What is the Best 90's Indy novel?

[UltimateManGod]

Man, more people should vote in this. I'd like to get a better picture of which books people think are the best. Or do polls for each individual author. Find out the best in each series. Personally, I think Dinosaur Eggs is the best, but all of McCoy's are great. Genesis Deluge is my favorite MacGregor book. The first four al all very good. Last two were a step down, but still more readable than Caidin. I couldn't get myself through Sky Pirates. It was pretty unenjoyable, even though Shannon showed up in it. I haven't even tried White Witch.

I'm pretty excited to get two, yes TWO, new Indy books next year. And even though Army of the Dead features a WWII Indy with Mac and it's written by a new author (to Indy at least), I'm more excited for Staff of Kings. Probably because it's MacGregor, and I know he's good, as well as this old piece of concept art for the game. http://www.mixnmojo.com/galleries/gallery.php?gallery=297&image=3661&goback=http://www.mixnmojo.com/php/site/gamedb.php?gameid=128 Who even knows if that'll feature in the game or book. Something about it felt like classic era Indy to me. Which I say starts around Peril at Delphi and goes until Indy enters WWII. It's just too bad Struzan won't be doing the covers for either book. Excessively long post: Done.

 

[The Magic Rat]

Hello!

Hi all,

I'm new here but I would LOVE to talk about these books!

When the books originally came out the only one I read was Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs, which I did enjoy but didn't love. Thank God for my middle school English teacher who bought books like that instead of just the standard middle school fare.

I actually started reading them after the reprints before KOTCS came out and am loving them now. I really love about half of the series now, and the other half I enjoy but solely due to the fact that they're Indiana Jones. I think out of anything that is official Indy cannon other than the movies, some of the books like Peril at Delphi and Genesis Deluge rank as the best.

 

[Trennas]

Ola!

I'm new here after lurking around for a while. I can say without hesitation that I own and have read every Indiana Jones novel, except for the Sky Pirates and the White Witch.. they were just too boring and Un-Indylike for my taste.. Anyways, back when I was a kid I didnt use to go to the library very often, and when I finally started to do so, I soon found I had outgrown the kids books, so I turned to the adult section, where I found Indiana Jones and Star Wars books, which just so happened to be the center of my attention at the time (and still are!) Oh happy day! After that, I realized that there were more Indy novels at the bookstores as well. These were the books of Wolfgang Holbein, who also had his books translated in Dutch, and a few of those turned out to be my absolute favorites:

Indiana Jones and the Sword of Djenghis Kahn
Indiana Jones and the Labyrinth of Horus
Indiana Jones and the Ship of the Gods

The titles are freely translated, but these books are just so much fun to read! Most of the time they actually make a lot of sense, which can't always be said for later Indy books. The characters are believable, there are always giant guys to fight, the McGuffin's are cleverly found, and all in all they are very Indy-esque

Later on I also collected the books listed in this poll, but to be honest, none of them ever came close to Holbein's books. It's a shame they have never been translated to English; you guys are really missing out!

 

[emtiem]

Now I've only read Hollow Earth but I thought it was really pretty bad- no sense of fun, practically no jokes that I can think of, and the structure was very odd. Hollow Earth seems to be upheld as one of the better ones, so if I didn't like that am I unlikely to find any enjoyment in the others?

 

[Trennas]

That's personal taste I guess, but I wouldn't dismiss an entire series just because of one book you didn't like.. I actually had great fun reading all of them, except for a few. I wouldn't say they were all good, but they sure are amusing

 

[The Magic Rat]

Now I've only read Hollow Earth but I thought it was really pretty bad- no sense of fun, practically no jokes that I can think of, and the structure was very odd. Hollow Earth seems to be upheld as one of the better ones, so if I didn't like that am I unlikely to find any enjoyment in the others?

Whoever told you Hollow Earth is better than the others was lying to you for giggles. While it's a matter of taste, that is collectively considered to be one of the worst (if not THE worst) in the series. So I would say go ahead and read some more, start off with Peril at Delphi and I bet you'll read the whole series.

 

[Trennas]

Indeed! I rather enjoyed the first few books by Rob McGregor. It gives a lot of background info on Indy and well, they were quite pleasant to read

 

[emtiem]

Whoever told you Hollow Earth is better than the others was lying to you for giggles. While it's a matter of taste, that is collectively considered to be one of the worst (if not THE worst) in the series.

Well obviously not judging by the poll results above and a number of posts on the first page of this thread alone, but thanks for the tip.

 

[The Magic Rat]

Indeed! I rather enjoyed the first few books by Rob McGregor. It gives a lot of background info on Indy and well, they were quite pleasant to read

Right on. They're a lot of fun.

 

[UltimateManGod]

Whoever told you Hollow Earth is better than the others was lying to you for giggles. While it's a matter of taste, that is collectively considered to be one of the worst (if not THE worst) in the series.

I think you may be refering to Interior World. Similar ideas, but Hollow Earth is one of the best, whil Interior World ranks among the worst. I'd say it only better than the Caidin novels.

 

[Trennas]

oh you could be right there; didn't even think about the possibility that there might be a mix-up.. must be getting sleepy

 

[The Magic Rat]

I think you may be refering to Interior World. Similar ideas, but Hollow Earth is one of the best, whil Interior World ranks among the worst. I'd say it only better than the Caidin novels.

Ooooh well said, I think you are right. I wasn't even thinking. Interior World is awful. I still didn't like the Hollow Earth that much, but yes Interior World is certainly the worse of the two there.

 

[StoneTriple]

Philosopher's Stone might be my favorite because I really like Alecia and her interaction\relationship with Indy. The book reads just like an Indiana Jones film.

That said - Secret of the Sphinx also reads like a film. There were plenty of times where I could very clearly visualize the scenes as though they were taking place in a film.

Too bad neither of these were ever used as a basis for one of the sequels. Very little tweaking would have to been done on either. They're both very strong stories and very well written.

As with most novels, they're much deeper stories than two hours of film.

 

[punisher5150]

Max McCoy definiteley captured the spirit of Indy

in his novels. I loved the Philosopher's Stone. Secret of the Sphinx was excellent as well, except for the weird time travel left-over that didn't get completely edited out. I would love to see McCoy write a new one.

 

[|ZiR|]

I'm up to The Interior World. So far my favorite is easily The Genesis Deluge. Felt extremely Indy. Proper ADVENTURAN book.

I would like to say, though, that while I'm not crazy about the sheer magicalness of Rob's novels I do appreciate the amount of continuity he's put into the books and how they weave into each other very nicely. I wasn't crazy about The Unicorn's Legacy (nice macguffin, boring girl/villains-- plus the back of the book gave Mara's true character away! mmph) I do enjoy how the events at the end of it create the prologue for Interior World.

He put a lot of thought into this series.

 

[Violet]

I have to say I'm surprised at the poll- totally thought that Interior World was too crazy for anyone's liking!

Not surprised that no one likes Sky Pirates though!!

 

[punisher5150]

Genesis Deluge was my favorite MacGregor novel.

Until Max McCoy, I felt that it was the first one that truly captured the feel of an Indiana Jones movie. So my anticipation was very high for Unicorn's Legacy and Interior World. What a let down they were. Interior World was the start of a downward slide in quality of the novels. And when it was followed by Martin Caiden's horrible entries, I gave up hope on the Indy novels. Glad McCoy pulled them out of the slump.

I'm hoping the next two books (Staff of Kings, Army of Darkness???) will be at least as good or better than Genesis.

 

[Morning Bell]

I went with the Genesis Deluge, although Philosopher's Stone is a VERY close second.

 

[|ZiR|]

Anyone else notice that Rob confused tufa (the calcite rock) with tuff (a rock made of volcanic ash) in The Genesis Deluge? :|

Notice any other mistakes?

 

[bowlesk]

Indy's adult novels

Well, I have read them all now. My review.

Rob MacGregor's books are a fun and fast read. They have the tradtional Indiana Jones structure with adventure, romance, some new friends and Indy during his youth. This was very interesting and fun to read. Some of the stories were a little to magical for me, but that is sometimes Indy's MO so it was all good.

Martin Caidin was the worst writer so far. Not only were the books nothing like Indiana Jones stories, they were slow, poorly written, and used a ton of descriptive dialogue for things that didn't even matter to the story. This author just filled up 300 pages to sell a book using Indiand Jones's name without coming up with a story. Boring and dissappointing. I would not recommend these books to anyone but the most hardcore fan that wants to read it all.

Max McCoy brings back the Indy formula and does it well. Is again a fun and exciting read. He had adventure, romance, and bad bad guys. It is classic iconic Indy. The stories all were paced well. I would like to have seen some better dialogue, but it was still an enjoyable read.

Two new books:
Rob McGregor: Staff of the Kings sounds great.

and

Steve Perry: Army of the Dead
Steve did a great job with Shadows of the Empire, so I expect another well written story.

Both of these up and coming books sound great. I hope they keep writing them (just not with Martin Caidin)

I love the Dark Horse comics too by the way, but some are better than others.