I liked this book more the further I got into it. At first, I thought it was a former Disney employee trying to dream up a great scare at something unimaginatively similar to Walt Disney World, with the only major addition being a glass dome atop the property, what amounts to a running joke at Disney. About a fourth of the way in, the dialog was so reminiscent of soap operas that it was very difficult to take the story or the characters seriously.Things improved as the plot began to pick up pace...

OK, good not great. Theme park shake down thriller featuring widowed robotics professor with teen daughter. WestWorld meets Ocean's 11 for the taking of the Pelham 123 with a hat tip to Jaws. Escapist fiction like fiery cheese puffs.

Utopia is not a bad book; it's just not a great book. I'm spoiled by mystery writers such as Jeffery Deaver and Anne Perry who build suspense like master architects of breathtaking mazes that delight and confound but still let people out at the end. Yes, okay, Lincoln Child (Is that his real name??) wrote a thriller, not really a mystery: In an idyllic new theme park that draws on the latest technology comes a bad guy who threatens serious harm unless he's given the technological secrets to the

Taught thriller that takes place in a futuristic amusement park. Overall I really enjoyed this one -- especially the descriptions of the park itself that utilized robotics and holograms as part of its 4 worlds. This was a great combination of science fiction and techno-thriller. I've read a couple of books by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child that I have enjoyed. This is the first I've read by Child on his own and would definitely recommend it. I have several more Preston/Child novels on my TBR sh...

Another great one by Lincoln Child, writing solo. This is the second go around for me, previously having read it about 8 plus years ago. It is a very well-researched, strong thriller in an amusement park, miles outside of Las Vegas, set in a deep chasm, so that visitors approach the front of the park on ground level, and it falls away behind the park to several levels of offices, maintenance etc, . The park is under a large dome, sectioned into four themes - Gaslight, a perfectly recreated Victo...

I enjoyed this book, but as I was reading it there was this nagging thought in the back of my mind that the plot seemed familiar. After finishing it, I realized why. This is the perfect plot line for a Die Hard movie. Bruce Willis would play Mr Poole, bringing his kids to Utopia for a day of fun, the ride they are on is sabotaged by greedy terrorists, but he heroically saves all the passengers, while figuring out there are some real bad guys in the park. His ex-wife would be Sarah, the head of o...

The best parts of this book are the descriptions of a futuristic amusement park. Short on suspense and there isn't much character development

This is only my second novel by Child but I am already a fan of his sleek and compelling techno-thrillers. Utopia is the most modern and technologically-advanced theme park of the world. Its rides and attractions use cutting-edge technologies such as highly realistic holograms and robots with artificial intelligence. When the park is held hostage by a team of ruthless criminals, the responsibility of saving the lives of seventy thousand-odd guests falls on the shoulders of the robotics professor...

I listened to this on audiobook. The narrator was solid. This was a decent read. The idea of a high tech theme park being taken hostage and the variety of rides and attractions in the park was cool. The characters were average, nothing too special. The biggest weakness was the excessive length. This book could’ve probably been half the length and you would still get the story that the author wanted to tell. There was far too much filler and it deadened the pace and excitement that Child was tryi...

Amazing descriptions of a very cool amusement park. Utopia would be such a cool place to visit if it were real. The book felt too long, the suspense might have been more exciting if condensed a bit. 3 1/2 stars.

Looking forward to this Lincoln Child suspense novel where a high-tech futuristic amusement park is taken hostage by unknown bad dudes for unspecified reasons, My expectations must have been too high. The book had it's moments but, for me, not many. My opinion would be different Had I cared for even a few of the characters. The fact is I worried more about the robot dog and random park visitors than I did about anyone who'd been given a name in the novel. This doesn't mean I won't seek out anoth...

took me longer than expected;it seems i have more hobbies than i care to admithurray for teresa bonifacio!p106: a postcard labeled borokay beach, philippines was affixed to the inside of the lab door.p419: sitting alone at the rear of the payload compartment, john doe had removed one of the countless stacks of currency and was making origami cranes from the contents.

A roller-coaster thriller ... literally!Dr Andrew Warne is a brilliant computer engineer with some very avant garde theories in the field of artificial intelligence and robotic learning. Warne's hardware designs and his cutting edge software - "The MetaNet", an operating system that allows large numbers of robots loosely tied together in a common network to operate quasi-autonomously and to learn and improve from their day to day activities - have been used to create the wildly successful theme

Lincoln Child knows how to entertain a reader. Yes...his books are not cerebral...they are just plain fun! Utopia is the setting..a "playground" for the public near Las Vegas. It is a fantasy world beneath a giant dome, the size of a small town. The book is rich in description allowing the reader to partake in what the "amusement park" has to offer. Lots of holograms, futuristic robots, replications of mood/weather/towns. The main character returns to Utopia when a problem with the programming o...