Altar of Bones by Philip Carter

Rating: 2 out of 5
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Gallery (March 8, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781439199084
ISBN-13: 978-1439199084
ASIN: 1439199086

Ok I don't like doing negative reviews, so I thought I would have a little fun and do a Chibi review, using anime chibi's to help illustrate my review. Hope this makes the review a little more fun to read.

Altar of Bones is about an alter made out of bones with secret mystical powers. Of course there is a really bad guy who wants these mystical powers and will do anything to get it (with a psychotic blood thirsty girlfriend/side kick).
“I will defeat you mawhahahahaha”

Enter the clueless heroine who protects the alter (once she gets a clue and works out she is in fact the al might protector from a long line of protectors). Then enter stage right is the girl’s protector and love interest who will fight by her side and help her save the day.

“Dude…..BRING IT!”

Sounds good right? Well for awhile it was. I read through half of the book and while the action was pumping I did enjoy it.

Ready? Fight-o!

But then it got bogged down in conspiracy theories. While I don’t mind a little conspiracy theory here and there, this just got to much. There were roughly 20 pages of the stuff. It just went on and on and on, about JFK and Marilyn Monroe being murdered.

Enough! Enough already I get it! Waaaahhhhaaaa!

I could have handled the brief mentions that happened earlier but then the narrative jumped back and told the whole story in full of how the baddy killed Marilyn and JFK. To be honest the book totally lost me and I lost all will to read any further. It’s not like the conspiracy theory was new, it was just rehashed stuff.

“Bahahaha JFK & Marilyn Conspiracy, no one would have thought of that…..best conspiracy theory ev-a!”

If it wasn’t for the conspiracy theory overload, I could probably have overlooked the fact that a big chunk of the book was ridiculous and filled with too many inconstancy's. If the story is going to be flat out ridiculous then it needs to be a non-stop thrill ride with constant action and things going boom. So dont have a chance to stop and think "hey thats not possible". Then I don’t care if it is completely stupid, I just don’t want the action to stop (for an excellent example try Matthew Reilly!).

Crazy unbelievable fight scene – you’redoing it right!

If I get bored and start to think about it, then I get annoyed. There was one scene where the hero spent hours sucking air out of his tire at the bottom of the harbor, while waiting for the baddies to leave. The problem of sea water in his eyes aside (as he was watching them from the bottom of the harbor), Mythbusters

busted this myth yonks ago. I am sorry but even if Mythbusters said it can’t be done then why is it in your book! If

you’re going to write unbeliev

able stuff, at least write s

tuff that hasn’t been or can’t easily be disproven.

Totally Busted!

I think like me, you can all guess where this book was heading and that was to a big good vs evil smack down fight scene; where good ultimately wins.

“You’ve been pawned bitches”

Look this was not a terrible book despite the fact I put it down. The conspiracy thing really killed it for me. As my reading time is pretty precious these days I decided to ditch the book rather then struggle on and hope it got better.