The Athena Project: A Thriller

A thriller — beautiful girls with guns. What could be more fun! For that reason alone, I’m starting my rating at two stars instead of one. We have a best-in-class super-weapon, expert detail on ordnance (“Glock Slimline 36 with single-stack magazine” as opposed to “a gun”), and the settings —Venetian palazzo, castle, an abandoned Nazi cave-base — are worthy of Fleming. All told, a fine vehicle — up it to three stars.

Now we want Mr Thor to fill this vehicle with characters and have them do something. That’s where problems start. Picasso said learn the rules to break the rules, but Mr Thor disregards Storytelling 101 in ways opposite of provocative.

The genius of an ensemble shines from its complementarity: eclectic characters with distinct abilities and world views together advance the plot by their combination. (Think of Star Trek or Mission Impossible.) Our four heroines, however — special ops commandos — are all the same: beautiful, sports-minded, and bland. They have different heights and hair color, but so what. We’re told early that one is mixed-race, but that factlet never surfaces again and is totally irrelevant to the plot. They could have come off the same volleyball team. Their external and internal dialogues are so vapid you wish they would just shut up and do TM. (I am SO sick of hearing “professional” as an accolade. It’s like being at a convention of mortgage brokers. REAL professionals, the kind who sacrifice their 20s getting letters after their name that mean something, like M.D., don’t go around calling each other “professional”.)

The villains are cookie-cutter, too: powerful, rich, ruthless; dwelling secretively in a fortress behind massive security; Eastern, from the arc that includes the old Austrian and Ottoman empires; disciplined, but with a weakness for beautiful women. One mad scientist from Australia is an exception among the baddies, but we barely see him. A shame.

Then there’s the action problem. Our girls get into firefight after firefight. They always win. None is ever wounded or taken prisoner. Every infiltration is successful, as is every exit. So is every ruse, every seduction. They always get their man. Isn’t a thriller supposed to have some thrills? Even when one kills a guy hand to hand, it’s perfunctory, as though the author is embarassed to say it; beginning, middle, and end of fight sequence: “She delivered a series of punches, culminating with a jab that dropped the man right where he stood.”

So I can’t go above three stars. Mr Thor has it in him to write female action characters — the up-close-and-personal fight in the prologue between a WWII heroine and a plane full of Nazis is terrific, and a near-rape-turned-consensual with a minor character starts to sizzle — but he’s kept this talent to himself for the Athena Project.

If this becomes a series I won't read it. Who was the 'ghost' writer? (I hope there was one) I would have stopped reading it but I never stop in a book. This one almost made me quit. And I am a big Brad Thor fan.

Brad Thor has taken a break from his popular character, Scot Harvath, in The Athena Project. Although Scot is mentioned in the book, and plays a backstage role, a team of four gorgeous women who take their orders from the Pentagon are the main focus, and because of their looks, are able to accomplish feats that men could not (They are actually highly trained agents with almost supernatural skills). The women are able to kidnap a powerful and rich arms dealer while posing as party guests at his home, as well as gain entrance to highly secured apartments and other venues. The Russian Mafia has hired people to further the research on a project started in the 40's, involving quantum teleportation. Horribly mutilated bodies are found partially embedded in walls in a South American jungle, and the team of women is trying to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, an undercover FBI agent is working with another extremely attractive Russian spy to wreak havoc under the Denver airport.

Brad Thor is a great storyteller, and his writing style is one that is appealing and understandable to most readers. His novels featuring Scot Harvath are fascinating and hard to put down. However, The Athena Project doesn't generate the excitement and believable scenarios that are in Thor's other books; the team of gorgeous women seems more like the author's secret fantasy and not a group that can carry out dangerous, clandestine operations for the government. While the scientific premise of the story is mildly interesting, the combination of the different scenarios leading to the dénouement falls flat. There are too many aspects that are totally farfetched, even for fiction, and it's easy to lose interest.

While the women seem to be in danger during most of the novel, it's apparent that they are somehow superhuman, always coming out unscathed while the enemies suffer. There are some surprises along the way, and the ending is unexpected. The Athena Project is definitely not one of Thor's best novels (no one can be at the top of his game 100% of the time), and most readers will probably want to stick with Brad Thor's novels where Scot Harvath is the main character.

This book was purchased with personal funds and no promotion of the book was solicited by the author or publisher.

I found this book in a bargain bin and didn't question why. I should have. I am a huge fan of Brad Thor and bought this book for that reason. It never occurred to me that he could write such a shallow book. Super, sexy "spooks" who can accomplish anything against anyone, anything and against all odds? Totally unbelievable. I can't say much for the dialogue either. And then there is the artwork in the Denver airport among other things. More unbelievable writing. He did lend a neat twist at the end. I won't stop reading Brad Thor but I can't give this book more than one star or recommend it to anyone else.

To my dismay, it was only after reading this novel that I see so many reviews saying exactly what I thought. The Athena Project reads like a sophomoric remake of the very sophomoric film versions of Charlie's Angles, to wit, fluffy fluff filled with fluff. The basic idea is straight out of The Philadelphia Experiment. The femme fatales are straight out of every dime magazine for boys. Last week on TV, I even saw a rerun of a crime show in which the heroes desperately throw themselves and the bad guy they've captured out of a three story window into a marina dramatically splashing into the water beneath a hail of gunfire exactly like in The Athena Project. It was paint by the numbers all the way except to say Thor's prose is more than serviceable. At time it's even evocative. This book should have been better.

Three stars.

I have read through previously written reviews of this work hoping to find readers who are Thor fans but who didn't like this book. I found one fan of his who questioned whether Thor was even the author. If I judge his writing by this, the first of his I've ever read, I will never read another. I found the writing to be poor....one declarative sentence after another. Too much description...as if the readers are so unintelligent that they cannot make any inferences of their own. The women were stereotypical, the men, chauvinist. I seldom leave a book unfinished; however, after I found myself skipping page after page of Same, Same, Same, I put this one in my Goodwill donation box.

Very disappointed in Brad Thor with this novel. First off ... Scott Harvath isn't even mentioned in it. Secondly, I don't want to read a fictitious fair tale about a female black ops team. This would be like Lee Child releasing a book in the Reacher Series where Jack Reacher is now Sally Sundance. I've seen these tactics with Clive Cusler as well. Not content with keeping with a successful character ( as well as introducing "ghost writers" ). I know at some point authors need to change course, but at least give us warning BEFORE we waste our money. I will definitely be more careful about ordering books from these authors in the future.

This was the third book that I read by Brad Thor, right after Blowback and Foreign Intelligence. I found the characters too superficial; their personalities and quirkiness was superficial and a little annoying. I think perhaps Mr. Thor rushed this book into print without spending enough time on it. Also, I find it a little shallow when authors have to have all their characters be beauty queens. How about some realism? I finished the books, but I wasn't as "thrilled" by it as I was with his earlier books.

There isn't much thrill in this thriller for me. Maybe I've been spoiled by Baldacci, DeMille, and Child. Not impressed.....

I'm not very deep into the book but as a woman I'm somewhat offended. The "Angels" may well be bright, athletic and capable but the dialog is not written to communicate that...they sound insipid...and not just when they're working and using "dumb broad" as their hook. (and you men might want to be offended too)