Reliquary

The fifth book I have finished this January is Reliquary by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. It was published in 1997 and is the direct sequel to Relic, which I wrote the review for in 2021.  I wanted to get this book over and done with because I truly did not love the first and so the fact that this is a direct sequel to Relic made me not want to read it at all.  However, I admit that I like reading adventure thriller novels and I cannot justify reading any further in the series if I skipped this one.

This is the “Pendergast series” named for the enigmatic character Agent A. X. L. Pendergast of the FBI.  However, as in the first novel, Pendergast is really not the main character. He is also a heavily relied on “tool” for the writers to always have a help at hand.  That does not mean that the character is not interesting and fun. Perhaps it is because he is “overpowered” that he is so exciting to read. After two novels with this character, the reader still does not know a whole lot about the gentleman except that he is intelligent and skilled. In the first novel, Pendergast makes a remarkable and striking entrance.  The same is true in this novel – his entrance is exciting and remarkable; so I guess that is how the authors enjoy bringing him into stories. Its fun, I guess. Keeps the reader a little surprised. However, I have to share that Pendergast does not make this interesting entrance until page 107. So, readers who enjoyed the character in the first novel may have been wondering if he is even going to show up to the second.

The first book, Relic, is necessary to read prior to this book. The reader cannot skip that one and fully understand this story. Ultimately, they are one large novel, but who on earth would read that?!  My problem with each novel is that they seem to go on too long. Now, some readers suggested that these novels are about 100 pages “too long.” Having read it, I want to agree. However, I am not quite sure where to trim the fat.  I mean, I cannot truly figure out exactly where all the length comes from.  Frankly, truthfully, I think the whole Bill Smithback sidestory is uninteresting and tedious. I dislike the character and his interactions and meetings with the character Mrs Wisher do not truly bring anything I want to read about to the story.  Those segments do succeed in building a very well-rounded backstory with more facets to the setting and events.  The value is also in giving perspectives that are not from a police standpoint or a museum scientist view.  That being true, though, does not mean that I want to read it or that I should care about it.  It makes the plot fatter, not better, I think.

I do not understand how this book does not have any map or chart for the reader. Literally, all of the other characters seem to have maps and drawings and schematics, but the reader has nothing. We are also treated to “named places” – waypoints, types of places, but we are not given any point of reference to orient ourselves. This is very frustrating and after awhile it really grinds on the reader – at least it did me.  I got very sick of hearing the characters talk about this particular point, this specific tunnel, that connection to pipes, trains, tracks, ports…. Context does not help much at all, all the tunnels are same, the setting is all murky, soggy, smelly, sludgy. So, while the characters seem to know about the various tunnels and ingress/egress, the reader just feels left in the dark in a puddle of sewage.

All of those complaints being mentioned, the book is a solid, averagely plotted thriller with a heavy dose of evolutionary science fiction.  Its an crime-science fiction-thriller and for the most part, that hits a large audience of readers. Its diversion from long days, its interesting to a point, it has some tropes and stereotypes, it also has some flaws. It basically chugs along on its over-long path without huge ups or huge downs. Most readers will be satisfied by this novel because while there is nothing to cheer for or be exhilarated about, it has no ruinous flaws that tank the novel. At the end, the reader will have had a decent read, but will likely be worn out from caring about the characters and tired of the endless plot.

My favorite moment comes in chapter 27 during an exchange between the homicide Lieutenant D’Agosta and a rather counter-culture artist named Kirtsema:

D’Agosta looked at the strings in disbelief. “So this is art? Who looks at it?”
“It’s conceptual art,” Kirtsema explained impatiently.  “Nobody looks at it. It’s not meant to be seen.  It is sufficient that it exists. . . . . As Derrida said, ‘Art is that which is not art,’ which means–“

“Did you know if his first name was Gregory?”

“Jacques. Jacques Derrida. Not Gregory.”

“I mean the man who lived next door.” — pg. 188, chapter 27

I laughed. I laughed again as I typed this segment.

Anyway, one other very nitpicky sort of detail:  we meet a police chief named Waxie – he is not a charming, helpful character. He really has a lot of the worst characteristics. A yes-man to the higher-ups, a mind that is rather dull, and a pervasive laziness are some of his main attributes. He is a rotund fellow who complains and whines a great deal. So, in my mind I was kind of surprised on page 341 when he is described as having a basso profundo voice. I just did not associate this with that character. This was such a surprising (and admittedly irrelevant) detail, I did wonder if the authors did this on purpose, just as a sort of “got-cha!”

