There are many good things about this novel, but for me the most interesting aspect is the contrast in character development. On one side there is Priest - a villain, whose story and personality are revealed gradually, steadily building fascinating, original and multidimensional character. You may not like him, but you see him as a real person. On the other side we have FBI agent Judy, who could be a poster child of social justice warriors: a woman of mixed descent, who is smart and works hard, yet is terribly discriminated by her awful male boss for absolute no reason. Her character is paper-thin and can be summarized with just a simple statement that she's perfect. With such setup there is no other choice but root for the villain and hope that the irritating, walking perfection of agent Judy will fail miserably. I will not spoil the book by revealing whether it ends in a satisfactory way. Read it yourself, it's worth it.

Ich habe das Buch vor kurzem beendet und fand es ganz ok. Es hatte aber einige Stellen, die ich ziemlich befremdlich fand.

Es geht in "Die Kinder von Eden" um Öko-Terrorismus, die von einer Hippie-Kommune (darf man das so sagen?) initiiert wird.

Die Geschichte ist recht spannend und war im Großen und Ganzen ein Page-Turner. Ich musste sogar googeln, ob das im Buch beschrieben Szenario eigentlich wirklich möglich ist. Kann an dem überzeugenden Schreibstil des Autors liegen - oder an mangelndem Fachwissen?

Es gibt aber 2 Gründe, wieso das Buch bei mir nur 3 Sterne hat.

Ken Follett scheint ziemlich spezielle Sexfantasien zu haben, das er auch immer wieder zum Besten gibt. Selbst mir als Mann war das teilweise unangenehm. Ich habe nichts gegen Erotik in Büchern, aber sie muss Sinn ergeben und ins Gesamtbild passen.
Bei "Die Kinder von Eden" hatte ich das Gefühl, dass der Autor manchmal so sex obsessed war, dass er schon fast einen pornografischen Rausch hatte. Wir finden hier viel vulgäre, rohe Sprache, die aber vermutlich das Asoziale der Charaktere hervorheben soll ("Ich f**** seine Frau, ha ha", "Fass mich nicht an, du Fot***), die Mutter, die Zuhälter oral befriedigt, willkürlicher Schnell-Koitus auf der Motorhaube, lesbische Dreier etc.

Frauen kommen bei der ganzen Geschichte nicht gut weg. Sie dienen hauptsächlich zur männlichen Befriedigung - auch mal ohne ausdrücklicher Einwilligung. Es finden sich Klischees ohne Ende. Wieder haben wir eine junge Frau in der Männerwelt, mit der jeder schlafen will und die sich behaupten muss.

Zudem - was eigentlich das Unangenehmste war - lässt Follett viel brutale Gewalt einfließen. Schon die Eingangsszene war sadistisch. Ich kann leider keine bestimmten Stellen zitieren, weil ich mir die nicht aufgeschrieben habe, aber es finden sich einige Passagen, wo man bei Filmen immer gern wegschaut, um kein Kopfkino zu haben.

Trotz der beiden Kritikpunkte hat mich irgendwas dazu bewogen, mir "Die Säulen der Erde" zu kaufen. Ich habe es aber noch nicht gelesen, aber ich denke, dass es genau so brutal und pornografisch (oder beides) zugehen wird. Vielleicht schiebe ich es deswegen nur herum? Ich werde euch berichten, wenn es soweit ist.

Entertaining and fast moving plot. A page turner.

Num dia Anjos, noutro Demónios


Imaginem-se a viver numa fabulosa quinta onde cultivam todos os alimentos necessários à vossa subsistência. E que além disso produzem um vinho magnífico que vendem ao exterior, sendo os lucros obtidos nas vendas utilizados na aquisição doutros bens essenciais.
Em suma... vivem felizes e saudáveis até ao dia fatídico da má notícia:
Alguém pretende construir uma barragem que irá inundar todo o terreno onde se encontra a vossa idílica quinta, o que, em termos simples e práticos, significa que terão que bazar dali para fora pois o vosso amado Éden está prestes a imergir!

É isso ou ir à luta!
Uma luta feroz... capaz até... de gerar vítimas mortais!

Ora, em face deste quadro de acontecimentos, a questão que vos coloco é elementar e expectável:

Que fariam vocês?

