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The Island Project: A Thriller
The Big Island of Hawaii is a place of exotic beauty, serene landscapes and timeless culture. It is also a place filled with secrets—both ancient and modern. Photographer, Tom Bennett, while scouting the island of Hawaii for an upcoming big-budget film, stumbles across a bizarre, panther-like creature in the forest. As Bennett and his adventurous wildlife biologist friend, Kelly Adler, dig deeper into the origins of the creature, they find themselves uncovering a clandestine military experiment fronted by a brilliant inventor and a psychopathic engineer spiraling out of control. The photographer and his lovely colleague are thrust into the middle of a daring investigation which finds them swimming through the Pacific, evading deadly automatons in an elaborate government facility and navigating through the dense, tropical jungle of Hawaii in order to escape the secret they uncovered.
- GenresThriller
Audible Audio
First published June 17, 2013
10 people are currently reading
48 people want to read
About the author
Taylor Buck
7 books43 followersA self-proclaimed creative explorer, Taylor began writing when he was twelve, authoring and illustrating his own Choose Your Own Adventure books (carefully crafted with staples and notebook paper). Over the years, he focused his creativity more on illustrating than writing, studying Graphic Design at Oregon State University and spending summers frequenting Europe to study art and architecture. He eventually focused his creative efforts into advertising, leading creative direction for a Fortune 500 internet retailer and gaining hands-on knowledge of corporate marketing and visual communication.
The topics of his writings range from classicism, art and religion to futurism and technological singularity. His first novel, The Island Project, explores robotics and transhumanism in a secret government base on Hawaii’s Big Island. In 2015, he released The Medici Letters—an international thriller combining a modern day treasure hunt with historic accounts of Renaissance Florence. The sequel, The Prince's Order, was released in 2020.
An Oregon native, Taylor currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two boys.
The topics of his writings range from classicism, art and religion to futurism and technological singularity. His first novel, The Island Project, explores robotics and transhumanism in a secret government base on Hawaii’s Big Island. In 2015, he released The Medici Letters—an international thriller combining a modern day treasure hunt with historic accounts of Renaissance Florence. The sequel, The Prince's Order, was released in 2020.
An Oregon native, Taylor currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two boys.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 23, 2013
I came across this book soon after i joined goodreads. I'm VERY happy i found it!
Anyone interested in Michael Crichton technothrillers will love this book. It's written with great pace and never slows down. It had my interest from the first page to the very last.
Would recommend to anyone that likes the thriller/adventure/tech genre.
Anyone interested in Michael Crichton technothrillers will love this book. It's written with great pace and never slows down. It had my interest from the first page to the very last.
Would recommend to anyone that likes the thriller/adventure/tech genre.
December 4, 2024
An unexpected and fun technothriller
The Island Project starts as a hunt for a wild animal in Hawaii, but turns into something else entirely, in the best possible way! I love books which break with my expectations for them. The writing, plot, dialog, characters, everything is first rate. This book is a warning about unrestrained use of certain technologies in the spirit of Michael Crichton, one of the highest honors I can give a book. 5/5 stars. Highly recommended for everyone, but especially for those who like to be surprised!!
The Island Project starts as a hunt for a wild animal in Hawaii, but turns into something else entirely, in the best possible way! I love books which break with my expectations for them. The writing, plot, dialog, characters, everything is first rate. This book is a warning about unrestrained use of certain technologies in the spirit of Michael Crichton, one of the highest honors I can give a book. 5/5 stars. Highly recommended for everyone, but especially for those who like to be surprised!!
May 26, 2017
A.I. - Beware!
A quick jaunt into What If - or perhaps What Is. Reminiscent of Michael Crichton stories, this thriller takes place in beautiful Hawaii. Very fast moving action.
A quick jaunt into What If - or perhaps What Is. Reminiscent of Michael Crichton stories, this thriller takes place in beautiful Hawaii. Very fast moving action.
February 3, 2014
What started out as a good book quickly turned into a chore for me.
The idea behind The Island Project is that there's a secret facility on a Hawaiian island that is developing some scary technology. Tom Bennett and Kelly Adler stumble across said facility and go to work trying to expose it for what it is.
