Alternative 3
category: thriller, author:Ken Mitchell
original copyright 2003
read in December 2011
Agamedes' opinion: 8 out of 10
Oh dear, I though, another Nazi-who-survived-the-war thriller. Not that I can remember reading any others... but it does seem that the top Nazis were really tough to kill. Like zombies, really: they seem to be... ended, yet as soon as you turn your back -- they're back.
Anyway, Alternative 3 is not another Nazi-who-survived-the-war thriller.
After a somewhat boring introduction -- the backstory -- we meet the hero of this book. And then the fun begins!
A nerd hero, with extreme hacker skills. Watched by his parole officer. Watching as several friends and acquaintances are destroyed by the group behind a major conspiracy... By that I mean, destroyed by the people who want their existence to be hidden behind a wild conspiracy "theory"...
The hero is not a true nerd. Sure, he can hack into any system... Just give him a safety pin to short-circuit a public phone line and within minutes he'll have cracked into the NORAD site and be using NORAD radar to track the real Santa... Yet despite these skills, he gets the girl. He could have had the other girl. And he can pedal mutant bikes across deserts and security fences.
This is the hero that we all want to be... smart, sneaky and successful with women. (Feel free to replace "women" with "men", as appropriate.)
Once Alternative hits its stride, it is non-stop fun. About as believable as any over-the-top conspiracy theory. (In an end-of-book author's note, Mitchell writes that he used conspiracies straight from the internet. It's not just "the truth" that's out there...) Although, interestingly enough...
By the end of the book, we still don't know -- for sure -- how much of the conspiracy theory is "true". Sure, there's a cover-up. Sure, there's advanced technology. But is the entire "theory" correct? We never find out...
As with any conspiracy-based thriller, the story is in the battle for survival. So as not to strain the reader's willing suspension of disbelief, thrillers end with a valid reason why the unmasked conspiracy is still not widely known... The usual method is, to destroy all evidence.
Was it Michael Crichton who spent an entire book discovering a tribe of intelligent apes -- only to have every single one of them destroyed in the final chapter? With every trace of their homes also -- conveniently -- destroyed? That's the typical, weak, wrap-up of the major conspiracy uncovered / major discovery made style of book. And it's weak as water.
It's like a standard old style sit-com. It doesn't matter what happens during the episode. As long as the visible situation at the end is exactly the same as the situation at the start.
With Alternative 3, Mitchell avoids that weak ending.
Not that I'm entirely happy with the ending!
The book ends well. Loose ends wrapped up, plot twists satisfactorily explained. It's just that I would have liked the hero to make a more positive statement!
The first few chapters -- backstory to the conspiracy -- are hardly necessary. Then the hero successfully survives all that the baddies can throw at him. But really, his efforts have not changed the conspiracy status quo. At the end of this book -- we have returned to the start of the episode.
For my own satisfaction I like to think that... soon after the final chapter of this book... the hacker hero will get further into Alternative 3. Perhaps he will take it over. And steer it from the path of evil, to the path of niceness and good...
Apart from that... apart from my desire for the hero to do more that survive... it's a good book. (Perhaps I want the hero to do more that just survive, simply because I like him?!) Really quite a good book.
Just a tiny bit unbelievable (btw, that's intended as humourous irony). A few weaknesses... A previous reader of my copy of the book has circled the sentence where petrol is used to refuel a diesel vehicle... A question as to how many people are knowingly involved in the secondary conspiracy... and how was it all funded.
All that is nit-picking.
Read it, enjoy it.
And wonder what all those indestructible Nazis will get up to next...
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2 comments:
Finally I found a review of this book. I read it this year and thoroughly enjoyed it but when I Google'd the title I couldn't find anything about it. This book should definitely be more popular!
Glad to hear that you enjoyed "Alternative 3" ! Thanks for the comment :-)
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