that he sends out on a regular basis. I respect the fact that he wants to write for a living and that he's been active about it, but sometimes I think Richard Hale goes a bit too far pushing that on Twitter.
Still, I picked up his book, Near Death, because I thought someone with that kind of passion deserves a chance. So maybe it's working. I don't know.
COVER
I own the Kindle version of Near Death and it's cover isn't that great. It's poorly formatted and doesn't take up the whole screen, and there's something in the image that I cannot make out when looking at the grey scale screen. When you load up the high definition colour version, it's actually a woman's face overlooking the city. I just thought it was an orb of light or a thumbprint.
I'm not sure what the generic city image on the bottom of the cover means. Why is the woman looking over the city? What does this mean about the characters? I don't know. Even in the high definition version for the cover (with colour) it feels artificial and poorly placed.
I do like the tag line, 'It's 3:30am. What are you dreaming?' I think that's pretty inspired. Probably not witty enough to make me pick up the book on the basis of it alone, but still well written and engaging.
BOOK LAYOUT
I found the book layout odd. It starts straight into the novel and I think that was a little frustrating. I'm used to reading the credits, acknowledgments, introduction and so on. I found jumping straight in a jarring experience. It's very confronting and not at all a normal experience of how we read (even for printed books). Personally, I think the acknowledgments can be a way to showcase the writer's skill with the written word. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has an incredible thank you section that has made me long for more writers to craft their appreciation notes more carefully.
Near Death has no TOC (Table of Contents). To me, that's quite annoying. Yes, the Kindle has an auto-save feature but that shouldn't replace the ability for a reader to skim through the novel and show off great parts to their friends. It is especially pertinent when you consider that the book is over 50 chapters long. That's a lot of space to navigate with chapter clicks.
I also found some of the formatting of book introductions a little strange. They were too far down the page for the Kindle and the section headings took me out of the experience. I know that Kindle's HTML coding can screw up even the best formatted book (especially if a chapter is too long) but this wasn't an HTML oddity. It was a deliberate formatting decision and having 80% of the Kindle page wasted on empty space became even more frustrating as the chapters got shorter and shorter.
Price wise, I paid $0.99 for Near Death. A really ridiculous price for any full length novel and the work that goes into them. It's listed at $11.53 and discounted to $0.99. I think $11.53 is way too steep for a Kindle version. Richard Hale's charging the exact same amount for a printed book but they are two completely different mediums. So I'm glad that it is discounted, but sad that Richard Hale's asking price does not take into account the different production costs.
STORY
The story is a solid entry into the supernatural thriller genre. It starts out with an attack on a military base and ends with a dramatic chase sequence across America. There's an evil terrorist, a gorgeous woman, a best friend and a few crazy dreams in-between.
It has a three part structure with a 'Part One', 'Part Two' and 'Part Three' breaking them up. I don't why Richard Hale felt he had to break up the novel with these three sections. The story itself is quite linear and has no real narrative break from one section to another. The section headings don't give away any more of the story and they feel very frivolous and non-essential.
I found the ending of the story a little over-written. It's like Richard Hale was trying to tie up all the lose ends of the novel, yet still keep it open for a sequel. I think it ended three or four times and I didn't need that. The minor character arcs didn't need to be resolved and the actual last page was a little frustrating. I know sequels are awesome (for the author's pocket book), but I don't believe you should announce they are coming because it makes the previous ending a non-ending. Why did you even write the other ending when that's not actually the ending?
Overall though, the story's pretty decent and standard fare for the men's action genre.
CHARACTERS
This is my big sticking point. I felt all the characters were pretty artificial and filling genre specific roles. Jake Townsend did not feel like a person to me. He felt like an imaginary human who happens to only exist inside of a novel. I didn't find him interesting and didn't really care about his problems because he just seemed to handle them in a completely non-human way. The writer dictated it, and therefore he did.
