Jeremy’s Little Corner Of The Web…

I finished a book the other day called "The Rule of Four", by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason. It was described in the Angus & Robertson store I bought it from as "the next da Vinci Code". I saw that and grabbed it immediately. It turns out I was wrong about the book, though…

The book centers around 4 boys studying at Princeton University in the U.S. To cut it short, two of the boys are heavily involved in unlocking the secrets of a book called the 'Hypnerotomachia Poliphili', written in 1499. In the course of the book, some people get shot, accusations are thrown around and to top it all off, as a result of concentrating on this book, the protagonist, Tom Sullivan, has basically ignored his girlfriend for the past month or so. He has to juggle the research on the book and his life with her, which obviously causes problems.

I found the book to be a bit long-winded, and kept on jumping back and forth in time with flashbacks and the like. I don't know what the desired effect was, but it left me being confused as to where I was in the timeline. The real meat of the book only occurs towards the end, when things start to heat up, but it feels like too little, too late (to call on the cliche). The ending of the book is a bit of a let-down, too. Maybe I'm just missing the key points of the book, I'm not sure. I guess I'll come back and read it in a couple of months, and see if I can make anything more of it.

But for now, I can't really recommend this book.