Customer Reviews

Evolution (Underworld)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I truely enjoy this series and hope their will be another book and movie. I am not a huge fan of vampire movies, and when I heard about the original Underworld movie, I wasn't all that thrilled. I mean, a Romeo and Juliet story using vampirea and werewolves with automatic weapons? Oddly enough, it was a really enjoyable story.

Underworld Evolution picks up where the original leaves off. Selene and Michael are making their way from the battle where Selene dispatched her former mentor. Michael awakens as a hybrid, quite different from Micheal. In the course of the story, Selene learns about the history of the importals, and the truth about the history of the Eldars and the murder of her mortal family. All the while, her relationship with Michael grows.

I picked this up because I think I may have been the only person who really liked the original Underworld film, and I'm a sucker for vampire tales. Books made from films are always risky. It's hard to pack good righting into a novel hat must depend on a high action film for its entire plot. And that's what happened here.

The story picks up right after the first film, with Selene (our vampire) and Michael (now a vampire/werewolf hybrid) in flight from just about every supernatural creature you can imagine. They've done away with an elder werewolf , an elder vampire, and thrown the worlds of coven and clan into chaos. Very Bad Karma. The majority of the story is one long flight from hiding places to safe houses and back again. Worse, some new players have entered the plot.

Marc, who should have been the last vampire elder [and actually should also have found final death], is inadvertently resurrected by exposure to blood that make him a hybrid too. Only he really can turn into a bat and fly. And rip whole building to shreds. The transformed elder makes Michael look like a crosswalk guide. The other new player is Alexander Corvinus, who heads an organization which has been cleaning up after the public relations disasters of the occult set. Suffice it to say that he is not a sanitation engineer, and he plays a key part in making the story work.

Prepare for one long, running vampire fight with occasional stops for the history of these occult creatures. The writing is crisp, and lacks the overblown exclamations that other writers have used to cover up a lack of dialog or action. And yes, there is a lot of violence in the tale -- everyone in this book is a killer of one sort or another, and Greg Cox doesn't flint from pointing this out to the gaping reader. No, this isn't great literature, or even great vampire fiction, but it's an entertaining romp in the fields of night.

Here's an overview: Marcus is after Selene because in her past, a past she doesn't remember at first, is the location of a dungeon her father built. Inside is William, his brother, locked in a cage for over 600 years. Marcus is close to his bother and wants to free him (the brother was imprisoned by Viktor after a murderous rampage that was killing thousands of people and turning them in werewolves but without the ability to change back. William, himself, is always in Lycan form throughout the entire book and Marcus is usually always in his hybrid form, preferring that to the human mask he can wear.

We are introduced to a group of people known as The Cleaners, they clean up the mess the Lycans and Vampires make. They are the people who blackmail or payoff witnesses to keep their mouth shut. They have documented the history of the vampires and the Lycans and the war between the two.

Selene spends most of the book saving Michael until he dies by the hand of Marcus (violently as well), Selene discovers she loves him but it is too late. Meeting the cleaner's leader she is offered a chance to get revenge, because --although the leader had the opportunity-- he couldn't bring himself to kill Marcus.

With the help of the Cleaner's elite crew, they fly to the dungeon to try and stop Marcus from releasing William on a world not ready to understand such a creature. In a body bag is Michael, Selene can't bare the thought of leaving him behind. He lies at her side and she transforms her love for him into hate aimed at Marcus. She knows she is going up against a force much stronger than her, even with the gift from the Cleaner's leader, fighting Marcus and possibly William is near suicide. Especially when she realizes that she is too late and the two brothers are united once again...and William has 600 years of hunger to sate.

While this is happening something miraculous is happening to Michael. Dead cells are sparking to life and the genetic code is multiplying. Fractured ribs reknit themselves, ripped organs healed, a new heart blossomed and brain activity resumed.

But this new Michael is stronger, smarter and the sub-hero of this book that he is meant to be. Still, things are not easy in their battle. William is strong and smart and damn fast, faster than Selene and Michael. All the Cleaners are killed by William and they turn into werewolves to fight and destroy our heroes.

This book reads much like a movie, meaning that Greg Cox didn't add as much into the story as he did for book one. Book one is 400 pages, this is 275 with a larger font. Still, the book is a damn fine read as we wait for the movie to be released and it is a tight and entertaining read. The hours will zip by.

This book needs to be on your shelf next to the first book, which is next to the first DVD.

Sadly though, this book I feel will only be appreciated by the cult fans of the first book/movie. Of which, I am one!

Greg Cox writes yet another awesome book in the Underworld series. He fleshes out the characters and plot that the movie doesn't.

