Relic

“Relic” was published only twenty years ago but it reads like it’s from at least a decade earlier – less “Jurrasic Park”, more “Poseidon Adventure”.

“Relic” is based on a complex idea on how a monstrous creature might evolve but the exposition of the idea is clumsily done. Most of the book reads like a “Monster In The Basement” slash/horror piece except without the exploitative gore.

It was a fun as a leisurely “remember when they wrote books like this?” read, but wouldn’t really count as a thriller today: the pace is too slow, the build up goes on for too long, one of the main action sequences happens off-stage, and there are too many characters.

It does have some good “Saturday Matinee” moments: there is show more a rude, cowardly, stupid FBI Special Agent to hiss and boo at; an urbane Southern Gentleman, FBI Special Agent to cheer for (although, if you do, he’ll look modestly away and say “I did nothing particularly praiseworthy), a rough but brave NYPD Lieutenant to save the day; venal academics who suppress the truth and pay the price for it and brave, politically correct academics (an older prof in a wheel chair and his young, female grad student) who pursue the truth and save the day. Finally, there is The Creature. It’s a well thought through Creature, probably the best thing in the book, but it still screams werewolf meets lizard man.

The structure of the book creaks: there’s a slow opening in Africa, then another opening in New York, that explains everything that happened in Africa, then the main action when The Creature attacks, then a “Six Weeks Later…” section to wrap up the odds and ends, then an Epilogue that finally (but still slowly) explains the plot and set up a the sequel.

Oddly, one of the things that sticks with me about the book was how annoyed I was at the fictional New York Natural History Museum’s lack of care of the items its patrons had pillaged throughout the world. It seems absurd to me that artifacts stolen from the Sioux, the Inuit and the Navajo would be labelled “Anthropology”, but that’s the kind of dissonance that makes reading period books interesting.

Another minor irritation was the authors’ use of “shined” instead of “shone” and “knealed” instead of “knelt”. Why would an editor let that usage pass, except in direct speech?

“Relic” was made into a not-bad creature feature called ” The Relic”. The plot remained much the same, the number of characters was reduced and, for reasons I don’t understand, the action moved from New York to Chicago. show less

A bit longish. Pendergast is a superstar - but how long can his cool persona last before a reader gets bored with him? I liked the setting a whole lot. Child has used the evolutionary biology concept described in this book in one of his other books ( "Terminal Freeze" and the Callisto effect.). I got a little annoyed with some of the characters because I feel the book has a higher concentration of nasty people than it should. And Margo is one of two female characters - the other one is really awful. I wanted to like Margo, but she is just an outline, no matter how much the authors tried to build out her personality.

I really liked the exhibit going to heck, the chase and the escapes. The authors wrote the monster and the fear-factors show more really well. I enjoyed the lengthy-diatribes on science. I also felt the backbiting and squabbles of the academics was stereotypical -but probably valid and true. This is a good adventure/mystery. A little slow in developing the backstories into the current drama. show less

Highly entertaining pseudo-scientific thriller featuring a very interesting monster concept. I loved the epilogue where the true nature/origin of Mbwun was revealed, and how it set things up for a sequel - which I will be reading soon.

Oh, sure, you can say that the characters are feel relatively rote (except Pendergast, who - while showing signs of the Holmes family tree - is refreshingly unique) and that the dialogue sometimes is a bit predictable. You can even argue that characters behave irrationally, all in the interest of furthering the story. I'm not going to necessarily disagree with you - but I also didn't really care. This isn't a book that you look to for exceptional flights of prose (although there are some damn good lines, to be fair) but rather one that you come to for the thrill of it, for the desire to (as I did last night) stay up past midnight pushing through to the end. For me, this novel is a charming reminder that sometimes we're meant to sit back show more and just enjoy the adventure - suspend any disbelief and just have fun. And this is a great novel with which to do just that.

Full review from RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/01/08/relic-pendergast-1/ show less

I have to put this up front, if you are not a fan of gory murders full of graphic detail in your book, or get bored with scientific theories in your fiction this may not be the book for you.

This book is the first collaborative work of Preston and Child, and also the first in the Pendergast series. Unlike most of the books in this series it cannot be read as a standalone and is followed on by Reliquary; the other two books that must be read in order in the series are Dance of Death/Book of the Dead. But I digress, I’m reviewing Relic not the entire, to date, 14 book series. I picked this up on the recommendation of a friend and, not knowing what to expect, was taken by surprise; it is the first book written by these two Authors I have show more read.