I think the tragic part of this book is that I spent a lot of time laughing and sighing at the characters through the novel. There's a romance which happens like a thunderclap and ends up in a wildly descriptive sex scene that lasts for ten pages. Then they promise (in very awkward and precise English) to not be serious about intimacy before falling in love three days later. During this time they have a lot of sex.
There's a platonic friendship between Jake and Terri that gets stretched well beyond breaking point. It's written in a way I would have imagined women reacting to my awesomeness (and desires) at 18 or 19. I think the characters get confused because they act like stock standard heroes, but then we are told by the author they have real emotions. But they don't have real emotions, the emotions are just words on a page that mean nothing because the character's actions give no weight to the phrase used.
At the end, Jake turns into action hero man. No. I mean, no. I can believe Jake's 'no-one should die' shtick or his 'I must kill to save my beloved', but not both. He jumps between the two whilst the writer does not explain why Jake can use a gun. I know that America is full of gun lovers and my friends really appreciate their awesome shotguns, but I couldn't fire a glock. Why would a meek and mild scientist be able to?
So, I feel the characters are forced, trite and painful. Their dialogue borders on the ridiculous and when it is combined with an attempt at sincerity, it would force me to wince and sigh.
WRITING
After reading Richard Hale's Near Death, I actually went back and changed my review of Switched from two to three stars on Goodreads. Richard Hale is writing in my genre. This was my bread and butter as a kid. Action, sex and chiseled men. This was what I looked for when I trolled the bookstores from 16 - 20.
Unfortunately, I found it clunky as hell. I struggled reading the book from page to page and line to line. The sentences are short, nasty and use cliched phrases. A lot of the description sentences I would have sworn I had read somewhere else. And it just drove me nuts.
I mentioned the dialogue previously, but it's too clean. The dialogue is too grammatically correct and too standard for each person. Everyone seems to know what the next person's going to say and they are just speaking their lines of dialogue on an empty stage. When characters talk, my mind would flit somewhere else. I thought about my work colleagues, my friends, my enemies and how they spoke. No-one I know speaks like they do in the book. Dialogue is ugly and full grammar errors.
Grammatically, it's fine. I found one issue with an 'Its' but that was all. If I was teaching English, I would use this book as a good example of how perfect grammar structures can put a wall between you and the reader. It make take no risks, but it fails to communicate what the writer wants to say as well.
CONCLUSION
Bottom line, is it worth 99 cents? Is it worth $11.53? Amazon says 'Yes' with a 5 star rating and 24 reviews. I would say, probably not. If you have nothing better to read, enjoy men's genre fiction, looking for something cheap and don't want to branch out into the classics, then this is probably a good purchase at 99 cents. At $11.53, no way. It's not worth that at all.
I found the characters contrite, the story plot barely survivable (until the real ending ruined it completely), the writing frustrating, and the book's production values lacking the basics. I made it through the book because I made a promise to myself to finish all books I intend to review, but if I hadn't then I would stopped reading this at around the first scene.
December 28, 2012
Near Death (Richard C. Hale)
Jake Townsend Lost his wife in a tragic accident. He is grief stricken and can't move on. Although everyone tells him he needs to move on with his life, he can't until he gets closure.
He starts having dreams, dreams of his wife and they feel so real. The dreams start to become frightening, and confusing, as he tries to figure out there meaning. He needs to see her, to speak to her, if not but for one last time.
Jake comes up with an invention and he is using people with NDE (Near Death Experiences) for his experiment. He tries to see what happens during these events, and if there is any truth in all the theories and proclamations, of seeing loved ones and a bright light right before they die.
But with his new discoveries there comes a price, and is he willing to pay this price just to get closure. He also realizes that if his discovery gets into the wrong hands, the consequences can be catastrophic.
Fantastic read. I found it very thought provoking, and had me wonder what if, just what if Jakes' theory became a reality. I highly recommend to all. I look forward to more work by Richard C. Hale.