Overall, a reasonable read that is a bit overlong. I was entertained, for the most part. I did not love the first novel, so I was never going to love its sequel. However, now I can read onward in the series, which I intend to do at some point – hopefully we can step the heck away from the underground world of the museum for awhile.

3 stars

The Third Gate

The Third Gate by Lincoln Child is the third book in his Jeremy Logan series.  I have read the previous two novels.  The Third Gate was published in 2012 and is the first in the series that has Logan on every page of the book, so to speak. In the previous novels, Logan was not a major character; here he takes control of the narrative.

This book is a bit of a mess and is a definite step-down from the previous novel Terminal Freeze. The setup is somewhat the same – in all three novels there is a wealthy, eccentric individual who is at the heart of whatever adventure is going on.  This time Logan is pulled in right from the beginning – he is introduced as an enigmalogist. Logan meets the “eccentric” individual in the depths of the Cairo museum and agrees to join the adventure.  The mission, this time, is to locate Narmer’s tomb.  In the author’s note Child admits that he liberally manipulated and adjusted all facets of Egyptology and related sciences in service of his novel.  In other words, there is historical fiction and then there is adventure fiction and The Third Gate is most certainly in the latter category.

Once again, as with the first Logan novel, I want to accuse Child of lazy writing. There are a couple of things here and there that could have been done better and, yes, I do mean even in the context of a little adventure pulp novel.  For example, the coffee that someone is sipping in the dark deep basements of the Cairo museum – its probably cold. And where did it come from? Somehow I doubt there is a stove deep in the museum among the papyrus stacks – at least, when I was there, I did not see one. Another example is where Child unnecessarily refers to the technicians (i.e. the digital and technological crew) as “tech weenies.”  It feels jarringly crude in a setting wherein we are frequently told the adventure has gathered highly-vetted, highly-trained, highly-established experts in so many fields of study. “Tech weenies”…..?

Anyway, Logan shows up to the site with his duffel bag of items. A variety of items, kind of similar to a doctor’s bag crossed with a magician’s bag. When asked about it, Logan shares some of the items, but also plays it a bit vague.  At the same time, throughout, readers get the sense that the characters are suspicious or at least skeptical of Logan’s field of study and of his need to join the mission.  To counter that, several times readers are given Logan’s resume and stories of his expert field work and research, to include a sidebar regarding his dissertation. All of this being said, several times during the novel, Logan utilizes a device that tests air ionization. Every time except once is the air “normal.”  The one time it reads “not normal,” or increased ionization, he says he does not know what it means.  This just seems incongruous and stupid.

I disliked every character and for that reason I really was not rooting for any of them.  Makes me feel a little bad, I guess. I like adventure stories that keep me on the edge of my seat and I can cheer for a hero or something. The character that is supposed to “balance” the Logan character is one of the world’s top Egyptologists, Christina Romero.  I am not sure what to make of her – most of the time she comes across as impulsively rude, which I very much find toxic.  I guess we are supposed to think that because she is an elite expert, she is also given to temperamental behavior? I dislike that sort of stereotyping, too.

Finally, the plot itself is stupid and difficult and has this adjacent co-plot that I really hated. I really disliked the entire psychological, NDE, “crossing-over” story thread. I hated the characters and how it overtook the plot and I did not enjoy it.  Accepting Logan as an enigmalogist and as a scientist is possible. But this type of plot overextends my suspension of disbelief.

The good thing:  listen, I love setting and the setting of this novel is really good. I mean it. I was surprised to find such a strong, interesting, and intense setting in an adventure pulp.  Child liberally utilizes the concept of the Sudd (Cp. The White Nile by Alan Moorehead – 1960) and expands and develops it as needed. Seriously, this stuff captured my imagination and I wanted to spend more time in this setting having it weigh on us, confuse us, frighten us.  In other words, Child’s idea to use it is a great idea and he did a decent job.  I just want him to have done an even better job. I did pull my old, crusty copy off of my bookshelves and think I will skim through it, just because I can.

They crawled forward into an ever-thicker tangle of logs and bracken.  The noises from the riverbanks – if indeed there were still any banks to be found in this morass – had all but ceased.  It was as if they were now surrounded by an infinite riot of flora, dead and dying, all wedged into one colossal tangle.  They waited in the bow, barely speaking, as the boat followed the line of flashing beacons. Now and then the path seemed to Logan to lead to a dead end; but each time, after making a blind turn, the fetid tangle of vegetation widened once again. Frequently, the boat had to use its own superstructure to push aside the oozing warp and weft. – pg. 67, chapter 7

At the end of the day, Ancient Egypt adventure stories and swamps and scary things are always going to draw readers in, I think. However, this novel had too much lazy writing. Again, I am not expecting high-brow literature here, but I think a lot of tidying and a little thought would have really worked.  Instead, this novel is a mess, its a bit flat, and I did not really enjoy anything at all other than the setting.  That is not a basis for a great recommendation.

