Няколко души от различни краища на света са „поканени“ на тайнствения „Ейърс Рок“ в Австралия, докъдето неизвестен източник е изпратил съобщение с вледеняващо съдържание. В него се разказва за ядрен апокалипсис; за един свят, който скоро ще потъне в хаос; разказва се за последните няколко дни, които им остават, за да спасят всички нас, или…
Besides my own interests, I read whatever my wife tells me to read-- she's a voracious reader and has wide-ranging tastes as my reviews show (she also always has the TV remote and she's always right about what to watch). I read a lot of nonfiction, mostly for research. Some of my favorite books are Lonesome Dove, Mystic River, LOTR, and an array of science fiction classics including the Foundation series. Our house is covered with books, although I finally broke down and started reading eBooks, strangely enough on my iPhone. Since I carry it pretty much everywhere, it means I always have an entire library of books with me.
I'm a West Point graduate, former Green Beret and a New York Times Bestselling Author. I've sold over five million books. My newest series begins with New York Minute, a thriller set in New York City in 1977.
I love using history and science in my books. My Area 51 series pretty much had me rewriting our entire history of civilization.
When you talk about military science fiction, two of the names you frequently hear mentioned are Robert Doherty and Bob Mayer. That's quite a coincidence, because both are New York Times best- selling authors of the genre. Both are also West Point graduates and former U.S. Army Green Berets. And both...well, they're both the same man.
I mention this because when I first became aware of Doherty/Mayer I was confused. Which was which? Doherty's Amazon page says he lives in Seattle, Mayer's says Tennessee. Would the real author please stand up?
Well, the real author is Bob Mayer, and The Rock—originally written under his Doherty penname—is, so far, my favorite book of his.
The detonation of a nuclear device stolen by terrorists triggers a mysterious radio transmission that emanates from Ayres Rock in Australia and jams American satellite transmissions. Analysis of the transmission reveals a message echoing the recorded greetings the space probe Voyager took on its interplanetary journey, and a set of names. Those people—a deep black special ops soldier, an alcoholic geologist, a psychologically unstable prodigy, and a government analyst of future trends—are brought to "the rock," as it's called, to solve the mystery of the transmissions. In the process, they discover what appears to be an interstellar threat to mankind.
Written in the early 1990s, the book is a bit technically dated—there is no Internet and the characters have to look things up in an almanac—but that doesn't detract from the story. Mayer masterfully mixes elements of sci-fi with thrillers of the military, political, and techno variety. His military background allows him to write believable military and combat action scenes without the mistakes writers without military experience often make. And while I haven't read much of Mayer's expansive oeuvre yet, The Rock seems to be a more serious work than the other books of his I've read. I highly recommend this book to readers who enjoy sci-fi and military action.
I’m a Science Fiction fan, but I hate S-F books about an intra-cosmos war that threatens Earth, and only Little Sandra or Jimmy can save our planet and its inhabitants by using his or her super intellect to counter destruction, death rays and mega bombs. Mercifully, "The Rock" is not such a book. There is a moment, however, where I feared this would be the case, but that action was more Star Wars than David vs Universal Goliath. "The Rock" tells a good tale, with unidimensional characters who are described physically at length, but whose previous lives have only the traits that purport to the book’s story; they have little other, real, previous life. So, what about the sci-fi plot? It’s pretty good and multi-layered, and that’s what kept me hooked till the end. Can’t describe it, though, without spoiling the fun.
A quick, enjoyable read which reminded me of Michael Crichton. I came into it knowing about a key element of the story (which I won't spoil) but the reveal is still well handled. Quite deftly mixes aspects of military/techno thrillers with science fiction and historical fact. My first Bob Mayer book, probably won't be my last.
Recommended for those who enjoy military fiction with a weird / sci-fi edge, and for SF fans who don't mind some military jargon and characters.