I also recommend Frozen Past, also by Richard C. Hale.
Jake Townsend Lost his wife in a tragic accident. He is grief stricken and can't move on. Although everyone tells him he needs to move on with his life, he can't until he gets closure.
He starts having dreams, dreams of his wife and they feel so real. The dreams start to become frightening, and confusing, as he tries to figure out there meaning. He needs to see her, to speak to her, if not but for one last time.
Jake comes up with an invention and he is using people with NDE (Near Death Experiences) for his experiment. He tries to see what happens during these events, and if there is any truth in all the theories and proclamations, of seeing loved ones and a bright light right before they die.
But with his new discoveries there comes a price, and is he willing to pay this price just to get closure. He also realizes that if his discovery gets into the wrong hands, the consequences can be catastrophic.
Fantastic read. I found it very thought provoking, and had me wonder what if, just what if Jakes' theory became a reality. I highly recommend to all. I look forward to more work by Richard C. Hale.
I also recommend Frozen Past, also by Richard C. Hale.
March 28, 2015
An entertaining read revolving around themes of universal appeal:love,loss and the much talked about near death experience. What at first appears to be a serious novel turns into fantasy with an action packed finale complete with gunfights, explosions and a massive hole in time.
I liked how the author handled the grief of the characters and their longing for closure.In reality, people seldom get such closure, and we are left with unanswered questions to haunt us. However, the novelist can explore these issues and the idea that near death experiences can give comfort via messages brought to us by our departed loved ones is a worthy one.
Near Death has believable and likeable characters. I would have liked to know more about Omar who arrived late in the novel, but otherwise I felt like I knew the characters well enough, and the story moved along at a good clip. Perhaps there was one too many sex scenes for my taste and some repetitive sequences, but these are minor criticisms. I liked this book and recommend it to you.
I liked how the author handled the grief of the characters and their longing for closure.In reality, people seldom get such closure, and we are left with unanswered questions to haunt us. However, the novelist can explore these issues and the idea that near death experiences can give comfort via messages brought to us by our departed loved ones is a worthy one.
Near Death has believable and likeable characters. I would have liked to know more about Omar who arrived late in the novel, but otherwise I felt like I knew the characters well enough, and the story moved along at a good clip. Perhaps there was one too many sex scenes for my taste and some repetitive sequences, but these are minor criticisms. I liked this book and recommend it to you.
February 19, 2012
Outstanding Book!
If you have ever wondered what you would do if you were put in difficult circumstances, then you need to read this book by author, Richard Hale. Mr. Hale's debut book takes you on a ride to death and beyond in this outstanding thriller.
The death of his wife leaves Jake Townsend with no closure and many unanswered questions. Although Jakes knows he needs to move on with his life and many friends try to persuade him to do so, Jake is torn with horrible nightmares of the horror his deceased wife must have endured on the night she lost her life in a horrific crash.
The lure of ominous omens and thrilling adventure will keep you on edge as you continue to turn page after page, unable to set the book aside.
Near Death is a touching search of adventure and I believe a must read for anyone who is fond of reading a good book.
If you have ever wondered what you would do if you were put in difficult circumstances, then you need to read this book by author, Richard Hale. Mr. Hale's debut book takes you on a ride to death and beyond in this outstanding thriller.
The death of his wife leaves Jake Townsend with no closure and many unanswered questions. Although Jakes knows he needs to move on with his life and many friends try to persuade him to do so, Jake is torn with horrible nightmares of the horror his deceased wife must have endured on the night she lost her life in a horrific crash.
The lure of ominous omens and thrilling adventure will keep you on edge as you continue to turn page after page, unable to set the book aside.
Near Death is a touching search of adventure and I believe a must read for anyone who is fond of reading a good book.