I am a bit concerned about the “development” of the Jeremy Logan character. I like him as an enigmalogist. I dislike the esoteric, pseudo-ghost hunter stuff. I am glad that he got to be a main character in a novel, for once, which is amusing to consider.  Strangely, even as a main character, I feel he was extraneous. Still, I am nervous that in the next novel in the series he might actually have a magic wand or something.

2 stars

Relic

I finished Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child this week.  I am aware that basically every other reader on the planet has already read it at least once.  It was first published in 1995, which was a few years back. In the 2000s, I remember my household reading through all of the Preston & Child books that had been published; I think there were seven or eight books at that point.  I know that I started to read this book a number of times, but never finished it. I honestly do not remember why.  However this attempt to finish the book took about a year. I re-started it in July of 2020. 

Let us be honest, we’re all friends here, right?  If a novel takes two or three times to get through, aside from extraordinary life situations, maybe the book just is not as good as we want it to be.  Or, perhaps, we just really do not enjoy reading some specific element of the novel – be it setting, plot, genre, etc.  I am glad I read through it finally. I am going to say that it is probably a 3.5 star read. I will end up giving it 4 stars, but no matter how many things I praise about the novel, there is the glaring “well, it only took me a year to read through it….. this time….” problem.

I think one of my attempts to read the novel ended before I even got to meet the special star, Agent Pendergast.  He only first appears on page 78.  That being said, he has a very favorable entrance into the story and he is definitely an intriguing and likeable character.  He is also kept a bit of an enigma throughout the book – a bit of a mysterious personality to add to the overall mystery.  Honestly, this character is the main reason I will, at some point, read further in this series.  I do wonder how much mileage Pendergast will have – do readers get tired and aggravated with him?

Anyway, the rest of the characters are very obviously good guys or bad guys.  Character development is not strong here.  The supporting rôle characters, D’Agosta and Margo, are major characters in the story, but they are so obvious about everything.  D’Agosta is the police officer who originally is called to the Museum for the situation and who originally is working alongside Pendergast.  Eventually, D’Agosta has a rather heroic rôle and he gets a happy ending.  He is the stereotype of the grouchy, tough, veteran NYC cop. Margo is one of two female characters (the other is really a hideous thing) in the novel. Margo Green starts the novel off – she is the more mundane character we are to feel sympathy for and who seems swept up in the chaos.  Try as you like, Margo just isn’t very engaging. Her rôle here is to give a perspective in order to balance Pendergast and D’Agosta.  Though I think we ought to like her, she is just too cardboard and inconsequential.

The setting is the real star.  The New York Museum of Natural History as a setting would delight any reader, I think, in any genre. The setting is a super great choice because it contains the whole plot to a limited zone, but yet, it is a huge zone with many exterior connections.  It is also a location many people are familiar with and it contains great contrast of the ancient and the cutting edge.  As far as the pacing, there is a lot of backstory and, honestly, at points it really does drag on slowly.  If I had to guess, the pacing would have been the main reason I failed to get through this novel previously. There is a lot of backstory and not all of it is very interesting.  In fact some of it is tedious.  There is a scientific theory used here that Child used in Terminal Freeze, viz the Callisto effect. The first time I read it (in that book) it was interesting, now I am desensitized to it. I guess, like everyone else, I should have read Relic first?

So, while I have some complaints, I do not think this is a bad novel. I remember 1995, this was surely an excellent bestseller then. Now that we have the internet and we are all experts in absolutely everything, maybe it seems a little less amazing.  However, this is a pretty good summertime read.  I do not know if it is an adventure novel or a mystery novel…. I think it gets placed in that strange and unclear “thriller” genre.  

It took me a year to get through this:  I cannot exactly say that this book was edge of the seat reading. There are rewards if the reader pushes through all of the talking, the backstory, and the ill-tempered characters.  I can recommend it to fans of monsters, fans of evolutionary biology, and general readers.