Not entirely sure why I picked this up - it's certainly no real literature, but that said, it entertained. Very silly plot with some very stock characters who still managed to become quite real and sympathetic, and some interesting political points, particularly about the Cold War. And the geography stuff was neat. Three stars in a noncommittal sort of way.
The Rock is a standalone novel by Bob Mayer. This is the first standalone novel of his I’ve read, all the others have been series or linked novels like excellent Area 51 Series and the Atlantis books. The back of the book labels "The Rock" as a science thriller. This is an accurate description as it's a combination of science fiction and techno-thriller. While similar to his other books (Area 51, Atlantis, etc. -- published under a pseudonym), this one grabs you at the beginning and doesn't let go
The Rock employs Mayers’s usual standard modus operandi of mixing tight military action, historical intrigue, speculative science fiction. I don’t know a other author who pulls off this mixing of the genres so well. Actually, I can’t even name a name another author who writes anything like this.
Five people from across the planet are summoned to a secretive meeting with no idea of what is to happen. They soon learn that a transmission has been received with their names included. Other scientists, the military, the Russians and the President eventually get involved. What results is a race against time to preserve the future of the human race. All of this this combines into a plot takes a few turns along the way.
As his usually the case, Mayer’s main character is a heroic military man who carries his own personal demons with him throughout the story. This is okay, because I think Mayer does these type of characters very well - no doubt due to his own military background. The other characters are an interesting mix of people who all play significant roles in the story.
The Book was well-written and fast moving. Both are traits that I have come to expect from this author. However I didn’t like how quickly the story came to a end. It seemed at one point we where rocketed along with the story with all of the action, gunfire, etc., and then the book is winding up. It’s like Mayer was in a hurry to finish.
Overall, The Rock is fantastic book what i sort of expected when I started reading it. I haven’t read anything from this author that I haven’t liked, to be honest
I am cleaning out my library and found I had books written by this author, who also wrote the Area 51 series. This book was his first book attempting to discuss mysteriously received messages from space. The Rock in this novel is Ayers Rock in Australia which is also called Uluru by the indigenous Australians and considered a sacred site to them. This rock starts broadcasting a message in binary code after a nuclear bombing of a diamond and gold mine in Africa. The message gets partially decoded and it is found to have requested 4 names of individuals, none of whom have anything in common. Unbeknown to both the Americans and Australians investigating this, the Russians at Tunksen have also received a similar message calling for 4 of their own too. When two of the members from the American side, enter the "Wall" which leads to space where they meet through a closed-circuit speaker system the people who sent the message, they are given a time factor to make a needed change and find the missing nuclear bomb which a former Russian general intends to deploy at a site which will cause massive extinction level of the entire world. Considering this book was written after the Reagan years, the attitude between the Americans and the Russians is quite similar to today's mistrust between the two countries, but amazingly two individuals from opposing sides manage to work together to stop the extinction of the Earth and save the human population. Incidentally, the contact that sent the message was from the future humans who despite their physical disabilities had developed technology to time warp back to prevent the occurrences that was their situation and when they succeeded the future became brighter and better.
The book description must have been written by someone who hadn't read the book. The special forces guy is American not Colombian and the housewife is a brilliant analyst.
This is very edge of your seat, gripping reading, it reminds me a bit of Matthew Reilly's books with far less explosions. The main character is Hawkins, an American military guy who is working for a shady government organisation directly for the president. He is sent to Australia to aid with solving a mystery of a message received worldwide but not understood. Some of the team belong to another shadowy organisation called the Hermes project. They work together to save the world from they know not what.
I enjoyed this book and it doesn't matter to me that it was written in 1995, the premise holds up well. My only nitpick was the use of an Australian aboriginal from Kakadu as the leader of the First Nations locals as Kakadu in almost 2,000km from Uluru (Ayers Rock in the novel). Also, that an Australian army general gave measurements in miles, feet and inches because that obviously would not be how he would have done it.
