The mayhem and murder of Indiana Jones style archeology is now an established thriller trope!
A GR friend of mine awarded OLD BONES 3-stars with the fThe mayhem and murder of Indiana Jones style archeology is now an established thriller trope!
A GR friend of mine awarded OLD BONES 3-stars with the following opinion:
“OLD BONES has excellent character development and the plot is fascinating. The dig held me captive for much of the book, and I now have a much greater appreciation for the people who do this as a career. Amazing. That being said. . . if there was a bit more action mixed with all of the digging and hypothesizing it would have made it more exciting.”
I was going to make the same point. Preston and Child made the minutiae of an archeological dig and the modern use of computer software in the analysis of the dig results absolutely fascinating. That journals, maps, diaries and the forensic study of the DNA of human remains at a dig could result in the positive identification of actual individuals was nothing less than magical for me. But my response to the action and the thriller side of the story was the exact opposite to my friend’s. Unrealistic, contrived and, ultimately, over the top and completely lacking credibility described my personal reaction. On top of that, I can only describe the introduction of Aloysius Pendergast into the final pages as a near super-human modern day Sherlock Holmes as an eyeball roller with a verbal, “Yeah, right!”
Additionally, on the plus side, Corrie Swanson’s efforts to break through the barrier of institutional misogyny and to prove herself to be a capable FBI special agent on her first solo murder case rang true and was thoroughly entertaining throughout the course of the novel.
I’ve already read and enjoyed #2 in the series, THE SCORPION’S TAIL, so that obviously means I’m going to have to find myself a copy of #3, DIABLO MESA. Go Nora, go Corrie … count me in!
“and has never been stronger. At the same time, paradoxically, ill-informed opposition is also stronger“The evidence for evolution grows by the day,”
“and has never been stronger. At the same time, paradoxically, ill-informed opposition is also stronger than I can remember. This book is my personal summary of the evidence that the ‘theory’ of evolution is actually a fact – as incontrovertible a fact as any in science.”
To summarize the intent and content of Richard Dawkins’ THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, it’s tough to beat Dawkins’ own words in the opening paragraph of his preface.
It’s instructive, it’s entertaining, it’s educational, it’s informative and, perhaps most important of all, it’s persuasive and convincing beyond any reasonable shadow of a doubt that evolution exists, that it always has, and that, even today, it operates in real time, and occasionally causes changes at speeds that can best be characterized as jaw-dropping!
My rather niggardly award of only three stars as opposed to a four- or five-star rave review stems from the fact that I have never been a lover of biology in my reading, no matter how accomplished the writing might be. Personal preference only. But the fact is, that THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH deserves your time if you’re a lover of popular science.
If you’re a believer in a young earth or creationism, give it a shot! You never know where it might take your thinking.
Science writing that should be considered mandatory reading!
Elizabeth Kolbert has achieved a great deal with THE SIXTH EXTINCTION. A book that combinScience writing that should be considered mandatory reading!
Elizabeth Kolbert has achieved a great deal with THE SIXTH EXTINCTION. A book that combines natural history, current news, science, paleontology, history and even, to a certain extent, sociology in a package that is entertaining, informative and eminently readable to the point of being compelling is quite an accomplishment! It's a cautionary tale, to be sure, that bleakly outlines the devastating effect that Homo Sapiens has had and is having having on its environment since our arrival some 100,000 years ago.While THE SIXTH EXTINCTION deftly avoids falling into the trap of becoming a left-wing tree hugger's manifesto, it unequivocally suggests that our effect on the world, including the recipe for our own demise as a species, may have already been put irreversibly in place. Certainly, the take away from the book is that, if we are to have any hope at all for rescuing the myriad species around us from shuffling off this mortal coil forever, the time to act is yesterday!
I've been a long-time fan of well-written pre-history - Jean Auel's EARTH'S CHILDREN series, Sue Harrison, LA solid entry in a very competitive genre!
I've been a long-time fan of well-written pre-history - Jean Auel's EARTH'S CHILDREN series, Sue Harrison, Linda Lay Shuler, William Sarabande's THE FIRST AMERICANS, Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear and, of course, Björn Kurtén's ground-breaking anthropological masterwork DANCE OF THE TIGER. Pre-historical fiction as a genre is a field against which competition can be expected to be stiff and the qualifying bar even for entry to the contest is very high indeed.
Jack Rourk's debut entry clears the bar with plenty of room to spare. A pastoral, quiet yet deeply moving and compelling story, CRO-MAGNON 25000 BP lacks a significant plot-line at the outset but makes it up with a beautiful portrayal of tribal life during the waning years of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon co-existence in a brief warm spell between ice ages. Rourk has touched on so many topics in so few pages and done it so well that it's almost hard to believe - early spiritualism and creation legends; astronomy; hunting and the development and "manufacture" of weapons; tribal justice; shamanism and medicine; tribal warfare; animal and human migration; and much more.
