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MacGyver Seismic Shift
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE ORIGINAL CREATOR OF
MacGyver’s world is rocked in more ways than one… When the CIA all but pleads with Mac to take on a long and dangerous mission that requires his connections around the Middle East, despite his reservations, Mac agrees only to discover the mission was not as it seemed, forcing him into a collision course with the Agency.
That collision all but explodes when someone from Mac’s past seems to appear in another Agency operation, setting off an international manhunt for both that person and then MacGyver himself.
Trying to outrun both the CIA and the Russian FSB, Mac must try to save the civilian whose very existence turns his life upside down while trying to prevent a disaster that could cause tens of thousands of casualties.
No matter the outcome, Mac knows that even if he survives, his life will never be the same.
MACGYVER SEISMIC SHIFT is the second book in the new fiction series that picks up where the original TV series left off. For those interested in reading the first book of this series, see MACGYVER MELTDOWN.
MacGyver’s world is rocked in more ways than one… When the CIA all but pleads with Mac to take on a long and dangerous mission that requires his connections around the Middle East, despite his reservations, Mac agrees only to discover the mission was not as it seemed, forcing him into a collision course with the Agency.
That collision all but explodes when someone from Mac’s past seems to appear in another Agency operation, setting off an international manhunt for both that person and then MacGyver himself.
Trying to outrun both the CIA and the Russian FSB, Mac must try to save the civilian whose very existence turns his life upside down while trying to prevent a disaster that could cause tens of thousands of casualties.
No matter the outcome, Mac knows that even if he survives, his life will never be the same.
MACGYVER SEISMIC SHIFT is the second book in the new fiction series that picks up where the original TV series left off. For those interested in reading the first book of this series, see MACGYVER MELTDOWN.
314 pages, Paperback
Published December 7, 2024
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 8, 2025
The story: mostly enjoyable. The actual written text: significantly less so.
In short: this book needed an editor. If it had one, then frankly they didn't do a very good job.
Something jumped out at me when I read the teaser chapter for this book that was included at the end of "MacGyver: Meltdown": the tense was inconsistent. "Mac said" in the early part of the chapter turned into "Mac says" midway through. My first thought was that "Meltdown" was rushed going to press, and that this issue would be fixed in the actual "Seismic Shift" release. Sadly it wasn't. Even more sadly, this was only the start of the issues that I found throughout the entire book:
• The tense switching was the most prevalent. Sometimes an entire chapter would be consistent, but most chapters started one way and ended in another. Occasionally there would be a switch in tense that only affected a single paragraph or sentence before returning to the previous method.
• There were a number of cases where a single word was missing from a sentence.
• A city name was spelled two different ways on the same page.
• The name of an organization was treated inconsistently throughout the book. Sometimes it was printed in italics, other times it wasn't. Sometimes it was in quotes, other times it wasn't. An ending exclamation point—established to be part of the organization's formal name early in the story—was sometimes omitted.
• Chapter 8 began with a large fragment of the sentence that began Chapter 7, finally ending mid-word butted up against the first word that should have begun the chapter.
• Capitalization and punctuation usage with relation to character dialog was inconsistent, and sometimes off compared to the writing rules that I'm the most used to seeing (and using myself).
• Sometimes punctuation was just glaringly missing, or there when it shouldn't have been.
• One flub that occurred more than once was the use of "peninsular" instead of "peninsula" ("peninsular" is an adjective, but it was misused as a noun)
• Sentences were sometimes structured awkwardly. I'm not talking about personal preference kinds of things. These were cases where subjects and objects were ordered in such a way as to make the meaning unclear.
• There was a glaring overuse of sentences that began with "And," "So," "Which," etc. (I suppose one might call this "artistic license," but it stuck out like a sore thumb, pulled me out of the read, and never felt like an artistic choice.)
By far the most annoying and frustrating thing was a certain writing style that the author used primarily (but not exclusively) during tense moments in the story. Here's an example of the style (not an actual quote from the book):
---
Mac slid around the corner as—the gunman raised his weapon to target the senator while—people scrambled in all directions to escape the danger as—Mac pulled out his pocket knife, cutting the cord on the flag pole just as—the senator's aides grabbed him and pulled him to the ground as—the gunman fired several quick rounds...