March 24, 2012
Very powerful work
November 12, 2020
This is the first book I read from this author and let me tell you that I loved it! Such a good book with great characters that keeps you obsessed with every page since the first one. The ending of this book.. come on! I just didn´t expect it! Can´t wait to read other books from this great writer! Amazing job! a must-read!. A fantastic book that has it all!
I happily endorse this story to any who is looking for an enjoyable read and a completely different experience than anyone could imagine on their own. An entertaining read revolving around themes of universal appeal: love, loss, and the much talked about near death experience.Terrific read! I highly recommend Richard C books
I happily endorse this story to any who is looking for an enjoyable read and a completely different experience than anyone could imagine on their own. An entertaining read revolving around themes of universal appeal: love, loss, and the much talked about near death experience.Terrific read! I highly recommend Richard C books
September 8, 2018
Very scary book!
Not the subject matter because near death experiences for some people are blessings. Not because someone is trying to read people's minds. But because there is a General willing to pay for research that might be used to torture secrets form suspected terrorists.
Not the subject matter because near death experiences for some people are blessings. Not because someone is trying to read people's minds. But because there is a General willing to pay for research that might be used to torture secrets form suspected terrorists.
May 19, 2018
WOW ! This was a fantastic read ! Nice to read a book with a completely fresh story line. Jake Townsend is a scientist trying to communicate with his dead wife. Through a series of experiments this turns into a deadly shift of balance. Well worth the read.
March 11, 2018
Interesting
Second time I've read it. I couldn't remember how it ended so I continued to read it. Not the very best book I've read but still interesting.
Second time I've read it. I couldn't remember how it ended so I continued to read it. Not the very best book I've read but still interesting.
January 24, 2021
Very enjoyable
This is not the type of novel I would normally read, but it was still very enjoyable. I am looking forward to the next in the series.
This is not the type of novel I would normally read, but it was still very enjoyable. I am looking forward to the next in the series.
April 19, 2022
Very good read, good page tuner, hard to put down.
March 2, 2022
Near Death was a moderately amusing but ultimately unbelievable story. There were too many inconsistencies throughout that made unreasonable demands on the reader. The idea that a scientist who was incompetent about much except being obsessed with his dead wife would suddenly be shooting guns and doing spycraft on a professional level was too much for me. I wanted to like the book but couldn’t make it there.
January 17, 2013
After reading the synopsis for this book I knew that despite it not being my usual type of read I just had to read this book. And I will just tell you that Richard Hale did not disappoint! From page one I was completely raptured by the story of Jake and his incredible loss. Leaving me completely curious as to where this story would lead. I mean how many of us wouldn't want to see our lost one's again or what lies in the great beyond?
I was impressed by how easy this book was to read and get hooked to. Richard Hale has a great ability to weave a story that not only leaves you wanting more, but satisfies your desire for suspense, sci-fi and love. The one thing that I wish I could have had more of was action. There was a brief glimpse of it, but it left me wanting more. Even though I knew that was not the kind of character Jake was I couldn't help but want it. But I was happy to see that the elements in this book dabbled on the side of supernatural without actually going there, giving you just a teaser into this world.
I was completely blown away by the idea of the technology that Jake created in this book. By not only the ingenuity of it, but by the sheer believability! This is something that I could totally envision and could understand. Everything was vivid and Richard Hale's descriptions allowed my imagination to create the world in which Jake lived.
I was impressed by how easy this book was to read and get hooked to. Richard Hale has a great ability to weave a story that not only leaves you wanting more, but satisfies your desire for suspense, sci-fi and love. The one thing that I wish I could have had more of was action. There was a brief glimpse of it, but it left me wanting more. Even though I knew that was not the kind of character Jake was I couldn't help but want it. But I was happy to see that the elements in this book dabbled on the side of supernatural without actually going there, giving you just a teaser into this world.
I was completely blown away by the idea of the technology that Jake created in this book. By not only the ingenuity of it, but by the sheer believability! This is something that I could totally envision and could understand. Everything was vivid and Richard Hale's descriptions allowed my imagination to create the world in which Jake lived.