If Rourk decides to attack another novel and continue the story of young Elya's growth and education as a shaman leading her adopted family, the Lion tribe, into an encounter with the cannibals who savagely eliminated her original family, then count me an eager fan and a ready buyer of that next installment.
CRO-MAGNON may be categorized as a brief history of human pre-history, at least that portion of the worldAn enjoyable read even if it doesn't sparkle!
CRO-MAGNON may be categorized as a brief history of human pre-history, at least that portion of the world's pre-history that was peopled by what anthropologists call "modern" man - from 150,000 years ago up to approximately 12,000 years ago. Of course, modern science now tells us that man came in two flavours - Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal - two species that were definitely genetically different and, almost certainly, sexually incompatible.
CRO-MAGNON suffers from a rather drab exposition style and won't win any literary awards for its ability to compel readers to breathlessly turn pages at high speed. But, that said, for any lay readers interested in human paleontology and cultural anthropology, CRO-MAGNON is certainly interesting and informative and touches on a wide variety of topics - weaponry, technology, art, culture, migration, population, the harsh living conditions caused by the rapid ebb and flow of ice ages and, of course, the slow but steady extinction of the Neanderthal and the rise of modern Cro-Magnon, now known as Homo Sapiens to the top of the world food chain.
Definitely recommended for the non-scientific amateur that wishes he could someday be part of an archeological dig!
Take note, science lovers and science-phobes alike!
This time it's not the Appalachians or England.
In A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, Bill BrysonTake note, science lovers and science-phobes alike!
This time it's not the Appalachians or England.
In A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, Bill Bryson has taken his readers on an exciting, informative and always entertaining tour of both the history of science and the details of the science itself. Essays covering an eclectic diversity of scientific topics ranging from the Big Bang and quantum physics, to paleontology, geology, biology, pandemics, genetics, evolution, glaciation, plate tectonics, weather patterns, volcanism and beyond are pitched at the perfect level to be accessible to the layman without being patronizing to a reader who happens to be more informed about a particular topic. Even the most esoterically learned science-ready polymath will find at least one or two of the topics set at a level high enough to be challenging as well.
Beautiful illustrations peppered throughout the text, a dash of humour and cynicism plus a wonderful series of amusing anecdotes and side bars make A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING a delicious confection of eye candy and brain candy. The multiplicity and diversity of the ideas covered means that A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING can be read in bite-sized chunks with the interested reader taking a random walk through the book starting at virtually any paragraph on any page. But the intelligent organization of the topics and the chronology that Bryson follows also guarantees a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience for those that want to travel from first page to last in order!
Science-phobes take note! If you've been looking for a way to set your fears aside, A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING just might be the ticket you've been looking for. Highly recommended.
An enjoyable overview of the new science of "extinction"
Non-fiction titles generally lend themselves to summaries a little bit more easily than non-fiAn enjoyable overview of the new science of "extinction"
Non-fiction titles generally lend themselves to summaries a little bit more easily than non-fiction and I'd be hard pressed to beat the information the publishers have provided on the back cover. In EXTINCTION: BAD LUCK OR BAD GENES, David M Raup has provided a layman's overview and discussion of the theories, assumptions and difficulties associated with the new, emerging science of the study of species extinction. A relatively lightweight, easy-going read (as science titles go), Raup has ended with the easily anticipated bet-hedging conclusion that extinction is generally a combination of bad luck and bad genes. But he did go so far as to lean strongly in the direction of bad luck, suggesting that most species "die because they are subjected to biological or physical stress not anticipated in their prior evolution and because time is not available for Darwinian natural selection to help them adapt." He summarized his thoughts by providing six generalities that, while sounding simple on their face, are still founded in considerable research and careful thought:
1. Species are temporary 2. Species with very small populations are easy to kill 3. Widespread species are hard to kill 4. The extinction of widespread species is favored by a first strike 5. The extinction of widespread species is favored by stresses not normally experienced by the species 6. The simultaneous extinction of many species requires stresses that cut across ecological lines
He also concluded that "wanton extinction" - selective extinction where some kinds of organisms survive preferentially but NOT because they are better adapted to their normal environment - was the primary ingredient in producing the kinds of results we see in the fossil record. For my money, this was the most interesting statement in the entire book because it seemed so fundamentally counter-intuitive!
All very interesting stuff indeed for those of us that enjoy paleontology and the topic of dinosaurs, in particular. But sadly, Raup's popular science writing suffers by comparison to the likes of Simon Winchester, Jay Ingram or Simon Singh who seem blessed with the ability to write about esoteric scientific topics positively lifting them off the page and compelling the reader to turn pages ever more quickly. That said, I'm happy to recommend it as a good read for those that enjoy their science-based non-fiction.