I found the characters both intriguing and infuriating at the same time, and was pleasantly surprised to see that the aforementioned Pendergast was not actually the main protagonist in this book, rather took a secondary place to another. I thought this was a great way of introducing a character that would eventually become the focus of a lengthy series, rather than having him leap out of the pages at the reader full bore and in your face. It actually is one of the reasons I will probably continue to read more in this series, he intrigued me and made me want to find out more about him. In creating the characters in this book, the Authors supplied enough details about them to allow the readers imagination to fill in the blanks or speculate as to what might follow. It is not only Pendergast that the Authors decided to just give ‘tasters’ to the character personality, they applied this to all the characters in the book and, while I found it an interesting way to lead into a series, I would have preferred to have more background on some of those characters who were probably not going to make it out of the end jacket alive, and this is the reasoning behind my 4 thumbs review.

It is a fast paced book, full of twists and turns that I really didn’t see coming. This edge of the seat action kept me turning the pages until to my surprise I had finished the book in a day. The idea of the entirety of the story line taking place in a Museum, and the suspense this brings with it makes this a book a would recommend to anyone who enjoys a book full of twists, turns and a little humour in places.


Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2015/07/13/review-relic-pendergast-1-douglas-preston-...





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. show less

This is my first Preston and Child book and it was quite the romp. First of all, there was the fun of meeting several irritating characters (museum mucky-mucks) that I later hoped would die. Then there was a slow build-up to the suspenseful disaster/killing spree.

Part of the interest for me was the setting in the natural history museum in New York, but I definitely needed to suspend my disbelief a number of times (more than I prefer).

I listened to the audio by David Colacci, and was briefly put off by the large variety of strong accents, but later appreciated it. There are a lot of conversations with multiple people that could have been tough to follow without the clear identification of accents.

“What we have here is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

When I was a young horror-watching gal, I used to watch Relic. I didn’t know it was based on a book, but I enjoyed its fun monster movie gimmicks set in a conveniently too-dark museum. The past few years I’ve seen mention of these authors, and even had an unread book of theirs donning my shelves, yet I knew nothing about them. I wasn’t sure if they wrote horror, mystery, but knew I’d figure it out eventually. (edited to note – I still don’t know their genre really – horror/mystery/thriller??) Now fast forward to this year, after I bought a lot more of their books from a friend, where I was finally spurred on by a group read, where everyone was show more digging into Relic, and now here we finally are.

If you were like me and had seen the movie but not read the book, expect big differences. Murders occur at the New York Museum of Natural History before a major opening exhibit, prompting the arrival of the local detective D’Agosta. When more bodies pop up, enter the FBI agent Pendergast. It slowly becomes clear to the characters that more than a mere man is responsible for these monstrosities. Half the book is mystery trying to figure the culprit; the other half is figuring out how to best the beast and escape with their lives.

Despite being a fascinating story, the book does produce dull moments, especially in the first quarter. It keeps picking up, however, and proved to be a surprisingly quick read at 473 pages. The slightly sedate pace worked well to develop the right kind of atmosphere for a creepy tale. The close wraps up the book with a wallop ending I didn’t see coming.

I’d heard about what a great character Pendergast is – and he proved to be all that and more (except my misgivings about big game hunting stories). He takes a while to come on board, but meanwhile detective D’Agosta is an unexpected delight who steals the page-time just as hard. Margo as the main character is serviceable but nothing special.

Thanks to the characters we have humor, but thanks to the writers we have a dark book that’s hard to put down. You can almost feel the shadows closing in when reading this one. Tense scenes are riveting, I may have chewed a fingernail or two. The monster is a creepy villain who manages to stay creepy even when he’s not on scene. It’s not particularly bloody, but it’s violent when needed. Mystery is strong as I figured things out slowly along with the other characters. A good thing about intellectual mumbo-jumbo like this is I can’t fully pre-guess what’s going to happen since I can’t fully grasp it in the first place!

The ending leaves the book open for a sequel. Once you close the page you’re already ready for more. Despite some slower areas and a little academically dry dribble, this was an excellent start to a series I plan to continue. show less