Post by Stash on Jan 19, 2005 18:18:16 GMT
TITLE: The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar (Solving the Oak Island Mystery)
AUTHOR: Steven Sora
PUBLISHER: Destiny Books, VT
ISBN: 0-89281-710-0
PAGES: 251 (293 w/ index+references)
COST(CDN$): $17.47
Hi!! Since this book has more of a plot/flow to it, I will try and not blow too much of the story in this review, but rather detail the pros and cons of the material, writing and accuracy instead of the story itself.
To start, since it was not long, I will provide the table of contents which will give you a good start to understanding what the book is about:
CONTENTS
1. The Mystery of Oak Island
2. Theories and Suspects: Who dug the money pit and what lies below
3. Prelude to Expedition
4. The Scottish Discovery of America
5."...If Two of Them Are Dead"
6. The Knights Templar and Scotland
7. The Secret of the Templars
8. The French Connection
9. The Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau
10. The Connecting Thread
11. The Treasure Comes to Oak Island
12. Oak Kings, Severed Heads, and the Secrets of the Ancients
13. The Grail Guardians and the Modern World
Okay!! Now, on to the review...I think the best way for me to organize this is by separating the pros and cons (many more of the latter)
CONS: The not good, the bad, the ugly[/u]
The most noticeable detriment to this work is how the author tends to bounce around his topics at seemingly random times and order. He will go off on unimportant threads in the middle of an important section...and just end them there, no closure, no tying points together, just a huge swath of barely organized information...This makes understanding the "big picture" a labor at times.
Next, the writing style itself. Since we are all interested in this type of subject matter....imagine ME or anybody else writing a book tomorrow. Sure the information would be interesting to read, but you gotta admit the writing would be fairly brutal with no training or enough practice....well, that's what this book feels like: almost like you wrote it yourself the "night before it was due".
Last thing I will choose to cut up before resting is the innacuracies. The author speaks of Masons, Templar, Prieure de Sion and other secret societies like he's an expert...but with only a few pages read, it's extremly obvious to see that the author is not only not a mason himself, but has as his only information crap like "The Brotherhood" which he actually quotes as factual information (a quote about the police/justic corruption....i never actually read Stephen Knight's book myself...). There are alot of very mundane innacuracies too, like talking about how Crusaders excavated Solomon's temple....w/o a clue that it was rebuilt twice over and that no ruins existed then or not of SOLOMON's temple. That is only one of 1000 examples in the book however....
Anyway, I believe that is enough for the CONS, I don't want to cut up mr. Sora too much, as he obviously put in a great effort for a passionate subject matter for him...but man, it's just very sub-par in those categories.
PROS: Yes..yes there are some good parts!![/u]
Subject matter. This book touches on all "secret societies", masonic bodies, templar, english/scottish history, the holy grail, the entire story of the da vinci code, sauniere, the Sinclairs, Roslin, Jesus and Magdalent, ancient mysteries, mythology, norse history/anthropology, etc, etc etc. Nobody can deny that a book with information on all the above HAS to have some interesting points...which it does have many, it is only a shame that the same subject matter could not be recompiled by a different autheor or the same author with a little more field experience.
CONCLUSION[/u]
After all is said and done, I enjoyed the book and do not regret purchasing or reading it. I, however, am a bit of an odd-ball, so I don't think I can lend my recommendation to this book. I would instead suggest: find a similar book, but not the same book, as the subject is very very interesting to read about...only this particular title should not be your first choice.
AUTHOR: Steven Sora
PUBLISHER: Destiny Books, VT
ISBN: 0-89281-710-0
PAGES: 251 (293 w/ index+references)
COST(CDN$): $17.47
Hi!! Since this book has more of a plot/flow to it, I will try and not blow too much of the story in this review, but rather detail the pros and cons of the material, writing and accuracy instead of the story itself.
To start, since it was not long, I will provide the table of contents which will give you a good start to understanding what the book is about:
CONTENTS
1. The Mystery of Oak Island
2. Theories and Suspects: Who dug the money pit and what lies below
3. Prelude to Expedition
4. The Scottish Discovery of America
5."...If Two of Them Are Dead"
6. The Knights Templar and Scotland
7. The Secret of the Templars
8. The French Connection
9. The Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau
10. The Connecting Thread
11. The Treasure Comes to Oak Island
12. Oak Kings, Severed Heads, and the Secrets of the Ancients
13. The Grail Guardians and the Modern World
Okay!! Now, on to the review...I think the best way for me to organize this is by separating the pros and cons (many more of the latter)
CONS: The not good, the bad, the ugly[/u]
The most noticeable detriment to this work is how the author tends to bounce around his topics at seemingly random times and order. He will go off on unimportant threads in the middle of an important section...and just end them there, no closure, no tying points together, just a huge swath of barely organized information...This makes understanding the "big picture" a labor at times.
Next, the writing style itself. Since we are all interested in this type of subject matter....imagine ME or anybody else writing a book tomorrow. Sure the information would be interesting to read, but you gotta admit the writing would be fairly brutal with no training or enough practice....well, that's what this book feels like: almost like you wrote it yourself the "night before it was due".
Last thing I will choose to cut up before resting is the innacuracies. The author speaks of Masons, Templar, Prieure de Sion and other secret societies like he's an expert...but with only a few pages read, it's extremly obvious to see that the author is not only not a mason himself, but has as his only information crap like "The Brotherhood" which he actually quotes as factual information (a quote about the police/justic corruption....i never actually read Stephen Knight's book myself...). There are alot of very mundane innacuracies too, like talking about how Crusaders excavated Solomon's temple....w/o a clue that it was rebuilt twice over and that no ruins existed then or not of SOLOMON's temple. That is only one of 1000 examples in the book however....
Anyway, I believe that is enough for the CONS, I don't want to cut up mr. Sora too much, as he obviously put in a great effort for a passionate subject matter for him...but man, it's just very sub-par in those categories.
PROS: Yes..yes there are some good parts!![/u]
Subject matter. This book touches on all "secret societies", masonic bodies, templar, english/scottish history, the holy grail, the entire story of the da vinci code, sauniere, the Sinclairs, Roslin, Jesus and Magdalent, ancient mysteries, mythology, norse history/anthropology, etc, etc etc. Nobody can deny that a book with information on all the above HAS to have some interesting points...which it does have many, it is only a shame that the same subject matter could not be recompiled by a different autheor or the same author with a little more field experience.
CONCLUSION[/u]
After all is said and done, I enjoyed the book and do not regret purchasing or reading it. I, however, am a bit of an odd-ball, so I don't think I can lend my recommendation to this book. I would instead suggest: find a similar book, but not the same book, as the subject is very very interesting to read about...only this particular title should not be your first choice.