The pacing of this book was really well implemented. The last 10% or so really delivered a sense of urgency. The plot twist caught me off guard and I thought was greatly executed. I think the only element of the book that fell flat was the characterization. Several characters felt very one dimensional and forced. There wasn’t a ton of growth for the characters either. But other than that the book was extremely engaging and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Fascinating! Read till I couldn’t see anymore. Never did I even come close to know what was really happening. Not hardcore S.F, but just enough. Toward the end two normally mortal enemies come together to save the world.
Starts at a walk,then you can't put it down. Had my suspicions at the beginning. Then doubts to put me on a different track before the reveal. Good ending.
This is a standalone novel by Robert Doherty (pen-name for Bob Mayer), an author that you have seen me write about a few times before. This is the first standalone of his that I've read, all of the others have been series or linked novels like his excellent Area 51 series and the Jim Vaughn books (Section 8 & The Citadel).
The Rock employs this author's standard modus operandi of tight military action, historical intrigue and speculative science fiction. I don't know of another author who pulls off this genre so well. Actually, I can't even name another author who writes anything like this. If you do then please let me know because I really love it.
A team of people with various professions are summoned to Ayers Rock in Australia to help determine the cause of mysterious radio transmissions emanating from within the rock. On top of this, there are two nuclear bombs from a rogue former Soviet state loose somewhere on the planet - one of which is detonated in South Africa. Also, the Voyager space probe suddenly goes missing. All of this combines into a plot that takes a few turns along the way.
As is usually the case, Doherty's main character is a heroic military man who carries his own demons with him throughout the story. This is okay, beacause I think Doherty does this very well - no doubt due to his own military special forces background. The other characters are an interesting mix of people who all play significant roles in the story.
The book is well-written and fast-moving. Both are traits that I've come to expect from this author. However, I didn't like how quickly the story came to an end. It seemed that at one point we were rocketing along with the story with all of the action and gunfire, etc., and then the book is winding up. It's like Doherty was in a hurry to finish before exceeding his word count, or his editor wasn't at their best that day. Either way, it's only a minor niggle.
Overall the book is fantastic and what I sort of expected when I picked it up (or, in my case, downloaded it from Amazon). I haven't read anything from this author that I haven't liked, to be honest.
When I read the Bob Mayer books with his military background expertise, I didn't realize he wrote sci-fi/thriller under a pen name. It's okay by me--I enjoy his writing style and the books are usually written with enough authority that I take every word for gospel--whether or not it is. That's okay--this one is sci-fi--it's fiction--and fun, action packed techno-geek fiction at that.
In The Rock, five experts of various scientific/military fields are summarily summoned to converge on an enormous outcropping of rock in the Australia outback. Long a subject of amazement and conjecture, the rock has become a tourist attraction. This coincides with a nuclear bomb explosion (one of two stolen and gone missing in Russia), and an extraordinary (seemingly other-worldly) message emanating from the rock. Mayer, whether Mayer or Doherty, always manages to use facts and/or historical accounts woven artistically into his fiction--blended so carefully the line can blur. We've long been unable to account for some of this planet's most mysterious artifacts--beyond comprehension they could have been created by humans--much less man eons ago without his machines. Who's to say these weren't machines--just perhaps not from this planet. In the race to save mankind from himself, Mayer manages to cut through the military and political bickering using his military protagonist Hawkins to do what must be done--just in time. Compelling reading to the (compromised) ending; doesn't lag.
3 sterren voor dit boek. Waar ik bij mijn vorige boek (The Swarm) nog zat te klagen dat het soms wat sneller kon, ga ik nu klagen dat het deze keer juist allemaal te vluchtig was waardoor het verhaal impact, mysterie en echte spanning mist. Pas op het laatste waar een paar pagina's werden uitgetrokken om het een ander uit te leggen ging de kwaliteit omhoog. Toch 3 sterren omdat het mijn aandacht wist te houden door het concept. :p
Oh, en 1 ster aftrek door de vreselijke fouten die in het ebook zaten. Volgens mij was het originele boek ingescand en de resulterende plaatjes daarna automatisch omgezet naar naar ebook formaat zonder het te controleren. Dus hoofdletters waren er soms niet, verkeerde letters (R ipv A) witregels midden in een zin etc etc. Op die manier kan een boek je aandacht ook niet echt vasthouden.
