Second Genesis

Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, a field biologist counting insects and questioning the importance of her work stumbles upon a hidden laboratory fenced in with barb wire and a veil of secrecy. When she witnesses a chimpanzee behaving oddly, building a altar of some sort and then writing words in the dirt with a stick, she realizes this could be an opportunity of a lifetime.

Cue the incredibly derivative plot. Shady scientists, hyper-intelligent apes, humans at the mercy of their own creation, and so on. There's plenty of Planet of the Apes and Frankenstein here, with all the hundreds of pages of excess fluffy thriller additive to make it all the more 'readable.' There's adventure in an exotic locale, disastrous implications, a love story, show more horrible monsters, theological meanderings, and perhaps some animal rights commentary if you read into it a bit. Yep, all that, and not done horribly either, although it still left the mundane taste of a cheap thriller in my mind after completing it. Meh. I'd rather read science non-thrillers, personally. The science alone is often thrilling enough, I can do without the gun fights and chase scenes. show less

This book has bursts of brillant thinking, but also some mediocore writing. The sections on neuroscience were quite interesting and educational. The adventure and suspense were mostly mediocore. THe area that I thought has a burst of brillance was the synthesis of science and religion has illustrated by this quote: "What begins in biology can end in trasnscendence. Don't underestimate God's creation." I hope to read more by Anderson in the future, he has a lot of potential.

Jamie Kendrick stumbles on an isolated laboratory in the Brazilian rain forest. She encounters a chimpanzee in the connected enclosed fenced area. Jamie climbs the fence, is spotted and brought inside the lab. She explains that she is a scientist and offers to work for the company when she learns they are doing stem cell research and using chimps as test animals. The work has made the chimps nearly human as far as their ability to solve problems logically, write and react emotionally. The chimps aren't happy with the testing done on them. When an intruder gets inside the room with the chimp cages, he accidentally opens one, that chimp gets out, unlocks the other cages and the chimps kill the three lead scientists and escape. Now Jamie show more leads an expedition into the rain forest to capture the lead chimp before more people die.
Jan Lamers show less