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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'Alien' meets 'Jurassic Park' in this terrifying thriller, 27 Jul 2000
By A Customer
Lets get one thing clear from the start: the novel of 'The Relic' should not be tarred with the same brush as the film. Book-to-film transitions are rarely spectacular, and the film should have been made as a collaboration between Ridley Scott and Stephen Spielberg, but it wasn't, so the less said about it the better. The book, a union between writer Lincoln Child and scientist Douglas Preston, is the cutting edge of the Michael Crichton style techno-thriller, and at the same time a jolly good horror novel to boot. The balance between science, suspense and action is superbly orchestrated, and at no point does it fail in its narrative. The characters are exceptionally well drawn, the settings, especially the museum and its underlying catacombs, vividly conceptualised, and the issues of grant money, museum and city politics, and FBI/police differences always enthralling and adding an oddly realistic air to the otherwise horrific proceedings.The book begins as it means to go on, dark and sinister, with guards and children butchered early on in particularly nightmarish scenes. The build up towards the gala opening of the museum's new, eerily consistent Superstition Exhibition and the attempt by the museum officials to let nothing get in the way of its fund raising is both gripping and intriguing. As Margo Green's investigations into a previous exploratory expedition unfolds, and she briefly encounters a terrifying creature in the dark, cynical cop Lieutenant D'Agosta makes headway in his investigation of the killings. The level-headed Agent Pendergast, reminiscent of the unshakeable Agent Cooper from 'Twin Peaks', is a welcome addition to the cast, sparking up various witty repartees with the aforementioned police officer. The climax erupts on the gala night more than one hundred pages from the end, exploding into a gruesome and fast-paced pressure-cooker scenario in which a monster hunts down a group of the gala-night revellers through the crypt-like interior of the museum. What separates 'The Relic' from a million other such novels is that, rather than building to a ten-page climax, the nerve-racking, climactic atmosphere is phenomenally maintained for almost a quarter of the book. While D'Agosta and the irascible reporter Smithback lead the survivors deeper and deeper underground through creepy, water-filled tunnels, Green and Pendergast rush to discover the true nature of the creature in what is certainly the most terrifying and gripping dénouement I have ever read. The one criticism I would have is that the epilogue is of a completely different tone to the rest of the story and seems tagged on merely to provide food for a sequel, which it indeed did in 'Reliquary'. That aside, it is one of the most atmospheric and well-thought-out novels ever written, at once exciting, terrifying and intelligent, combining the mainstream writing techniques of high-concept thrillers and combining them with the scientific captivation of author Richard Preston, brother of the co-author here. If only Lincoln Preston's other books were as good, Michael Crichton would have a run for his money.
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by Douglas J. Preston
by Douglas Preston
by Douglas Preston
by Douglas Preston
by Douglas Preston
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