Synopsis(From Goodreads)
Danny Lipman is a thief . . . until one night he robs the wrong house. He inadvertently breaks into the headquarters of the Shadow Project, a secret government organization where teenage spies are trained to leave their bodies, using astral projection to travel around the world on deadly missions.
Danny is captured, but the Project leaders quickly realize he has a special gift. And when a key operative—the director's daughter, Opal—goes missing, he is offered a choice: join the Shadow Project or go to jail.
Danny joins and is quickly sent to investigate the Project's current target: a worldwide terrorist organization known as the Sword of Wrath. But as he gets deeper in, he discovers both the Project and the Sword of Wrath are far more than they seem. Danny and his fellow operatives are caught up in an ancient supernatural conflict and will have to learn how to survive in a world without boundaries of space or time, where the wrong choice could be their last.
My review:
Imagine an Olympic runner flying down the track. As you examine him closer you realize there is something funny with his shoes. One of his laces is tied in a poor, loose knot. This is kind of what the book makes me think of.
He is an amazing author, who is neglectful of one important things: his characters. Only one of his characters has any depth, and it's not the main character. His attempt at romantic notions falls flat on its face because of the lack of character development. One other minor flaw is the climax. The climax is there, and it works, but it isn't an impressive finale that makes you desperately want to read more of his books.
Now as a bit of redemption to Herbie Brennan, his book did have a fascinating spin on the unknown of the human mind. He takes out of body experience(OOBE) and makes it a far more complex realm than it ever was considered to be in reality. One other thing he did very well was keeping the energy level high. His climax may be lousy, but he kept you interested. He does this by merging various cultures and ideas together. He takes old, worn down concepts like secret organizations, spies and thieves, melds them with modern fears like terrorism and the secretiveness of the CIA, and then mixes in tribal ideas such as witch doctors and non-Christian gods. What he ends up producing is a book in which the only real failing is its lack of depth.
My Rating:
Profanity: Moderate
Sexuality: Very Mild
Drugs and Alcohol: None
Violence: Mild