4 stars 

Terminal Freeze

Recently, I finished Terminal Freeze by Lincoln Child. It was published in 2009 and I think has been on the to-be-read shelves forever. Among the slight changes in my reading habits this year (reading crime, reading small publishers, reading things other than science fiction) is the effort to clear the shelves! Be advised, I say that is a goal every year. I read Deep Storm by Lincoln Child in 2017 and I did not give it high marks. Terminal Freeze seemed both better and worse than that previous read.

As I started reading this, I was sure it was going to be a quick, but annoying read. For the first quarter of the book I was so unenthused and unimpressed. Everything seemed so utterly obvious, heavy-handed, and predictable. Not to mention, there was not anything about the plot that seemed even a bit engaging. All of the characters were vexing, the setting was annoying, the plot seemed very predictable. Halfway through the novel, I admit I was more engaged in the story and I was turning pages without annoyance. So its not high-brow literature, but what happens next? Maybe I’m a bit of a sucker because I just like being entertained by a story?

Since this is pulp-adventure, I do not want to ruin the thing by handing over the plot to those who may wish to read it. Suffice to say, it takes place in an old (Cold War era) US Army ice station in Alaska. There are a team of scientists there who are funded, through a number of channels, by Hollywood.  The scientists discover something, a random native shaman shows up, and then the base is overrun by the production company. The scientists are chafed because the production company takes charge and the “relationship” of the scientists and the movie-makers is clarified.  All hell breaks loose when the discovery, which is the focal point for the documentary, goes missing. Action ensues.

I have a lot of interests, but TV and movies, film and cinematography are not them. I am even confronted on occasion by film theory and I still struggle to participate.  I watch very little TV and film. And all the “classic” and “important” film? Yeah, I probably have not seen it – and you would not really want me to because it would be lost on me. I know everyone thinks I’m kidding when I say I lose track of where the TVs are in my home. I have known some film theory “fans/experts” and when they talk about these things they are very animated and it seems so intense for them. I appreciate that there are people out there with this interest.

I mention this to say that I have a natural (strong?) dislike toward film production. That it plays such a central component to this novel was a surprise for me and an immediate turn off.  There is a particular character who takes his film theory, film production immensely seriously – more important than life itself. (By the way, this is how ALL film theory/producers and directors seem TO ME. They all seem obsessed and eccentric and intense; is this image one that they self-cultivate?) This character is really well written because he does fit a lot of the stereotypes and he provides another challenge point for the storyline. Yes, he can be horribly obsessed and unbelieveable. He’s not a villain, per se, but he plays a character archetype – the weirdly obsessed/driven. Readers immediately will dislike him and as the story progresses, even his most devoted and loyal “co-workers” begin to be disgusted and disillusioned with him. However he is one of the reasons I am giving this novel another star:  thinking about the things he is saying about the filming, the film industry…. he is entirely correct, regardless of the morality of the situation. It is this intense “sacrifice everything for the product” mentality that is both abhorent and yet vitally truthful; unexpected in a pulp adventure novel.

I really enjoyed how no matter the setbacks or failures that occur, this character was pushing the boundaries and re-imagining his film creation. He even was willing, at the last, to do the grunt work himself. Morally misguided, perhaps, but utterly dedicated to his idea of what his work is.

He waved at two bookcases full of DVDs that framed the screen. “You see those? That is my reference library. The greatest films ever made: the most beautiful, the most groundbreaking, the most though provoking.  The Battleship Potemkin, Intolerance, Rashomon, Double Indemnity, L’Avventura, The Seventh Seal – they are all here. I never travel anywhere without them. Yet they are not just my solace, Dr. Marshall – they are my oracle, my Delphic temple. Some turn to the Bible, for guidance; others, the I Ching, I have these. And they never fail me.” – Conti, pg. 153 (chapter 18)

I admit throughout the book I was expecting a certain nefariousness from a character. I did keep waiting for Gonzalez (one of the soldiers) to show “true colors” and be at the heart of the drama. This never happened. But it frequently happens that I will not get the storyline guessed out. Instead, Gonzalez ended up being quite wysiwyg.  The character Logan, though, is utterly pointless. I don’t know what he does except to make it seem like he is a storyline guide, really. I have not read a lot of books where I felt like there was a character inserted in a plot that was a guide for the other characters to stay on plot. Its strange.

Frankly, the native shaman character was also a bit superfluous. I mean, he adds a bit of local interest and supernatural/unnatural flavor to the book. He is there to add a wee bit of Other to the novel, balancing out the science and military. But is he really necessary? Nope, honestly I kept waiting for him to “do something” other than just be native and mysterious. I guess he is the main character’s therapist or doppleganger or something.

