Book Review: "Pandora's Succesion" by Russell Brooks

Title: Pandora’s Succession

Author: Russell Brooks

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services

ISBN, PUB Date: 978-0-9867513-0-1, October, 20, 2010

Reviewed by: Jennifer Shaw for Author Exposure

Pandora’s Succession starts off with a bang, as Ridley Fox, a CIA operative, is taken captive in Chechnya. Little does Fox know that his informant is playing both sides, causing his capture in the first place. The informant shows up and reveals her identity, giving Fox information about a super deadly microbe. The microbe, known as Pandora, is capable of killing millions, leaving nothing behind to I.D. the dead.

After reading Brooks’ novel, I am filled with mixed emotions. There are several things that didn’t work for me, as well as a number of things that did work. It basically comes down to the good versus the bad. The plot and characters were fantastic; Ridley Fox was, by far, one of the most enjoyable characters to read about. His emotions and realistic qualities were above par, making him extremely likable.

Brooks’ detailed descriptions fall into the 50/50 category for me. At times, the descriptions seemed to smother the plot or would simply elaborate on something that had nothing to do with the plot. Overall, the descriptions were fantastic when they worked into the development of a character or the plot itself. The forward momentum of the story seemed to suffer at times, causing a loss of interest altogether. There were a number of errors throughout the novel that could have easily been avoided with a little editing. In addition to editing, the formatting of the e-version needs work as the use of various text sizes and bold/italics was erratic and quite annoying.

Overall, Pandora’s Succession is an interesting bio-thriller. Aside from the obvious negative points, the plot and characters are great. However, I honestly cannot recommend this book with a clear conscience; there are more errors than I am comfortable with.

Editor's Note: The author has since fixed the numerous typos and formatting errors mentioned in this review.