Even though the movie rocks!! Better than the first. But needed more indepth characterizations from Selena and Michael.

But like the book, it was never boring and full of awesome vampire vs. werewolf action and adventure.

A must see movie.

A must read book.

The third and final book in the Underworld triology is fast-paced, exciting, and contains a wealth of surprises. Deeper characterization runs throughout the book with even some of the sideline characters being given more depth and development than the main characters were given in the first book.

The good news is this is the best of the three. The bad news is a casual reader of vampire and/or werewolf fiction is probably going to come away disappointed because the entire triology shatters many of the conventions the genre is founded on.

Underworld: Evolution is a very quick read and you can finish it in a few hours. After reading a sample provided by amazon I was slightly put off by the style of the author but decided to give it a chance anyway. Chances are that even when you cringe while going through the sample, tackling such gems as "her lithe body" or - even better - "her alabaster features...", you'll still be able to enjoy the whole book as these slightly pathetic descriptions don't make reading too hard.

I really liked that the plot was focused on three levels, vampires, lycans and mortals and that we got to know some more about the past and the way both vampires and lycans evolved. Thanks to such lycans as Lucian juxtaposing the sophisticated vampires and the crude and primitive lycans is less clear; hints on the evolution the lycan breed undergoes are really promising.

Another good thing was a nicely gothic background, kinda Draculean at times - Danube, mortals pursuing bloodsuckers, stylish rooms of Sancta Helena. The events taking place in the dungeon of Viktor's castle also had a nicely gothic touch.

Unfortunately this book has also flaws. First of all, no matter how romantic and great it might be, I really didn't like Michael coming from the dead. His "dead cells sparked to life..." and "a new heart blossoming within his body" didn't convince me at all plus it might be really hard to deal with the dude in the future if his creators decided to terminate him after all. Secondly, I really didn't get why Selene and the Cleaners didn't destroy the bodies of people killed by William before they turned into werewolves as a right at the beginning of the book Marcus and other Elders were about to do just that, before the dead people turned into werewolves. Sure, the plot demands some action but there's plenty of other possibilities to keep Selene and her mortal companions occupied. And if they couldn't kill wannabe werewolves right after they died as mortals, then why the Elders were trying to do just this thing before they dead changed for worse?
Also, once in a while, both throughout the book and the first part of the movie, we get information about lycan evolution and how they changed over the centuries. William seems unchanged and it's weird as he's the first that should evolve (even though he was confined for so long, he still had many experiences and a very long past under his belt). This evolution thing, however, can be explained in the favor of the authors, so I'm not gonna pick on it too much. Finally, I didn't like the way both brothers died as it was very unstylish and cruel - there are many methods of destroying both vampires and werewolves, so why this way?

Having said all of this, I'm willing to say it's quite a good book although it's obvious that it was based on the movie, not the opposite. It's quick-paced, not badly written and with a few good openings for the future.

So many books based on movies are empty of original thought, but this volume breaks the mold.

Greg Cox has taken Underworld: Evolution and brought it to life before many, myself included, have seen the feature film. Some might say knowing what is going to happen in a movie before you see it defeats the purpose of seeing the film, but that is definitely not the case here. All of Mr. Cox's vivid illustrations through words have given me a new appreciation for the first film and its upcoming sequel.

The movie notwithstanding, I would recommend this to anyone who loves fantasy. You don't have to read the first book to understand this one, as there are flashbacks that bring the reader up to speed. Discover the trials and tribulations of Selene and Michael. You won't be sorry.

This book is one of the best books of 2005. It has a great storyline and is full of action. When the movie comes out I look forward to seeing it. Greg Cox wrote a fantastic book version of the movie and I praise him for that. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the underworld series of books. This one takes the cake. I will not spoil it for anyone expect that Selene and Michael become closer and the action is bigger and more exciting.

Not bad. Straight continuation from the Movie itself. And we see also how the relation between Selene and Michael is developing. I do hope that there are more continuations after this. or a TV-series.

Underworld Evolution is basically one long chase-fight-chase-fight scene, so is definitely not as good as Underworld. There is no real politics, just a 'supernatural cleanup crew' whose job is to keep the whole vampire/werewolf battle out of the media as much as possible, and their own existence a secret.

They use human agents, but it turns out their leader is the first immortal. Selene and Michael, with his help, must try and stop his sons, Marcus and William, who is part of the the chase thing. Marcus wants to free his brother William, the first werewolf from hundreds of years of captivity.

At the end, it is a hybrid battlefest, with a helicopter.