This book was originally published under the pseudonym of Robert Doherty in 1995. It was re-published (and I believe re-edited) in 2012 under the author's actual name of Bob Mayer. That is the version I read.
A radio transmission is discovered coming from inside Ayers Rock in central Australia.
After this occurs, four disparate strangers are flown to Ayers Rock as the U.S. military tries to find out where the signal is originating from. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away the Russian military is also doing their own exploration, trying to figure out what is happening. And time for the world is ticking down.
I enjoyed this science fiction thriller. It was a fun, fast-paced action thriller and I especially enjoyed the ending.
The story is based in 1995, but it could be at time now or in the near future. An alien race (bad) is on an intercept destruction course with Earth and "the Coalition" (good) has contacted us with their options of survival or destruction. The Rock is Ayres Rock in Australia and it is a Coalition defensive outpost which has been uncovered by us and the Russians along with a similar outpost in Russia. An outpost has recently been destroyed by a nuclear explosion and another is in the works. If this one goes, we all go by virtue of the Coalition pulling back and the aliens given a clear path to us. Quite an interesting plot to be sure. Can't give away any more.
Great use of Aires Rock / Uluru, but the writer is a bit too obsessed with military hardware and operating procedures, and sadly the mid-1990's setting hasn't dated too well. Can a group of scientists and the US military solve the anomaly in the rock, make peace with the Russians, and recover a 2nd lost nuclear bomb before the end of the world?
It was fairly well written and held my attention with some vaguely interesting characters, but ...
spoilers ...
How the heck did they develop super bullet proof vests, plasma guns and time travel after the apocalypse?
I did not think much of this book when I started it. Very one-dimensional characters. Very B-list. Low brainpower entertainment with little substance. The right thing if you want to read something unchallenging, that sort of just flows by.
Tom Clancy meets Carl Sagan, on only 400 pages. Good guys versus mysterious alien bad guys and the end of the world as we know it.
Saying all that, I really liked the ending, it had a nice twist to it.
I read the Area 51 series years ago and thought I'd give 'The Rock' a try. The scenario is very cleverly developed. The beginning of the book makes total sense in the end. The storyline kept my interest with increasing intensity, as it moved along. The ending was a huge crescendo, leaving the reader highly satisfied. This is a good book. I won't forget this one!
Ran into Bob Mayer writing in tandem with Jennifer Crusie in a book that I loved (the title escapes me, but they only wrote one together, I believe), so I figured I'd pick this up when it came up on BookBub. I liked the story a lot--built a plausible setup, using fairly stock characters, but nonetheless, ones I like and that were drawn well, and it kept my attention.
Loved the story but as usual with an audio book the narrator is that star but quite often makes or breaks the novel. In this case he was a bit of a let down. Please! if you have any Australian characters please make sure that the narrator can do the accent.... The ordinary accent was bad enough but the poor indigenous character actually sounds like a really bad English East End accent. And also please pronounce place names properly...
Enjoyed the very realistic portrayal of a military man caught up in a tense science fiction scenario. Bob Mayer's real-life experience as a soldier and leader in the Special Forces really comes through! This was a pretty manly-man book--which I never mind, don't get me wrong--but it also had some smart female scientist characters, which I always love. A fun, exciting read!
The Rock will stay with me for the characters and some of the imagery. Truth be told, I'm still not sure how much I actually like this book - I definitely kept coming back to it and wanted to finish it. But I wasn't grabbed much by the characters. I guess the mystery of it all just worked well to lure me and keep me.
Bob Mayer writing as Robert Doherty has written in "The Rock" a action thriller science fiction mystery. Two nuclear bombs are stolen and one is set off in a gold mine miles underground. That and what is believed to be a alien radio transmission sets off events that just may save the world and everyone on it.