The Crystal Skull

The Crystal Skull is awesome!

The title of this book is referring to a sapphire that is carved into a skull. The skull can stop the end of the world from happening. Historical happenings and end of the world were predicted by the Mayans, Nostradamus, and lots of other people in history.

My favorite chapter is chapter 6. I like this chapter because it brings you back in history to one of the main characters, before he was dead. Cedric Owen was a professor who discovered the big cave where the crystal skull was hidden.

I thought what the author did with quotes was cool. At the beginning of each chapter she put in a quote from one of the people who foretold the future, like Nostradamus. I also liked how she switched back and forth between current time and ancient time. At the beginning of each chapter there is a heading that tells you the date the chapter is set in.

This book is really good. There was nothing in it that I didn't like. I think this book is appropriate for age 15 through adult. I really liked this book because it has a blend of history, mystery and mythology and science.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Interesting But Somewhat Unsatisfying

This book follows two story lines. The first is a somewhat frustrating read about an unsympathetic professor who, with the help of her professor husband, finds a crystal skull (know as the blue 'heartstone') originally kept by Cedric Owen, the benefactor of a fictitious Bede College in Cambridge. She becomes the skull's keeper and is plagued by an amorphous 'hunter'. With assistance from her husband and scholarly allies, she deciphers a code hidden within Cedric's journals. The other parallel story is an engaging historical tale of Cedric Owen who inherits the skull in the 16th century and is advised by Nostradamus to sail to the New World to uncover its mystery. Cedric befriends and forms a lifelong bond with a very likable Spanish captain/swordsman along the way. The mystical premise of both stories, (that the skull supernaturally influences its caretaker and will somehow save the world), is credible as told within the historical context but becomes somewhat ridiculous and strained within a contemporary setting. Furthermore, the skull's method of preventing Armageddon is never satisfactorily explained rendering the conclusion anticlimactic and unsatisfactory. If you like mystical mysteries which are left slightly unresolved at book's end then perhaps you'll like this tale. If not, I suggest you skip it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Stay away from this book

Dull, boring, and slow are adjectives that can be used to decribe this book. With the the interest in "end of the world" stories and the December 2012 Mayan calendar end cycle date, there was certainly the potential for an exciting action packed story. Not this book. The story plodded along, the characters were stereotypical and cardboard, and the action sequences were dull and poorly structured. To give one an idea of how poorly this story is constructed, the primary mechanism to move the plot along is "feelings" the crystal skull caused some of the main characters to experience. The book needed significant editing and some chapters needed to be completely re-written. The ending was a major disappointment, especially after having suffered through such a slow moving story. The only reason I made it through the book is that is was the only reading material I had on a very long airplane ride. Lee Child's cover quote that uses the word "scary" can't possibly refer to this book. Perhaps he was referring to the reading experience itself. Ms. Scott attempts to use Nostradamus and the so-called Mayan prophecies around which to build a story, but the book is poorly researched and lacks sufficient interesting historical substance to make the book entertaining. Did I mention the word "boring"? James Rollins, Steve Berry, and Dan Brown all do this type of genre much better. Stay away from "The Crystal Skull" and try one of these other writers for a rewarding read.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Excellent fast paced read

This book is correct in all it's research but doesn't read dry or in text form. This is in novel form and i truly enjoyed it. Very interesting and very hard to put down. An world wide fascinating subject.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

end of the world thriller so Brownian yet so different

Her new husband Cambridge Professor Kit O¿Connor gives his wife expert speleologist Stella Cody the perfect marriage present. The professor provides her with the sixteenth century work of Cedric Owen who in his poetry says he hid an ancient powerful artifact in the Gaping Ghyll, England¿s deepest known pothole. The newlyweds spend their honeymoon digging in dirt inside the Yorkshire cave until Stella finds the incredible sapphire skull. --- They soon realize others want the skull and will do anything including murder to obtain it Kit gets hurt while they escape. Stella learns more about the skull yet understands less as conflicting information surfaces. It appears that it is one of thirteen that need to merge to avoid Armageddon as prophesized by the Mayans which will occur on 12/12/12 or perhaps it needs to be destroyed at the right time in the right place to avoid the 12/12/12 end of the world then again maybe doing something with it leads to 12/12/12/12 Armageddon. --- Based on a crystal skull in the British Museum, Manda Scott provides an action-packed fast-paced tale. The story line mostly focuses on the mdoern day countdown, but also has interesting interudes to the Elziabethian Era travels of Owens to Zama in the Mayan Empire. Readers will appreciate this end of the world thriller so Brownian yet so different as even seemingly loving Kit is under supsicon by the bewildered heroine who is unsure what she should do next as any error could mean Arageddon. --- Harriet Klausner

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Moonstar

Leopardpaw Stonepaw Swiftpaw :)

waste of time

This book lacked substance in about every different aspect. The book had promise at the beginning but faded quickly. My goal of never giving up on a book was tested and I spent the last half just trying to finish it. It was nothing of what I thought it would be like. Maybe that was my mistake and why I didn't enjoy the book.

Protracted and boring fairy tale

Despite a lot of interesting elements and some historical research, this unthrilling "thriller" takes uninteresting characters on what should be interesting adventures in two different time periods. This book lost me when a blue rock starts "screaming" in the minds of the protagonists. Please.

Thrilling Book

An Enjoyable read.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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