THE EGYPTOLOGIST is an extraordinary, lush piece of literature that trots across the mummy-crazed globe of the 1920s aOh, what a tangled web we weave!
THE EGYPTOLOGIST is an extraordinary, lush piece of literature that trots across the mummy-crazed globe of the 1920s and witnesses Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter's seminal discovery of the vast riches of Tutankhamen's un-pillaged virginal tomb. But, as in Caldwell and Thomason's THE RULE OF FOUR or Bondurant's THE THIRD TRANSLATION, things are simply not what they appear and any expectations a reader may have when they set eye to opening paragraph are bound to be set on their ear.
The novel, arranged by Phillips as a collection of letters and journal entries, traces two initially unrelated story lines to their ultimate convergence and climax. While some readers may find this epistolary format disconcerting, even off-putting, the more astute reader will rapidly come to realize that Phillips has carefully chosen this method of narration because truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder (or mouth of the writer in this case). Every word of the novel is important and it is left to the bemused reader to separate fact from fiction or embellishment and mis-remembered half-truth.
The first tale involves Ralph Trilipush (an anagram of Arthur Phillips for those that are into arcane neat stuff like that)! Ralph is an obsessive archeologist searching for the apocryphal tomb of Atum Hadu - the hotly disputed but definitely over-sexed final king of Egypt's XIIIth dynasty who has bequeathed to the world a set of very spicy, pornographic quatrains! Ralph's expeditions are financed by Chester Crawford Finneran, a stupidly wealthy Bostonian business baron, and father to Ralph's fiancee, Margaret Finneran, an irresponsible, flighty 1920s flapper who is likely hooked on opium.
The second story is told by Harold Ferrell, a hard-boiled, cynical and world weary Australian gumshoe, hired to track down the illegitimate children of a wealthy Brit who wants to do right by his will. When it appears that one of these children, Paul Caldwell, has met an untimely end at the hands of a murderer during a World War I posting to Egypt, further digging puts Ferrell onto Trilipush. Ferrell, convinced that Trilipush is a mountebank, a scam artist, a con and a murderer, need only travel to Egypt to apprehend the brute and add the finishing brush strokes to the canvas of a career-making case - an obvious testament to his skills as an outstanding sleuth and judge of character! (Yeah, right!)
That both men are utterly wrong - Trilipush in his epic fantasies about Atum Hadu and Ferrell in his conclusions about Trilipush's machinations - will be obvious to all readers well before the half-way point of the novel. But the manner in which Phillips leads the reader to drawing the correct conclusions without ever actually writing them down is masterful. The humour ranges from side-splitting, graphic, physical Vaudevillian gags to deeply tragic, black irony. Sarcasm abounds - witness Paul Caldwell's hard-biting, irreverent response to a Catholic priest who would chastise him for his fascination with the Egyptian culture of death - "Right you are, Father. Much better to stick with the life-embracing imagery of a cult that worships a bleeding corpse nailed to bits of wood." Descriptive writing, although it occurs all too infrequently, is compelling. Trilipush, for example, waxes poetic over the beauty of Egyptian women, "those caramelized confections, dark-irised behind long lashes".
The reader who patiently reads through what is certainly an overextended development of the story in the central part of the novel and reaches the conclusion that, sadly, is finished all too quickly will reap the rich reward of a truly fine piece of literature.
Only an extraordinarily deft master of suspense thrillers like Douglas Preston could pull together such wildly Frightening - because it COULD happen!!
Only an extraordinarily deft master of suspense thrillers like Douglas Preston could pull together such wildly unrelated props, ideas and events and combine them into single related roller-coaster story line - an ex-CIA cryptologist who retired to a monastery after witnessing his wife blown to bits in a Cambodian car bomb; a treasure hunter murdered by an ex-con sniper in a canyon in the New Mexico desert; a lunar rock sample that disappeared from the final Apollo mission to the moon in 1972; a shady entrepreneur running a lonely hearts web site for ladies who fancy corresponding with somebody on the wrong side of prison walls; a completely intact Tyrannosaurus fossil flash dried by during the heat storms following the impact of an asteroid with the earth over 65 million years ago; an infectious virus from outer space; a veterinarian struggling with a promise made to a dying man to give a notebook filled with numeric code to a woman whose name he doesn't even know; and a deep, dark US government black ops squad willing to exterminate US citizens to fulfill their mission!
Omigod! All of this sounds just a little TOO bizarre and over the top to approach credible!
But that certainly didn't seem to matter to Preston who has crafted much more than a thrilling page turner. He has combined all of these tidbits with cutting edge science and technology to create a horrifying tale that seems within the realm of possibility. For me, that was much, much more than merely thrilling. It was actually quite frightening.