Permaneceriam no Clube dos Anjos, partindo triste e placidamente?
Ou optariam por uma escapadela (temporária?!) aos Infernos para batalhar por um Paraíso que doutra forma vos seria extorquido?
....
Complicado, hein?!...

É pois uma situação destas que Os Filhos de Eden se propõe explorar, revelando a flexibilidade da fronteira que demarca os Anjos dos Demónios!
Afinal o Demónio até começou carreira no Paraíso!

muy entretenido

Though farfetched, Ken Follett does a relatively good job of adding sufficient science (or more likely pseudo science) to make the storyline plausible. The plot, though nothing like the intricacy of his epic historical fiction trilogies, is well paced & interesting.

My poor rating derives from how shockingly poorly the female characters are written. The book was not published recently and it shows. The size of every female characters breasts are described and the novel is interspersed with completely unnecessary sex scenes. Star, a female character who is present for all of the novel, does shockingly little to further the plot and we learn nothing about her except that she is sexy & overweight but in a way that the male protagonist finds attractive. I would hope that if this kind of writing was put in front of an editor today, it would not make it to print.

DNF. I’m generally a huge Ken Follett fan but this is a BAD one. I somehow managed to make it to page 185 when he referred to “tits stuck up like pointing guns” and that was a wrap for me. I get it’s supposed to be sexy/salacious but it just makes my skin crawl.

A few wackos living in a commune in northern California figure out how to cause earthquakes and then use that knowledge to threaten California with more earthqueakes if more power plants are built. I enjoy Ken Follet's stories. He does a good job of setting out the characters of his books and then putting them in situations that are exciting.

As I was reading this book I was thinking yes it is enjoyable story but not too believeable. Then I picked up the newspaper and read how the Swiss had stopped their thermal nuclear program because it was causing earthquakes. Maybe it will be a possiblity for terrorists to threaten earthquakes someday.

I found this to be quite awful when borrowed from my grandfather. They were having sex in the middle of the road for some reason. The main character, Priest, has a son by the name of Smiler. That is when I abandoned all remaining hope this would turn out well. The red hardcover does look rather nice so I will keep it as a display piece for the time being.

Ain´t nobody got time for that.
Mi si spezza un po´ il cuore a dover dare una misera, patetica stella a Ken Follett, dopo quelle meraviglie di Pilastri della Terra + Mondo senza fine ed il bellissimo La Cruna Dell´ago; premetto anche che si conclude a pagina 200 circa la mia esperienza con questo orrore, mi avvalgo del diritto di abbandonare un libro che ritengo brutto, ma burtto brutto che più brutto non si può.
In soldoni, la trama: un tizio a capo di una comune hippy (un manipolatore, un po´ pazzo e descritto come geniale che però è - giuro -. ANALFABETA, cioÈ proprio non sa leggere nÈ scrivere, e suda freddo ogni volta che entra in un ufficio pubblico), per non far costruire una centrale elettrica proprio dove lui e i suoi compari vivono, ha un piano geniale: minacciare un terremoto in California, per obbligare le autorità a desistere. Una giappo-americana dell´FBI deve fermarli.
Direi che basta così.

I am a Follett fan, but this one seemed formulaic and just old enough that the technology didn't work well. It wasn't a total waste...I listened while driving, but nothing like some of my favorites. If you want to read Follett at his best, I would suggest: Lie Down With Lions; Pillars of the Earth; World Without End; Eye of the Needle; and Night Over Water.

This is probably the first and I hope the last Ken Follett novel that I found absolutely amateurish. For someone who has mesmerised the world with master pieces like 'Pillars of the Earth' and 'The Century Trilogy', this is an extremely poor novel. Had he not been one of my favourite authors and this year's go-to author, I would have probably abandoned this book midway.
So, what annoyed me the most? The extremely silly action scenes, not just once, but every time there was a confrontation between a junkie against the entire might of the FBI complemented with elements of SWAT and all the other shizz that is required to stop a man from causing an earthquake. The climax was hilarious with the bad guy surviving a couple of shots through his face from a distance of zero metres while the Special Agent who's fighting him survives despite banging her head on the road, tossed all over the place, and a Gun shot.
The plot becomes irrelevant when such unrealistic descriptions just spoil the entire thing.
Highly avoidable book, and it's a shock that Ken Follett published something like this. Maybe he was high on some hippie stuff (which he keeps mentioning in the story) when he wrote this.

2/5.