Book Review! Extinction by Douglas Preston

Extinction by Douglas Preston
Genre: Adult Fiction (Thriller / Mystery / Science Fiction)
Date Published: April 2, 2024
Publisher: Forge Books

With Extinction, #1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston has written a page-turning thriller in the Michael Crichton mode that explores the possible and unintended dangers of the very real efforts to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other long-extinct animals.

Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire's son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.

As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection―but extinction.

Extinction of the first book I’ve read by Douglas Preston, and it didn’t disappoint. I wouldn’t really compare it to Jurassic Park too much, but if you loved Jurassic Park you’ll like this one.  This is more of a mystery. Who’s the bad guy/bad guys? In Jurassic Park, the enemy was always clear, because they weren’t the main point of the story. In Extinction, the story starts with mysterious killings, and it builds from there. I loved the imagery of the mammoths and other prehistoric mammals. It was written beautifully. 

This story was very well told. Especially since it was told from multiple perspectives which can sometimes get messy. This one was put together nicely. It did drag in areas, but when it was going, it really went. There were brutal bits, but they were mainly left to the imagination rather than a full description. Sometimes less is more, and while I’m not one to get queasy, I feel like if you do, this style wouldn’t be as hard on you. It was interesting! You can tell the author did some research here, and that makes it all the better. 

Even though it never ends well, fictionally speaking, I’ve gotta say I’d line up to see these creatures. Dinos. Mammals. It’d be worth the risk to see them. Sign me up!

The ARC of Extinction by Douglas Preston was kindly provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for review. The opinions are my own.

Olivia lay in the dark, Mark breathing softly next to her. The night was still, without the breath of breeze, the silence profound. It had dropped below freezing, but their sleeping bags were super warm, and she was used to camping in alpine weather. Her dad had taken her and her brothers camping in the Wasatches and Manti-La Sal in all seasons, sometimes on cross-country ski trips in the dead of winter in ten-foot-deep snow and nights to twenty below. God, she missed him. Mark was a little like that, unintimidated by wilderness conditions, totally cool with anything nature might throw at him. The first thing she did with any new boyfriend was go camping. So many of them, despite their big talk, failed the test — all it took was a little rain or snow, a swarm of mosquitoes, or a rattler, and they were in a panic. Or they just didn’t have a wilderness sense — like casually leaving trash or pissing too close to a stream or not knowing how to set up a tent. She shifted her body, not feeling the slightest bit tired. The sun set so early in the fall, it was still probably only eight o’clock. She wished she could fall asleep like Mark, who could drop off anywhere, anytime, in five minutes. It was a dark, moonless night. The mammoths would be sleeping in their hollow below them. She listened, wondering if mammoths snored. But she could hear nothing. Her mind wandered, and she thought of her Olympic medal, sitting in its sock in the back of her underwear drawer in Salt Lake. All those years of work, struggle, risks, crashes, injuries, surgery, rehab, recovery, more work, more struggle — and finally Pyeongchang. All that work had been squeezed up and stamped in a piece of bronze sitting in the back of her drawer. Mark had been upset that she wouldn’t frame it and hang it with a picture of her receiving it on the stand. Why would she? She hated even looking at it. It would be different for her child. Son or daughter, it didn’t matter. He or she wouldn’t make the mistakes she’d made. Olivia had been through it all and knew now how the system worked and what had to be done, and she could guide her child to something a whole lot better than bronze. She suddenly was hyperalert, tense. She heard a sound. A strange plucking sound. Mark was instantly awake too. And then it started, the loud tearing sound of the tent fly, like it was being cut. “What the f***?” Mark sat up like a shot. She pulled a headlamp out of the tent pocket and switched it on. She shined it through the mosquito netting of the inner tent to reveal a long, ragged cut in the outer fly. “What was that?” said Mark. “A branch?” “There’s no wind,” Olivia said. “You think it’s a bear?” he said. “They said the bears had been removed.” “Yeah, but one could have wandered back in over the mountains.” Olivia wondered. Maybe it was an animal, smelling the humans inside and reaching out to scratch the fly just to see what it was. They listened, but the silence was total. “I’m going out,” said Mark. “No, wait.” “I’m not waiting. If it’s a cat or bear, we’d better drive it away. We can’t wait for it to come in here.” He took the headlamp from her, put it on, and pulled his buck knife from its sheath, before slipping out of the bag. He was wearing Capilene full-body long johns. He went to the tent door and unzipped it. He paused. No sound. Then he stuck his head outside the door. “See anything?” “Nothing.” She was filled with uncertainty. It could be a mountain lion in wait. Maybe it ran off when they turned on the headlamp. But Mark was right: they couldn’t just cower in the tent. They had to do something. Calling out for the guide would only put him in a place of danger, and besides, asking for help from the guide ran against her wilderness ethic. She felt around and grasped her own knife and put on her own headlamp but didn’t turn it on yet. “Okay, I’m going out,” he said, and slipped out into the dark. She could see the glow of his light indistinctly through the tent fabric as he swept the area. She tensed, gripping her own knife. The glow quietly moved about for a long thirty seconds. She heard him suddenly grunt—a weird sort of snort — and there was the sound of spilling liquid, and the glow vanished. “Mark?” Olivia cried. “Mark!” No sound. She sprang to the tent flap and looked out, turning on her headlamp and sweeping the area with the light. There was his knife, on the ground. Nearby lay his headlamp in the grass, still lit. “Mark!” she screamed. “Mark! Hey, we need help here!” she cried, leaping out of the tent, gripping the knife. She stopped where he had dropped his knife and headlamp and stared at the ground in horror — just as she felt something strike the back of her neck and slide in, crunching the bone and going through it, as hot as fire and cold as ice at the same time. 