Preston's lurid, graphic descriptions of the life of a Tryannosaur and her death after the impact of a killer asteroid are positively gripping. Before you hit the "send" button on your next e-mail or make another cell phone call to your lover, you'll shudder as you wonder if there is actually a computer at the National Security Agency monitoring the world's conversations through the use of a new computer algorithm known as "Stutterlogic". You'll hold your breath as you wonder how many soldiers for how many nations and for what purposes have listened to an order like this one:
"The time is coming when I will ask you to kill several unarmed American citizens. These individuals are too dangerous to entrust to the courts. Will you have a problem with that?"
Enjoy it! This thriller is as thrilling as they come!
Some 40,000 years ago, as the last ice age slowly relinquished its steely grip on the northern hemispherSome meat gets to eat … some meat gets eaten!
Some 40,000 years ago, as the last ice age slowly relinquished its steely grip on the northern hemisphere, the Neanderthal, a separate species of hominid whose DNA, by some estimates, comprises as much as 6% of modern Homo Sapiens DNA, sadly went extinct. Although there is no solid consensus, current wisdom suggests that the reason for the extinction may be as mundane as a population too small and too widely dispersed that ultimately proved non-viable, unable to withstand the difficulties of squeezing through a genetic bottleneck. Today’s forward-thinking anthropologists and paleontologists also regularly incur significant opposition from those who would hold to 19th century cartoonish stereotypes of the Neanderthal as a stooped, primitive, violent brute who lost a war for their place on the planet in a pitched battle against Cro-Magnon, the precursor to today’s modern Homo Sapiens.
Rosamund Gale is a modern, professional scientist – an archeologist who must achieve her place in science in the face of institutional misogyny. She also struggles daily against the opposition to her beliefs in a more modern version of Neanderthal behavior and capabilities, that they are capable, innovative toolmakers with advancing technology, that they have developed a place and value in their lives for cosmetic and physical personal adornment, and that they interacted, mingled and, of course, mated with Cro-Magnon as circumstances allowed or demanded. She also faces the additional harsh demands of a difficult pregnancy and a long-distance relationship with her husband. In her novel, author Cameron portrays Gale as having hit the proverbial archeological mother lode – a burial site that contains female Neanderthal and male Cro-Magnon remains obviously carefully positioned (or perhaps they were positioned by the circumstances of their joint death) to show a strong relationship, perhaps even a permanent loving relationship.
I have a personal preference for interpreting THE LAST NEANDERTHAL which may not have been the one that Ms Cameron intended when she wrote it. I think that the strength of Ms Gale’s beliefs in her version of a Neanderthal hominid, the emotional depth of those beliefs coupled with the difficulties of her pregnancy, the problems of her absent husband the and the daily opposition to her advancement and achievement by her scientific colleagues led Ms Gale, much like a clairvoyant or a medium, to channel her physical contact with those remains into a detailed imagining of the pathos of the final months of the last Neanderthal female and her erstwhile clan. That the last Neanderthal existed somewhere, sometime, somehow in a post-Ice Age Europe was a logical, unavoidable inevitability.
Gale’s Neanderthal calls herself simply Girl. Her companion, Runt, is a juvenile Cro-Magnon boy perhaps as young as six or seven years old. Girl’s continuing concerns that Runt is sickly or diseased, weak, mal-nourished or underdeveloped and deficient in some fashion make it clear that Girl is entirely unaware of the existence of a second species of hominid with such marked physical differences. Runt and Girl are making the trek to the annual clan gathering at the site of a salmon spawning run where Girl, who has now come into heat and entered puberty, hopes she will find a mate and the opportunity to become the matriarch of her own clan. When no other family clans join her at the site, the reader becomes aware that Girl is now the last Neanderthal.
My initial chagrin at the fact that the end of Girl’s life, in effect the death of the last Neanderthal on earth, and the explanation for the positioning of the bones at the site of Gale’s monumental discovery was not to be forthcoming vanished as I realized that it is likely that Cameron intended leaving things open-ended. The reader closes the book on the final page in exactly the same position as Rosamund Gale. That is, Gale and the reader must conceive their own possible explanations consistent with the evidence offered when, sadly, the bones aren’t able to explain themselves. They just sit there daring the scientific observer to draw conclusions.
When I cracked the binding on THE LAST NEANDERTHAL and began reading, it was my hope that, like Björn Kurtén’s awesome DANCE OF THE TIGER, Gale would take advantage of the literary license offered by story-telling that was forbidden to her when she was doing her scientific research and put forward her own theory for the demise of the Neanderthal species. In all likelihood, Ms Cameron never intended to do that in the first place but it is the reason that the book paled ever so slightly in my estimation and I withheld that fifth star.
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