Utopia Paperback – December 2, 2003

No like s or dislikes at this time.

The subtitle says it's a thriller, and that is a understatement! Lincoln Child, in his first solo book, has written what I call a dessert book. You can literally read all 385 pages after dinner in one sitting. (I took two!) The pace of this novel is fast and furious with each chapter starting with the time of the day. After the prologue, the entire sequence of events runs from 7:30 A.M. to 4:32 P.M. The excitement of each chapter automatically draws you into the next chapter, until you realize it's two o'clock in the morning, and you are still reading!The story centers around a futuristic theme park with a glass dome, located outside Las Vegas, Nevada. This park is divided into four sections: Gaslight, Callisto, Camelot, and Boardwalk, all featuring the latest in robotics and holographic imaging. The system that coordinates the activities of all the robots is called Metanet, designed by Dr. Andrew Warne, commissioned by the parks magician and visionary, the late Eric Nightingale.After a roller coaster accident caused by robotic failure, Dr.Warne is called in by the park's general manager, Sarah Boatwright, an ex-girlfriend of his. Dr. Warne arrives at the park with his 14 year old daughter, Georgia, thinking the park wants him to expand his Metanet into the next themed section called Atlantis. But he is surprised to find out from Sarah and Fred Barksdale, head of systems, that they want him to disable his Metanet system. It seems there have been other failures, and the Board of Directors want it out. Already reeling from the recent failure of his company, Andrew along with Teresa Bonifacio, systems controller of Utopia, start investigating the mishaps.Enter the mysterious John Doe, a brilliant criminal mind. He barges into Sarah's office and announces that he is responsible for all the accidents! Unless he gets a copy of the Hologram disk, all hell will break loose in the park. Apparently this state of the art holographic disk is worth millions. But, is this all he wants? He disappears into the crowd, vowing that he will demonstrate his control with more accidents. In the ensuing hours, failed hand-offs of the disk cause more robotic mishaps and many deaths. John Doe and his cohorts are well hidden and deft at causing chaos and mayhem!Now it is a race of time for Dr. Warne, Teresa, Wingnut the cyber dog, and a park guest, Angus Poole, to find the criminals before they blowup the park. They stumble upon John Doe's alternate reason for being there and find out who the park's inside helper is. This will surprise you! The ending is well conceived and ends with a Fourth of July blast! For Lincoln Child fans, this is a must read.

I'm not familiar with Lincoln Child's work so I wasn't sure what to expect. What caught my attention was the fact that the story would be centered around a futuristic theme-park. And the thought of rides and robots malfunctioning and creating mayhem at a sunny amusement park was a no brainer.I needed to buy this book. It sounded like a great read. At first I was really into the set up and was excited by where it was heading.Not only did it kick in with an interesting murder (an employee of the park) in a van outside on the parking grounds, but it introduced a sinister man lurking around the attractions. Kool. The warnings of a good thriller.And then, shortly after, I was blown away by a sudden attack of one of the popular robots (Hard Place) at an ice cream stand. It actually tries to kill its creator while he's ordering a sundae for his daughter. Fun! Fun! Fun! Not only is this turning out to be a mystery/thriller, but, it's now turning into a wicked Sc-Fi fantasy! Hell yeah!And then, that was it...!? Expect for a silly, E.T. like tin can dog that rolls around and bothers the main characters (think Jar Jar from Star Wars, or, that cheesy owl from the original Clash of the Titans, or Twiggy from bUCK rOGERS), there was really no more robotic inventions introduced.Why toy with, and promise to the reader, such a wonderful idea and then drop the ball completely just to focus on a dull 'carnival held hostage' by an eeevil man who wants...well, I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say, it has to do with money and power. Not only do we get characters that I found to be, as flat as a soda left out on a table at a carnival all day, but Lincoln goes way overboard with trying to explain all the nuts and bolts of every ride, landmark, employee entrances, security and police headquarters, nurses suite, gambling casinos, (in a family theme park? Right!),etc. etc...of his overblown Castle-in-the-Sky attraction that my eyeballs literally rolled up into my head. Even way after the half way point, Lincoln still continues, like a dog, or, robot-dog, with a bone to milk every detail of attraction there is.Also, many of the rides and events all have interesting names (wordy, mouthful stuff) and Lincoln just loooves to keep reminding us what they are called. After awhile, hearing the same rides, The Galactic, such and such, gets tedious. Come on. We know it's an interesting ride with an unusal name. Get to the point. Break it down. He also does the same thing time to time with the character's names. For example, we are introduced to a nerdy lab tech named Teresa, such and such. Later, when he opens new chapters, we are reminded of Teresa's last name, again and again. As if we forgot.Plus, out of nowhere, (well, we do catch a glimpse of him earlier on when he plays 'eyeball' with our sinister eeevil villian) we meet a trained body guard half way through the book who is suddenly thrown into the chaos and treated immediately like a front burner character. Excuse me? Honey, who are you again?And, at times, I just wanted to smack the prissy woman who runs the park for being so stubborn. Why would this dowdy character continue to keep the park open after the rides start to go wrong and injury many people? Oh, there's many excuses, one being that the eeevil villain will destroy the park, blah! Blah! But it just doesn't make sense. Instead of closing down Epcot, oh, I mean, Utopia, they pass out tokens and free passes to the people that got hurt on the rides. What..? Okaaay. Give me some free stuff, I'll worry about my broken arm later. I'm going back to the foggy streets of Gaslight to ride more rides. This all would of been more easier to swallow if Lincoln would of added a few more demented robots into the mix. You know, really jack-up the Sci-fi tone instead of it playing out like a strait crime thriller at the end. I mean, come on........It's a futuristic park, with many different worlds, that would make The Jetsons proud and the dinasours jealous. I will have to say, I still think about the chapter where the ice cream robot goes berserk and yanks our hero over the counter. I just can't seem to shake off that part of the book. It's very creepy and off-beat, and I'll never forget it. So, just for that moment alone, I'm happy that I book this book from Amazon. Kevin Brian