Finally, the best parts of the action, I think, were the segments dealing with the ice road trucker. That was some edge-of-my-seat reading. If this is a thriller, it wasn’t because of the kaiju-monster-survival stuff, it was, for me, the nervous-wreck reaction to ice road driving. Maybe because I have had plenty of driving in blizzards and ice storms and I could access those feelings.

Not great literature and superficial and full of obvious plot points. The characters are very wysiwyg. The plot is survival within a difficult setting against a scary supernatural/unnatural monster. I am glad I finally read it and can recommend it as a good, lightweight adventure story to readers who need basic entertainment. Read it for the film aspects and less for the native Alaskan elements.

3 stars

Deep Storm

I finished Deep Storm by Lincoln Child today. It was first published in 2007. This is the first novel I have read by Child, though I think I own a couple of other ones.  Overall, I was not impressed by this novel.  Also, since it is not at all Child’s first published work, it is also difficult to be very giving in the rating. In case you do not know, this novel is a techno-thriller/adventure-pulp story – it also is science fiction. But the science fiction is a little different than, say, Star Wars-style.

Overall, I feel this novel is lazy in some places.  The novel came across to me as if the author wanted to write a techno-thriller – a topic that he does know a lot about – but the story aspects he just threw together a bit carelessly. The story takes place on and very much under an oil rig in the North Atlantic.  On a routine drill, weird signals and malfunctions occur.  The Navy is somehow made aware and scientists, both military and civilian, are called in. A huge cutting-edge facility is built on the surface of the ocean floor deep below the oil rig. Efforts to continue research are made.  Until crew start getting ill.  Dr. Peter Crane is summoned by the chief civilian scientist to come aboard this confidential mission and help determine what is making the crew ill.  Part of the reason Crane agrees to the whole thing is that the scientists entice him with the cryptic talk of what they found below the sea. For the first half of the novel, there are many hints to Crane and the reader that it is actually Atlantis.  Honestly, I would have preferred if it were Atlantis rather than the alien route that the storyline took.

Crane does not get a warm welcome. There is friction between the civilian scientists and the military presence. Furthermore, the medical cases are all distinct and Crane is given a frustrating amount of resistance in his attempts to find answers. Crane is an ex-Navy doctor with submarine experience so he, supposedly, pulls on some of that to assist in dealing with matters in the Deep Storm Facility.

The leader of the whole expedition is Admiral Spartan – that’s Richard Ulysses Spartan. I cannot even believe an author would attempt such a heavy-handed name. As I mentioned earlier, there is an effort to make Deep Storm about Atlantis – and then there is a big reveal in a different direction.  Using these monstrous Greek names is not witty, its obnoxious.

Anyway, there are several issues I have with the novel. One of them is the main character, Peter Crane.  For at least two-thirds of the novel, Crane is really quite useless. He bumbles around doing nothing and being daft – merely existing as a focal point for the author to tell the story. I mean, he just gets lost in corridors and keeps asking the same questions. I find it difficult to say he was even necessary to the story, which is odd because he is the main character!  He does not have much development, nor does he have much depth [pun!].  Crane is exactly what he is when we first meet him, with no hidden complexities. He might be a good doctor, but as detective he is a bum.

Secondly, there is a really quick chapter (just a few pages) wherein one of the original characters on page one returns and there is a cameo of a character named Wallace and an explosive interchange between the two.  We next meet Wallace aboard the rig, we do not know how he got there. Throughout the rest of the novel his motivations remain hidden, although while previously he seemed like a leader, in future segments he seems just like a goon. Its not great storytelling.

Another issue is with the character Hui Ping – she is a scientist. We have already been told that the Facility has hired only the top-notch scientists. Yet she does not know what a Faraday screen is. Aliens and technology are believable – but not a scientist not knowing what a Faraday screen is. The author makes sure to utilize this character several times: her knowledge of the layout of the facility is integral to the story and her awesome ability to do forensic computer things is vital as well.  She is also able to recognize patterns in data and analyze binary code. The whole lack of Faraday screen knowledge killed this character for me, though. Lazy writing, I guess.

Further, I think the layout and geography of the underwater facility ought to have been presented with a map or a quick schematic. After awhile, though Dr. Crane kept telling us what floor he was on, I lost track of what it all meant. When authors constantly remind you about location, I want location to be important and significant, not just filler.

Suffice to say, its adventure-pulp. There is a mystery and several bad guys and it is a techno-thriller. However, it is not the best effort by an author. Frankly, I was somewhat bored.

2 stars