Douglas Preston has published thirty-six books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which twenty-nine have been New York Times bestsellers. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He writes about archaeology and anthropology for the New Yorker Magazine, and he worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest association of authors and journalists.

To learn more about Douglas Preston and his books, visit his website. You can also find him on Goodreads, Facebook, and YouTube.

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Book Review: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Genre: Adult Fiction (Science Fiction)
Date Published: January 1, 1897
Publisher: William Heinemann of London

They came from outer space -- Mars, to be exact.

With deadly heat-rays and giant fighting machine they want to conquer Earth and keep humans as their slaves.

Nothing seems to stop them as they spread terror and death across the planet. It is the start of the most important war in Earth's history.

And Earth will never be the same.

This edition of War of the Worlds includes a Introduction, Biographical Note, and Afterword by James Gunn.

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells was told by an unnamed main character. It’s told from his personal perspective. There isn’t a built up plot with character building. We don’t even know his name. It seems to be told after the fact, almost like he’s remembering the past events and telling us about it or journaling. I know there are supposed to be hidden meanings within the story about England at the time and whatnot, but I wanted to read it as the story I’ve heard so much about. I’ve seen the movie, a Tv show, and heard about a radio show based on the book. Supposedly the radio show is a pretty darn good re-telling. So good that people at the time thought it was going on in real life. I remember learning about it in a college journalism class and completely forgot about it until now, so I’m going to check that out, and include a recording below. As far as this book is concerned? I don’t know. I was disappointed. I mean, I think it’s super cool that this is one of the first books about aliens attacking earth, but it all fell a little flat for me.

Book One:
The Coming of the Martians

Chapter 1
The Eve of the War No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature at which life could begin. It has air and water and all that is necessary for the support of animated existence.

Yet so vain is man and so blinded by his vanity, that no writer up to the very end of the nineteenth century expressed any idea that intelligent life might have developed there far, or indeed at all, beyond its earthly level. Nor was it generally understood that since Mars is older than our earth, with scarcely a quarter of the superficial area and remoter from the sun, it necessarily follows that Mars is not only more distant from life’s beginning but also nearer its end.

The secular cooling that must someday overtake our planet has already gone far indeed with our neighbor. Its physical condition is still largely a mystery, but we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature barely approaches that of our coldest winter. Its air is much more attenuated than ours, its oceans have shrunk until they cover but a third of its surface, and as its slow seasons change huge snowcaps gather and melt about either pole and periodically inundate its temperate zones. That last stage of exhaustion, which to us is still incredibly remote, has become a present-day problem for the inhabitants of Mars. The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts. And looking across space with instruments, and with intelligences such as we have scarcely dreamed of they see, at its nearest distance only 35,000,000 of miles sunward of them, a morning star of hope—our own warmer planet, green with vegetation and gray with water, with a cloudy atmosphere eloquent of fertility, with glimpses through drifting cloud-wisps of broad stretches of populous country and narrow navy-crowded seas.

And we men, the creatures who inhabit this earth, must be to them at least as alien and lowly as are the monkeys and lemurs to us. The intellectual side of man already admits that life is an incessant struggle for existence, and it would seem that this too is the belief of the minds upon Mars. Their world is far gone in its cooling and this world is still crowded with life, but crowded only with what they regard as inferior animals. To carry warfare sunward is indeed their only escape from the destruction that generation after generation creeps upon them.

And before we judge of them too harshly we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?

The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing subtlety—their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours—and to have carried out their preparations with a well-nigh perfect unanimity. Had our instruments permitted it, we might have seen the gathering trouble far back in the nineteenth century. Men like Schiaparelli watched the red planet—it is odd, by the way, that for countless centuries Mars has been the star of war—but failed to interpret the fluctuating appearances of the markings they mapped so well. All that time the Martians must have been getting ready.

