Deception Point Blog 2

This book is getting so exciting. I'm not really bugged that I can't guess what's going to happen until Brown introduces it because it's so shocking and exciting then. Sometimes when Brown is beating around the bush right before the good part, I start skimming down the page to get to the action and then go back and reread what I skipped over. I think the plot is so interesting and I like how everything is coming together. I love the thought that the meteorite is a fake and that Rachel can figure it out when an acclaimed astrophysicist can’t. By the way, I picture Corky as Dwight Schrute from The Office and I think it’s hilarious! When the meteor was first introduced as benefiting the president’s reelection, I thought that was too convenient, and now to think it’s a fake planted there for that very purpose is perfect. We still don’t know for sure if it is a fake, but I think it is. How horrible to lie to the whole world about a topic as big as extraterrestrial life! I’d like to believe that the President is innocent of this little ploy, but how would his senior advisor be involved and not himself? It’s hard for me to stop reading at this point because everything is so intriguing and it feels like now every chapter is a piece to the puzzle instead of an introduction or something irrelevant.
P.S. The snow pellet gun is amazing! I want one! But maybe one that’s not lethal.

The second section of Deception Point was better than the first in the sense that it picked up the pace a lot. I was so shocked to learn that the person behind contacting Gabrielle was Marjorie Tench. At first I kept asking, “What could she possibly have to gain by bringing down her own candidate?”, but I quickly decided that it had to deal with some sort of trickery. When Norah, Michael, Rachel and Corkey were attacked it didn’t come as that much of a shock, due to the fact that Ming had already been killed, along with the mysterious other scientist from the beginning. I feel like some of our questions are finally being answered in this section as well. There are too many things though, that are only half answered. Even though not all of the questions are answered, at least some of them are. At least the partial answers help us to start making connections on our own about what is going on and what might happen in the future. I also like how the answers that we are given aren’t given in such a way that it just seems like you’re being told straight out. They’re still surrounded by that aura of mystery that makes you have to fill in the blanks from the context clues. My new questions are, however, which ones of their friends and colleges will die before the “bad guys” are brought to justice? Who else will be killed? Possibly William Pickering? Or will he escape? If he dies, will it be before or after the escaped trio reaches him? Also, how many others will we learn that, although we once had faith in them, we can no longer trust? And will someone who we have already learned to dislike be the very one who is able to help them the most?

Post Swei

While reading this section of the book I was happy that the story line was picking up more. Each chapter left me wanting to read the next one. But once I finished and started reflecting, I realized that I was excited to read the next chapter because it was the only way to figure out what was going on. Brown kept switching back and forth between characters without telling us anything, he was continually restating the problems. It also annoyed me that Rachel and Mike both suddenly thought of past events that helped them when they got stuck; events that the reader wasn’t present for. The politics of the election and the meteorite are intensifying now, which I’m glad for, and overall the book is getting better, though the whole being confused through everything isn’t going away. I’ve been trying to figure out if Tench is bad or not, it seems a bit too obvious for her to really be behind the deception, but I can’t think of anyone else who would do it. Senator Sexton is way too out of the loop, and I suppose it could be the NASA guy; anyway this portion of the book has been keeping me interested.

Blog Entry #2

While I was reading these chapters, I got increasingly annoyed with the chapter endings. It took Brown forever to explain what was in the extraction pit, and it was just some glowing plankton. The last sentences of some of the chapters were so cheesy, too. The chapters barely revealed anything, and it took multiple chapters to get back to the same storyline. Why didn’t he just explain Norah’s plan to validate the ice data in the chapter where she came up with it? Instead, he ended that chapter on yet another cliffhanger and skipped to the story with Gabrielle and Tench, went back to the main plot without revealing anything useful, put in another chapter on Gabrielle and Tench, spent another chapter on Rachel without revealing anything, described Gabrielle’s situation for the third time, before finally explaining the plan. It wasn’t like that plan was crucial to the plot of the story or that it was something the reader could figure out. There was no reason to leave it unexplained except to make that chapter (and the next 6) unnecessarily suspenseful. And what was with Tolland’s sudden memory that just happened to give him an idea of how to escape? That seemed a little too convenient to me. After those chapters, the plot got a little more bearable and I actually enjoyed reading it again. It still left me with questions at the end of this section, but at least now they were about more important things. What is the connection between Tench and Ekstrom? Why did Harper lie about PODS? Who is the fourth person on the Delta team’s hit list? The overall impression of this section was still good, in spite of the annoying chapters at the beginning. At least all of my questions have to be answered in the next section because it’s the end.
Sarah

Blog 2

The book is getting better and better the more I read. I love the way Brown twists everything together, twist it back, and then twists it again. I still think that constantly shifting from character to character has helped this book so much. I think (although it would still be intriguing) it wouldn’t hold my interest nearly as well if it was long drags of information regarding one character and then shifting. I think the constant shifts lets me begin to formulate my opinions about each happening, move on, formulate more opinions and then find out what happens (which sometimes comes from left field and sometimes comes right down the middle). It has really let me begin analyzing instead of having it all just thrust before me in a continuous plot line. The farther I’ve gotten the more it seems like Brown has just thrown every idea he had for the book in and then randomly arranged them all into a plot that would make some sense to the reader, I mean there is really a lot of different things that have been taking place in this book. I can only hope that the ending will hold strong and not disappoint.

"Ice ice baby..."

Well it seems that we have finally reached the deception part of the book. I can somewhat forgive brown for his lengthy beginning to set up so many characters because now he can’t seem to wait to kill them all off. I kind of got the vibe of who he was going to kill even before it happened. I mean he can’t kill corky because he’s the jester. Rachel and Michael are also far too important to die from “snow asphyxiation” or death by flying Micro-bug. Brown also seems to take a page from Shakespeare in how Hubris is the downfall of Norah. As for what’s happening state side, I am glad to say that the political intrigue is still thick as ever. The news that Tench is the secret informant does seem interesting. But this sudden plot development tasted sour to me. Brown continues to annoy me with how he will randomly tie two things together just to enhance the plot. As a writer he can do this but I find it somewhat annoying that I have no way of figuring it out by myself. I understand he needs to hide some of these things from us for twists and other things. However some of the interest is ruined when he can just do whatever he wants and leave me confused for another couple chapters.

Deception Point Blog Entry #2

The book has definitely picked up now. As soon as I got to the part with Ming I couldn’t put it down until I finished it. Brown certainly likes killing people off, and has interesting ways of doing it. Getting pushed out of a plane, falling in a hole of freezing glowing water because you were poked in the eye by a robot mosquito, and suffocating on snow are definitely ways I have never heard of or would’ve thought of. Three people have already died, and Michael, Corky, Rachel, and another new “target” are possibly going to be next. I was very surprised when Gabrielle’s informant turned out to be Marjorie Tench, but we still don’t know who Marjorie got the information from, so that question is only half answered. The only reason Marjorie would’ve sent Gabrielle the information about NASA would be if she already knew that they would find the meteorite. Or did they find the meteorite already by then? Is she part of the conspiracy or is that too obvious? And if the meteorite is fake, how do they explain the chondrules and the fusion crust? The only problem I have with this part of the book is that the chapters all end on cliffhangers, so it seems to take too long to continue on with the separate parts of the plot. I can’t wait to find out how Brown manages to explain all of this.

Lindsay