August 3, 2013
Supernatural thriller - tense and teasing:
After losing his wife in a road accident, Jake is left with the torture of loss and grief, and the mystery of his wife’s final words.
He creates ANDEE, an innovative and somewhat frightening computer which enables him to watch and experience the mysterious elements of what he calls NDEs – Near Death Experiences. He pursues this research and dangerous work because he wants – NEEDS – to talk to his dead wife. But this is a goal that costs him subservience to his military sponsors (whose devious plans are beyond menacing), the discovery of things perhaps better left unknown, and the safety of those he most needs and cares about.
Interspersed with a nicely depicted romance following his meeting with Madison, this is a complex story of life after death, and the possibilities of the afterlife. It poses very clever hypotheses about what happens to us in our final moments of mortal existence.
This is a very intelligently written story, involving complex science fictional propositions with cleverly illustrated technical detailing. It is also a story with a stark warning label: be careful what you mess with…the consequences can be dangerously ominous.
After losing his wife in a road accident, Jake is left with the torture of loss and grief, and the mystery of his wife’s final words.
He creates ANDEE, an innovative and somewhat frightening computer which enables him to watch and experience the mysterious elements of what he calls NDEs – Near Death Experiences. He pursues this research and dangerous work because he wants – NEEDS – to talk to his dead wife. But this is a goal that costs him subservience to his military sponsors (whose devious plans are beyond menacing), the discovery of things perhaps better left unknown, and the safety of those he most needs and cares about.
Interspersed with a nicely depicted romance following his meeting with Madison, this is a complex story of life after death, and the possibilities of the afterlife. It poses very clever hypotheses about what happens to us in our final moments of mortal existence.
This is a very intelligently written story, involving complex science fictional propositions with cleverly illustrated technical detailing. It is also a story with a stark warning label: be careful what you mess with…the consequences can be dangerously ominous.
May 4, 2012
Full of numerous emotional roller coasters, you find yourself totally immersed inside the tortured minds of the central characters as they each struggle to deal with the death of a loved one. Some withdraw internally to their own personal realm of sorrow, while one particularly brilliant scientist is obsessed with finding out what really happened to his beloved wife the moment she left this earth.
Whether by fate or coincidence, when the scientist/widower and the other sufferers of loss unite and begin to experiment into realms they really don't understand, you won't believe the final outcome! A little romance, a very interesting and fresh take on near death experiences and a bit of international intrigue will keep you up at night reading just one more chapter.
This is a page turner for sure and when you read the last word, you will say, "No, don't end!" Bravo Mr. Hale, bravo
Whether by fate or coincidence, when the scientist/widower and the other sufferers of loss unite and begin to experiment into realms they really don't understand, you won't believe the final outcome! A little romance, a very interesting and fresh take on near death experiences and a bit of international intrigue will keep you up at night reading just one more chapter.
This is a page turner for sure and when you read the last word, you will say, "No, don't end!" Bravo Mr. Hale, bravo
September 4, 2016
"A Remarkable, Intriguing Novel"
This first novel in the Jake Townsend series is amazing. Jake Townsend is a scientist who has developed a computer program and machine which can read minds and project video scenes. He refers to the computer as Andee. After two years, he keeps reliving the horrible death of his wife. He just can't get any closure. As his dreams continue revealing his loss, there are omens which eventually lead him on the path to have closure ... or, may shatter his world. This story is fast-paced, enthralling, laced with some romance, and is very thought provoking. It deals with the supernatural and is very scary at parts. It is like a thrill ride. Highly recommend.
This first novel in the Jake Townsend series is amazing. Jake Townsend is a scientist who has developed a computer program and machine which can read minds and project video scenes. He refers to the computer as Andee. After two years, he keeps reliving the horrible death of his wife. He just can't get any closure. As his dreams continue revealing his loss, there are omens which eventually lead him on the path to have closure ... or, may shatter his world. This story is fast-paced, enthralling, laced with some romance, and is very thought provoking. It deals with the supernatural and is very scary at parts. It is like a thrill ride. Highly recommend.