During the opposition of 1894 a great light was seen on the illuminated part of the disk, first at the Lick Observatory, then by Perrotin of Nice, and then by other observers. English readers heard of it first in the issue of Nature dated August 2nd. I am inclined to think that this blaze may have been the casting of the huge gun, in the vast pit sunk into their planet, from which their shots were fired at us. Peculiar markings as yet unexplained were seen near the site of that outbreak during the next two oppositions.

The storm burst upon us six years ago now. As Mars approached opposition Lavelle of Java set the wires of the astronomical exchange palpitating with the amazing intelligence of a huge outbreak of incandescent gas upon the planet. It had occurred toward midnight of the 12th; and the spectroscope to which he had at once resorted indicated a mass of flaming gas, chiefly hydrogen, moving with an enormous velocity toward this earth. This jet of fire had become invisible about a quarter past twelve. He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, “as flaming gases rushed out of a gun.”

A singularly appropriate phrase it proved. Yet the next day there was nothing of this in the papers except a little note in the Daily Telegraph, and the world went in ignorance of one of the gravest dangers that ever threatened the human race. I might not have heard of the eruption at all had I not met Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer, at Ottershaw. He was immensely excited at the news, and in the excess of his feelings invited me up to take a turn with him that night in a scrutiny of the red planet.

In spite of all that has happened since I still remember that vigil very distinctly: the black and silent observatory, the shadowed lantern throwing a feeble glow upon the floor in the corner, the steady ticking of the clockwork of the telescope, the little slit in the roof—an oblong profundity with the star dust streaked across it. Ogilvy moved about, invisible but audible. Looking through the telescope one saw a circle of deep blue and the little round planet swimming in the field. It seemed such a little thing, so bright and small and still, faintly marked with transverse stripes and slightly flattened from the perfect round. But so little it was, so silvery warm—a pin’s head of light! It was as if it quivered, but really this was the telescope vibrating with the activity of the clockwork that kept the planet in view.

As I watched, the planet seemed to grow larger and smaller and to advance and recede, but that was simply that my eye was tired. Forty millions of miles it was from us—more than forty million miles of void. Few people realize the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.

Near it in the field, I remember, were three faint points of light, three telescopic stars infinitely remote, and all around it was the unfathomable darkness of empty space. You know how that blackness looks on a frosty starlight night. In a telescope it seems far profounder. And invisible to me because it was so remote and small, flying swiftly and steadily toward me across that incredible distance, drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles, came the Thing they were sending us, the Thing that was to bring so much struggle and calamity and death to the earth. I never dreamed of it then as I watched; no one on earth dreamed of that unerring missile.

That night, too, there was another jetting out of gas from the distant planet. I saw it. A reddish flash at the edge, the slightest projection of the outline just as the chronometer struck midnight; and at that I told Ogilvy and he took my place. The night was warm and I was thirsty, and I went, stretching my legs clumsily and feeling my way in the darkness, to the little table where the siphon stood, while Ogilvy exclaimed at the streamer of gas that came out toward us.

That night another invisible missile started on its way to the earth from Mars just a second or so under twenty-four hours after the first one. I remember how I sat on the table there in the blackness with patches of green and crimson swimming before my eyes. I wished I had a light to smoke by, little suspecting the meaning of the minute gleam I had seen and all that it would presently bring me. Ogilvy watched till one, and then gave it up, and we lit the lantern and walked over to his house. Down below in the darkness were Ottershaw and Chertsey and all their hundreds of people, sleeping in peace.

He was full of speculation that night about the condition of Mars, and scoffed at the vulgar idea of its having inhabitants who were signaling us. His idea was that meteorites might be falling in a heavy shower upon the planet, or that a huge volcanic explosion was in progress. He pointed out to me how unlikely it was that organic evolution had taken the same direction in the two adjacent planets.

“The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one,” he said.

Hundreds of observers saw the flame that night and the night after about midnight, and again the night after; and so for ten nights, a flame each night. Why the shots ceased after the tenth no one on earth has attempted to explain. It may be the gases of the firing caused the Martians inconvenience. Dense clouds of smoke or dust, visible through a powerful telescope on earth as little gray fluctuating patches, spread through the clearness of the planet’s atmosphere and obscured its more familiar features.

Even the daily papers woke up to the disturbances at last, and popular notes appeared here, there and everywhere concerning the volcanoes upon Mars. The seriocomic periodical Punch, I remember, made a happy use of it in the political cartoon. And all unsuspected, those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthward, rushing now at a pace of many miles a second through the empty gulf of space, hour by hour and day by day, nearer and nearer. It seems to me now almost incredibly wonderful that, with that swift fate hanging over us, men could go about their petty concerns as they did. I remember how jubilant Markham was at securing a new photograph of the planet for the illustrated paper he edited in those days. People in these latter times scarcely realize the abundance and enterprise of our nineteenth-century papers. For my own part, I was much occupied in learning to ride a bicycle, and busy upon a series of papers discussing the probable developments of moral ideas as civilization progressed.

