‘Three souls. Two thousand years. One truth.’…so goes the tag line for Richard and Rachael Heller’s ‘The 13th Apostle’. And trust me, that forms by far the most interesting line in the entire book. That single line right there on the cover.This story is another take at misinterpreting the unexplained or unsatisfactorily-proven parts of the life of Jesus Christ (who else!). I’m seriously wondering what it is about Jesus that people find so hard to believe that every budding author out there wants a go at proving he was not what he is made out to be! Seriously people, it’s getting old. Try something newer!The hero, Gil Pearson, here is a software geek who works for an internet security firm. The concepts of technology are too made up to be believable and if the authors think they can impress people with big words that don’t quite mean anything, well, they’re grossly mistaken. So the hero is pulled into a search for an ancient relic, a scroll, that supposedly contains the gospel written by a 13th Apostle of Christ (for the uninitiated, Christ had 12 Apostles) which, as it is with all fiction these days, didn’t make it to the Bible. And this scroll has information that could devastate Christianity as a faith. Anything new there, folks? Nope!And since it’s against a religion, there are obviously a whole bunch of bad guys who can’t let the world see the scroll. Add to that a fanatic Muslim group that badly wants people to see this scroll and denounce Christianity. So Gil teams up with an Israeli translator, Sabbie Kraim, and goes on a quest for the hidden scroll. How they find it, what they do with it and what does the scroll actually contain forms the rest of the story.The reason I didn’t like this book at all is because it sounds very very amateurish. The sentence structures, the descriptions, the flow – everything is amateurish. It’s as if they had something called ‘A Guide to writing a book like Da Vinci Code’ and followed it word for word. The storyline is wafer thin and the authors do nothing to reinforce it and carry it along. I started skipping entire pages in between and I assure you, I didn’t miss the story at all. Remember those hyped up movies where a song comes just before the climax scene just for the heck of having a song? Well, most scenes and encounters in this book are like that – they’re there because the authors think the reader would expect that particular exchange there. Which, for me, is against the whole point of writing good fiction. If I read what I expect to read, why would I enjoy the book?! I want to read the unexpected. And this book is definitely not on those lines.So if you see this book on a bookshelf, do yourself a favor and keep moving!
Do You like book The 13th Apostle (2007)?
I found The 13th Apostle to feel a bit rushed throughout, lacking the 'little details' that make for an engrossing read. I thought the characters were interesting enough, but there wasn't enough time spent developing them, their backgrounds, and relationships in a way that would make them endearing. More importantly, I was thoroughly disappointed with the ending. Killing off a main character is fine. Leaving the critical part of the story untold is worse. But, the worst part to me was the rush-rush-hurry-and-finish-the-book way the final chapter felt. It was as though the great concept and plot (and it was a good concept) was the thrust of the work, with little forethought as to how to actually end the story.
—Scott Coleman