August 16, 2012
This is an excellent book; genuinely creepy at times with a fast pace and lots of twists. It follows the work of a scientist who is downloading memories of near-death experiences so they can be viewed in their entirety via a TV screen. He is on a mission to re-connect with his dead wife and the government want to use it for their own dubious plans. There is love, banter and danger and it would make a cracking film.
I didn't give it 5 stars because the original description of the technology involved was a bit simplistic for me and difficult to believe in. However, I suspect this will not affect most people as I'm always thinking too much about what I'm reading. ;O)
I didn't give it 5 stars because the original description of the technology involved was a bit simplistic for me and difficult to believe in. However, I suspect this will not affect most people as I'm always thinking too much about what I'm reading. ;O)
August 6, 2012
Near Death had a lot of intriguing ideas. I love supernatural stories and this one really resonated with me. After a tragic accident, Jake Townsend becomes obsessed with finding out what happens to us when we die. And he's built a machine that can "read" people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) and actually replicate the experience on a screen. But the machine turns out to be more powerful than he planned and Jake is forced to face the question of whether he's gone too far in his obsession.
August 31, 2013
The story line is interesting. The question of ethics is just barely scraped along the surface. Jake's about face based on a single personal event, while believable, takes away much of his standing as a moral man. I also had a very difficult time knowing that this is the first book in a series when the premise of this one begs for it to be a complete story, ending with the destruction of the machine that brought about the ethical dilemmas in the first place.
March 8, 2013
What a really good book. A few slow parts but the majority of the book made up for it. This is another book that makes you look at the afterlife. It is based on NDE's or Near Death Experiences. Pretty good stuff. If anyone has read The Grey Tier and enjoyed it, you will definately like this as well.
May 7, 2013
Very interesting take on where we go in after life. Is there real research like this going on? This read is a seat of your pants exciting and in some place down right scary.could not put it down, another night of no sleep. What if someone could actually develop a machine like this one in the book. Would be scary, some things should remain a mystery.
September 1, 2014
Creepy premise in tune with NSA paranoia
different approach to the oft-visited realm of being able to read minds. the idealistic genius who cannot accept that his wife is gone, desperately seeking a way to communicate, the inevitable govt and military desire to use it to their own ends. Nice read, will pick up next in series.
different approach to the oft-visited realm of being able to read minds. the idealistic genius who cannot accept that his wife is gone, desperately seeking a way to communicate, the inevitable govt and military desire to use it to their own ends. Nice read, will pick up next in series.
May 29, 2016
Meh. That's the best way to describe how I felt about this book. To me it seemed a bit confused with what it was, a supernatural book about scientists messing with the afterlife, throw in some shady government action, and a love story. It was just too much. Did I actively dislike it? No. Will I read anything else in this series? Also no.
June 17, 2012
Solid debut by self-published author that combines a bit of scifi and a fair amount of action. Characters a bit one-dimensional but author has a real flair for man-woman relationships. Looking forward to reading more from him.
October 6, 2013
A fantastic read. If you've ever wondered about the "other side" of death or experienced a NDE, this book should be on your reading list. A touching story of a man obsessed with finding answers after the death of his wife. What he learns is life altering.
February 1, 2016
Excellent story. Couldn't put it down.
Complex characters and great story telling fill this story of deeds and consequences, love and forgiveness, and even afterlife possibilities. A real thrill_ride yet so much more.
Complex characters and great story telling fill this story of deeds and consequences, love and forgiveness, and even afterlife possibilities. A real thrill_ride yet so much more.
Want to read
December 21, 2012Kindle freebie, 12/21/12
March 9, 2013
Very good, well written book. A combination of the paranormal and James Bond.
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