One night (the first missile then could scarcely have been 10,000,000 miles away) I went for a walk with my wife. It was starlight, and I explained the signs of the zodiac to her and pointed out Mars, a bright dot of light creeping zenithward, toward which so many telescopes were pointed. It was a warm night. Coming home, a party of excursionists from Chertsey or Isleworth passed us singing and playing music. There were lights in the upper windows of the houses as the people went to bed. From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance. My wife pointed out to me the brightness of the red, green, and yellow signal lights hanging in a framework against the sky. It seemed so safe and tranquil.

"War of the Worlds" 1938 Radio Broadcast

Herbert George Wells was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography and autobiography. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and has been called the "father of science fiction."

To learn more about H.G. Wells and his books, visit him on Goodreads.

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Book Review: Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Opposition (Lux #5) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal/Fantasy Romance/Science Fiction)
Date Published: August 5, 2014
Publisher: Entangled Teen

Katy knows the world changed the night the Luxen came.

She can't believe Daemon welcomed his race or stood by as his kind threatened to obliterate every last human and hybrid on Earth. But the lines between good and bad have blurred, and love has become an emotion that could destroy her—could destroy them all.

Daemon will do anything to save those he loves, even if it means betrayal.

They must team with an unlikely enemy if there is any chance of surviving the invasion. But when it quickly becomes impossible to tell friend from foe, and the world is crumbling around them, they may lose everything— even what they cherish most—to ensure the survival of their friends…and mankind.

War has come to Earth. And no matter the outcome, the future will never be the same for those left standing.

Opposition is the fifth and final book in the Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Everything we've read in the previous four books has been building up towards this book. There are so many ups and downs throughout the story... never a dull moment. And, I'm talking about big ups and downs.  War is on the horizon. Actually, the war has already started really. Some character's... well their character comes into question. The characters never let you down though. Good or bad, they bring this story to life and keep it alive. I know I've said this before, but having read some of the books from the next series in this world... I can't stress enough how much you need to read this series before the Origin series. I really wish I would have done that, because going into this series, I already knew the futures of some of these characters. Sooo many spoilers. Not that it ruined my enjoyment of the book, because no, I still loved it like crazy. But, not knowing is so much more fun. I'm so glad there are more books that take place in this world with many of these same characters. It's a fictional world I never want to leave!

Check out my reviews of other books in this series...

Check out my reviews of other books by this author!

# 1 New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. She also writes adult and New Adult romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.

To learn more about Jennifer L. Armentrout and her books, visit her website. You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, BookBub, and Twitter. You can also check out her Goodreads page as J. Lynn.

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Book Review: Origin by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Origin (Lux #4) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Genre: Young Adult (Paranormal/Fantasy Romance/Science Fiction)
Date Published: August 27, 2013
Publisher: Entangled Teen

Daemon will do anything to get Katy back.

After the successful but disastrous raid on Mount Weather, he’s facing the impossible. Katy is gone. Taken. Everything becomes about finding her. Taking out anyone who stands in his way? Done. Burning down the whole world to save her? Gladly. Exposing his alien race to the world? With pleasure.

All Katy can do is survive.

Surrounded by enemies, the only way she can come out of this is to adapt. After all, there are sides of Daedalus that don’t seem entirely crazy, but the group’s goals are frightening and the truths they speak even more disturbing. Who are the real bad guys? Daedalus? Mankind? Or the Luxen?

Together, they can face anything.

But the most dangerous foe has been there all along, and when the truths are exposed and the lies come crumbling down, which side will Daemon and Katy be standing on?

And will they even be together?

Origin is the fourth book in the Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Daemon is a man on a mission, and he has some excellent lines. His intensity is palpable. I love his love for Katy. Their relationship is beautiful. This book isn't all about the romance though. There's so much more. This series s a lot of fun in many ways. Even though I wish I would have completely read this series before starting the Origin series, it's been fun seeing things come together and meeting characters that play bigger roles in those books.There is a lot of action, a lot of revelations. Some folks aren't what they seem. Some are. And that ending? Things are getting real quickly! 

 

Check out my reviews of other books in this series...

Check out my reviews of other books by this author!

# 1 New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, working out, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. She also writes adult and New Adult romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.

To learn more about Jennifer L. Armentrout and her books, visit her website. You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, BookBub, and Twitter. You can also check out her Goodreads page as J. Lynn.

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