Great idea; bad execution. First, let's about the writing. This book was an excellent example of telling, rather than showing. There were several instances where the author spells out something, rather than showing it, that are really rather insulting to the reader's intelligence - one example being giving us a piece of dialogue from Kelly that quite clearly explains her thoughts and then following that dialogue with "Kelly thought blah blah blah." It was easy to tell from the dialogue what she thought - adding in her actual thoughts was just insulting.
Pacing - the book itself seems to take place over roughly a 24 hour period. This would indicate lots of fast paced action, yet the book seemed to drag on and on. By the time I'd reached about the 46% mark, I was just wanting to get done.
Characters - Tom Bennett and Kelly Adler are the two main characters and I was not all that impressed by them. I was not really interested in what happened to them, and often thought they were rather stupid. The other characters were equally boring and undeveloped, and even the evil characters were just blah, rather than scary.
The writing itself, overall, felt rather clunky. There were flashbacks and memories thrown in, in very awkward places where it just made no sense to me that someone would sit around remembering at that moment. There were a couple of chunks of information that were put in, apparently because we needed the information to understand the story, but it was just kind of dumped into the middle of the narrative, and it was more like a stumbling stone in the middle of a hiking path rather than a sign on the side of the path to tell me what animals I'll see here.
The idea behind the story really intrigued me, but the author could have done a much better job with this. I may consider reading another book by this author, but it would have to be something that I borrowed from the library or got for free. I would be very reluctant to spend money on another book by this author.
The idea behind The Island Project is that there's a secret facility on a Hawaiian island that is developing some scary technology. Tom Bennett and Kelly Adler stumble across said facility and go to work trying to expose it for what it is.
Great idea; bad execution. First, let's about the writing. This book was an excellent example of telling, rather than showing. There were several instances where the author spells out something, rather than showing it, that are really rather insulting to the reader's intelligence - one example being giving us a piece of dialogue from Kelly that quite clearly explains her thoughts and then following that dialogue with "Kelly thought blah blah blah." It was easy to tell from the dialogue what she thought - adding in her actual thoughts was just insulting.
Pacing - the book itself seems to take place over roughly a 24 hour period. This would indicate lots of fast paced action, yet the book seemed to drag on and on. By the time I'd reached about the 46% mark, I was just wanting to get done.
Characters - Tom Bennett and Kelly Adler are the two main characters and I was not all that impressed by them. I was not really interested in what happened to them, and often thought they were rather stupid. The other characters were equally boring and undeveloped, and even the evil characters were just blah, rather than scary.
The writing itself, overall, felt rather clunky. There were flashbacks and memories thrown in, in very awkward places where it just made no sense to me that someone would sit around remembering at that moment. There were a couple of chunks of information that were put in, apparently because we needed the information to understand the story, but it was just kind of dumped into the middle of the narrative, and it was more like a stumbling stone in the middle of a hiking path rather than a sign on the side of the path to tell me what animals I'll see here.
The idea behind the story really intrigued me, but the author could have done a much better job with this. I may consider reading another book by this author, but it would have to be something that I borrowed from the library or got for free. I would be very reluctant to spend money on another book by this author.
December 13, 2016
Island Project
The story line kept building from the beginning to the end. I didn't want to put the book down until I finished it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a nonstop page turning thriller.
The story line kept building from the beginning to the end. I didn't want to put the book down until I finished it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a nonstop page turning thriller.
July 29, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed The Island Project by Taylor Buck. It is a techy thriller on par with Rollins or Crichton. The author has a great way of painting a picturesque setting in each new chapter. The pace is driving and the story never slows down. It's an adventure the whole way through.
Would recommend to anyone looking for a fun weekend read.
Would recommend to anyone looking for a fun weekend read.
July 29, 2015
Robotic panther assassins chasing people through the jungle... what more could you ask for? This is a book I stumbled upon by chance and ended up really liking it. The Hawaii setting is so well described that you feel like you're actually there. Lots of fun techno-geekery and a charging, suspenseful plot line. Quick, fun read.
February 24, 2015
interesting and creepy
It took awhile to get into this book. It was very interesting and it creeped me out to think that with advances to artificial intelligence this could actually happen. I was on the edge of my seat through many parts of the book. I was disappointed with the way the story ended somewhat abruptly. All in all a good book and would recommend it.
It took awhile to get into this book. It was very interesting and it creeped me out to think that with advances to artificial intelligence this could actually happen. I was on the edge of my seat through many parts of the book. I was disappointed with the way the story ended somewhat abruptly. All in all a good book and would recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews