Never Paperback – 9 November 2021

Scary end - nuclear holocaust is never a pleasant thought.Well written but with a rather nasty ending which leaves a bad taste.

Another remarkably good thriller by Ken Follett- difficult to put the book down ! Recommended without any hesitation. Am going to start on another of his books today.

Excellent condition and timely delivery

Never is an epic story covering political events in the US, China, the Koreas, Chad, and Syria, that inexorably spiral into a possible nuclear conflict. It details how a relatively small event in a remote part of the world could force the superpowers to get involved and how the compulsions of international relationships could end up escalating the conflict rather than ameliorating it. A scary possibility, and more so with the enhanced threats of cyber warfare now (interestingly documented in Nicole Perlroth’s “This is how they tell me the world ends”)!However, what could have been a compelling political thriller becomes a mishmash of government manoeuvres and personal stories of some of the protagonists. The 800-page length consequently seems unnecessary — the entire track covering an undercover CIA agent in Chad and a mother-son duo from one of the Chadian settlements seems irrelevant and has very little bearing on the main plot, for example. Some of the personal side-stories are somewhat jarring and long, like the ones covering the lives of US President Pauline Green and her husband and daughter or even the relationship between a CIA operative and a French attache in Chad. The romantic tracks are awkward at best — when a key protagonist voices that “a woman’s heart can be an unexploded bomb … handle me delicately so that I don’t detonate”, you know that this isn’t Follett at his best. Foes of some of the main characters are reduced to caricatures. In a way, Never reminded me of the old Sidney Sheldon books — I would gobble them greedily when I was younger but would probably get nauseous reading parts of them now.Given its length, the book is mercifully an easy read. However, only parts of it are real page-turners such as an escape from a terrorist camp or the spiralling of events towards the end. While I wasn’t tempted to leave the book unfinished at any point, Never was a bit of a lost opportunity to be a great book, in my view.Pros: Epic story, easy readCons: Unnecessary length, awkward personal tracks

One of the best books by Follett. It’s unputdownable and has amazing details about how the 3rd WW will take place and how things will escalate despite taking painstaking efforts by the world leaders the only thing that disappoints you is that INDIA is not in the picture) woven and crafted in such a way that readers will be engaged throughout the story. A must read for anyone interested in current Geo Politics.

Dumped it halfway. Pretty much unreadable.

Super story

The media could not be loaded. Huge disappointment from Follet. Very slow pace with unnecessary details like Ludlum , page filling only. The Lady President of USA appears very ordinary and not larger than life. On page 209 the hero Abdul who is a spy against Jihadis stays in the house of one Anand who is depicted having 3 wives. Anand is a Hindu name and they do not get in polygamy. No good home work sir. One wonders if really Follet has written the book or some amateur who had target of creating so many pages. Utter boredom and brainless.