The Alignment Ingress

A modern day action-adventure with archaeological mysteries and lots of chases, shooting and explosions. It provides a lot of curious information about Ingress game lore. The book is easy to read, but is extremely generic and bland: another couple of battle archaeologists overfilled with testosterone in search for — what else — King Solomon's mines, killing "nasty bad guys" (an actual quote). The book is well made, but lacks even a spark of inspiration: a work of craft, not art. The author makes it clear that he has zero care for the world and characters, and just did what he was payed for. Maybe, the Niantic should have exposed the author to some Exotic Matter to give him a little more inspiration.

I could not put it down except when my battery went dead. Charged my DNA for ~10min & turned it back on. This is my 1st ebook & was hesitant because of the $ w/ only 98 pages. The content was worth it, I am now hooked, & can't wait 4 the next great read. This experience also changed my mind about ebooks. Though I'm an L8 Ingress player, I don't think you need 2 play 2 enjoy reading this. The related links at each chapter's end are a nice touch 4 players, & I will go through them my 2nd time around-shortly.

I'm a big Ingress fan and an avid follower of the Niantic Project website, but this novella just didn't live up to the quality I expected from the Ingress sci-fi universe. It feels like a mini Da Vinci Code clone, but with implausible and fantastical weaponry, history, and science, and unlikeable characters whose skills and abilities seem to grow and atrophy depending on convenience to the plot rather than consistency within the characters. The scattered plugs, both to Google products and the author's own Atlantis series, are clumsily done and are jarring enough to break you out of the universe. And compared to the Niantic Project documents, which feel like a glimpse into an intricate plausible conspiracy lurking somewhere in the background, the plot of this novella feels more made-up-as-you-go, with plot elements shoehorned in for drama. In fact, the best parts of the book are the ones that were tied closest to the Niantic documents, shedding light on what happened "behind the scenes" at the events that were referenced. [SPOILER] It is still to be seen whether "dark XM" is "real" in the Ingress universe.[/S] Don't expect too much from this book - it doesn't give you very much!