---
Whatever happened to full sentences and clear thoughts? This style of writing turns everything into one big run-on mess. I could see someone thinking that such a style might supposedly heighten the tension. For me, though, it just grated on my nerves, and literally made the reading experience less enjoyable.
As I said, this wasn't exclusive to tense moments. There were also numerous times when it was inserted into depictions of casual conversations (again not an actual quote from the book):
---
Marcia thought carefully about what was going on as—
Mac said, "So, what do you want to do now?"
---
I've never seen anyone write like that, and I pray that I never see it again.
There may have been more small things, but I'll stop here. In the end, all of this stuff combined to make this read far less enjoyable than "MacGyver: Meltdown." In fact, it took me longer to read this book than the first one. With some issue from the list above on almost every page, I literally didn't look forward to reading.
When you find yourself escaping *from* a book instead of escaping *into* a book, there's clearly something wrong.
In short: this book needed an editor. If it had one, then frankly they didn't do a very good job.
Something jumped out at me when I read the teaser chapter for this book that was included at the end of "MacGyver: Meltdown": the tense was inconsistent. "Mac said" in the early part of the chapter turned into "Mac says" midway through. My first thought was that "Meltdown" was rushed going to press, and that this issue would be fixed in the actual "Seismic Shift" release. Sadly it wasn't. Even more sadly, this was only the start of the issues that I found throughout the entire book:
• The tense switching was the most prevalent. Sometimes an entire chapter would be consistent, but most chapters started one way and ended in another. Occasionally there would be a switch in tense that only affected a single paragraph or sentence before returning to the previous method.
• There were a number of cases where a single word was missing from a sentence.
• A city name was spelled two different ways on the same page.
• The name of an organization was treated inconsistently throughout the book. Sometimes it was printed in italics, other times it wasn't. Sometimes it was in quotes, other times it wasn't. An ending exclamation point—established to be part of the organization's formal name early in the story—was sometimes omitted.
• Chapter 8 began with a large fragment of the sentence that began Chapter 7, finally ending mid-word butted up against the first word that should have begun the chapter.
• Capitalization and punctuation usage with relation to character dialog was inconsistent, and sometimes off compared to the writing rules that I'm the most used to seeing (and using myself).
• Sometimes punctuation was just glaringly missing, or there when it shouldn't have been.
• One flub that occurred more than once was the use of "peninsular" instead of "peninsula" ("peninsular" is an adjective, but it was misused as a noun)
• Sentences were sometimes structured awkwardly. I'm not talking about personal preference kinds of things. These were cases where subjects and objects were ordered in such a way as to make the meaning unclear.
• There was a glaring overuse of sentences that began with "And," "So," "Which," etc. (I suppose one might call this "artistic license," but it stuck out like a sore thumb, pulled me out of the read, and never felt like an artistic choice.)
By far the most annoying and frustrating thing was a certain writing style that the author used primarily (but not exclusively) during tense moments in the story. Here's an example of the style (not an actual quote from the book):
---
Mac slid around the corner as—the gunman raised his weapon to target the senator while—people scrambled in all directions to escape the danger as—Mac pulled out his pocket knife, cutting the cord on the flag pole just as—the senator's aides grabbed him and pulled him to the ground as—the gunman fired several quick rounds...
---
Whatever happened to full sentences and clear thoughts? This style of writing turns everything into one big run-on mess. I could see someone thinking that such a style might supposedly heighten the tension. For me, though, it just grated on my nerves, and literally made the reading experience less enjoyable.
As I said, this wasn't exclusive to tense moments. There were also numerous times when it was inserted into depictions of casual conversations (again not an actual quote from the book):
---
Marcia thought carefully about what was going on as—
Mac said, "So, what do you want to do now?"
---
I've never seen anyone write like that, and I pray that I never see it again.
There may have been more small things, but I'll stop here. In the end, all of this stuff combined to make this read far less enjoyable than "MacGyver: Meltdown." In fact, it took me longer to read this book than the first one. With some issue from the list above on almost every page, I literally didn't look forward to reading.
When you find yourself escaping *from* a book instead of escaping *into* a book, there's clearly something wrong.
Displaying 1 of 1 review