Review: Cataclysm of the Ancients

Cataclysm of the Ancients by Simon Rosser
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



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Cataclysm of the Ancients
By: Simon Rosser
Narrated by: Paul Richards
Series: Robert Spire, Book 4
Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
Release date: 01-28-20
Publisher: Schmall World Publishing

I’ve been putting off writing this review for reasons to be revealed in more detail later, but let’s just say I hate to write a bad review.   Normally I don’t write bad reviews because if a book is bad I stop reading or listening.  This time around the book is a lot of fun and great action but the narrator was just horrible.  I’m an audiobook narrator and know that it’s tough to put the work in only to have a bad review…but this time, I hope (if he reads this) that he can take it as a chance to improve.

So let me get the bad stuff out of the way first.

The narrator, Paul Richards, read the book in a super slow manner, I actually fell asleep and had to restart the book 3 times.  I made sure I was doing something while listening so I could pay attention on the 4th try.  But that didn’t help.  I then tried a trick.  Long ago I found a setting on my iPod where I could adjust the speed of the audiobook.  I often wondered who in the heck would ever do such a thing.  Apparently me.   I set the playback speed to 2x the normal speed.  This then made the book a normal pace and a whole lot more bearable.  Even the action sequences were boring at normal speed.  (I guess he got paid per hour.)

The pacing wasn’t even the worst.  What nearly made me stop all together was his accents.  If you can’t do accents don’t.  Simple.  Didn’t stop this guy.  The main character of the story Robert Spire is Welsh.  But for some reason the narrator gave him a Transylvanian accent.  Actually it was a horrible impersonation of Bobby “Boris” Pickett (Monster Mash), which was a bad impersonation of Bela Lugosi.  Speeding up the the playback helped to cover this up as well.  I was really surprised that he didn’t do female voices the way Monty Python’s Flying Circus did their female voices.  But they were bearable.

Okay so now feeling bad that I have trashed the narrator, I have to talk about something good.    That would be the story itself.

The story is a puzzle solving history excursion and tracking down terrorists action story.  It has a great story and being the 4th book in the Robert Spire series by Si Rosser the story delivers the fun and drama.

It’s as though Dan Brown, Clive Cussler, got together to create the ultimate action story.  Maybe throw in a little MacGyver as well.

Terrorists have exposed a secret chamber in the Sphinx in order to track down a weapon of possible Ancient Alien origin.  Robert Spire and his co-horts have to track down and stop them from destroying the world.  The terrorists want to bring the world back to ancient times when gods were Gods.

After destroying the Golden Gate Bridge with this ancient alien weapon, the chase is on.  The weapon was originally used to destroy the Colossus of Rhodes one of the ancient wonders of the world, is now being used to destroy modern wonders.

A global chase that leads from the Middle East to America to the CERN super collider, will leave you breathless.  Read the written book if you can, it is great, try to avoid this audiobook.

Publisher’s Summary
Robert Spire is thrust into an archeological adventure and a search for a ancient relic – an object of immense technological power – missing since historical times. It must be found at all costs, and time is running out…

226 BC: Fall of the Colossus of Rhodes…

The mighty statue of the Greek Titan, Helios, stood proudly in the port of the ancient city of Rhodes, Greece. Built to celebrate Rhodes’ victory over the ruler of Cyprus in 305 B.C., it is one of the tallest statues of the ancient world, until it is destroyed after only 56 years. Legend suggests the Colossus was destroyed by an earthquake…But legends can be wrong.

Present Day: A Stolen C.I.A Document…

Langley Virginia: When CIA agent, Dr Vincent Kramer, is found brutally murdered in the facility’s parking lot, it becomes apparent that his death is linked to a missing document that was stored in the agency’s secret vault – A document detailing clandestine remote viewing experiments on the Great Sphinx in Egypt.

An Explosion Rips Into The Sphinx…

Soon after the theft, an explosion rips into Egypt’s legendary Sphinx, revealing a secret chamber within the ancient monolith. Upon discovering that the events are linked, the UK’s GLENCOM agency, keen to assist the Egyptian Government with the suspected terrorist attack upon one of the world’s greatest historical monuments, sends their agent, ex-environmental lawyer, Robert Spire, together with archeologist and Egyptian-Greek mythology expert, Professor Casey Carr, to Cairo to investigate…

Spire and Casey soon make a remarkable discovery, one which leads the pair on an perilous archeological hunt across ancient Egypt and the war-torn lands of Syria for the remains of the Colossus – one of the legendary Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

A sinister and powerful group of terrorists are also searching for the ancient artifact however, and will stop at nothing to get it, no matter what the cost…

©2015 Simon Rosser (P)2020 Simon Rosser