Ketchup

I’ve also managed to read a few books this summer, and lately I’ve been on a tear for Douglas Preston. I guess I’ve been living under a rock! This guy’s books are awesome good fun.

First we have The Codex. I won’t get into plot descriptions except to say I had to wonder if Preston has actually visited the interior jungles of Honduras. This book literally reeked of swamps and bugs. It was fun but didn’t hit me as hard as Blasphemy. There were a few threads in the narrative that only barely tied together or faded suddenly into nothing, which left me to the book an overall grade of a “B.” There was never any question that the hot feisty heroine and the cool-headed hero would fall madly in love — that’s just a given — but there were two other characters in the line-up who were especially original and fantastic, Borabay and best of all Don Alfonso. When a character's dialogue makes you laugh out loud, you know it's being done right. In my mind, these two carried the book.

Next up was Tyrannosaur Canyon, which I liked even better than Blasphemy. A+. What I’m noticing about Preston’s work is that his books are remarkably accessible and straightforward despite the unique, high concepts involved in each book. I admire that a lot. At least 60% of Tyrannosaur Canyon is straight-out action, and yet it’s loaded with science, paleontology, geology, and cutting-edge military tech. Perfect. As someone who grew up steeped in science fiction, I had to smile when one heroine declared that the big surprise at the end was so unexpected that even generations of science fiction writers never imagined such a twist... I mean, at least 100 pages before the big twist was officially revealed, I was thinking of books and films like Calculating God, Assemblers of Infinity, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but honestly: A+. This is great stuff. Highly recommended.

Labels: Douglas Preston, Recommended Reading, The Codex and Tyrannosaur Canyon