Just finished reading Utopia written by Lincoln Child, 1/2 of the co-writing team (the other one being Douglas Preston) that brought us the excellent horror novel Relic (one of my favorite chillers).I like a good chilling and thrilling page turner, and these guys know how to write em.Utopia is the name of a mega theme-park built in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The place is so high-tech that a cabal of super stealthy thieves plot to steal the computer codes that run its infrastructure (as well as rob its vault).Child (and Preston) know how to vividly create a whole world and populate it with interesting characters and Utopia is no exception. The action starts right from page one and you won't be able to put it down. I actually put the book in my pocket and took it with me so that I could read a page or two while waiting on line in stores!Next I plan to start Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, the book that preceded The Da Vinci Code. After that, The Codex written by Preston.

I had not read anything by this author before but was intrigued by the premise of this book. A huge next-generation theme park with the latest robotics, special effects etc. has opened in the desert just outside Las Vegas. The book's protagonist is Andrew Warne, a robotics expert who helped in the original designs for the park who has returned for a meeting with the park's director following a series of apparent accidents and malfunctions at the park which seem to have been caused by the robots. Warne starts to investigate but it soon becomes apparent that more sinister forces are at play. A cat-and-mouse chase across the park ensues, with the stakes being upped by the hour and the lives of innocent visitors being put at risk. Warne and his colleagues have to work fast to try and work out who is behind this and how they can be stopped.This is a great thriller along the lines of Michael Crichton's novels (although not quite in the same league). The setting of Utopia is brought to life really well and I liked the whole concept of immersion and how the park is made as believable as possible - to the point that when things go wrong the visitors often think it's part of the show! The subplot concerning Warne's past relationship with the park director felt a little wooden but overall I really enjoyed the book.

Taught thriller that takes place in a futuristic amusement park. Overall I really enjoyed this one, especially the descriptions of the park itself that utilized robotics and holograms as part of its 4 worlds. This was a great combination of science fiction and techno-thriller. A highly recommended read.

I have read most of Preston & Childs joint work, and have become a firm fan, so it naturally follows that when one or the other releases a solo piece I am curious to see if it is up to "scratch" and as good as their combined efforts. I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed, I found "Utopia" as entertaining and well written as any of their previous titles and would thoroughly recommend to all. I found the characters, plot and prose as pleasing this time around as any other.

A little boring - you can tell this was his first novel as it lacks the depth of his later novels but fine if you can pick up a second hand copy cheaply.

Plot was good, but unfortunately the dialogue is showing its age.