Impact [Hardcover]

Douglas Preston (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 5, 2010

Wyman Ford is tapped for a secret expedition to Cambodia... to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world.

A brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast... and two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island to find the impact crater.

A scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System.  He is found decapitated, the data missing.

High resolution NASA images reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars... and it appears to have been activated.

Sixty hours and counting.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Near the start of this solid thriller from bestseller Preston, the U.S. president's science adviser asks former CIA operative Wyman Ford, last seen in 2008's Blasphemy, to look into the sudden appearance of radioactive gemstones, in particular to identify the precise location of their origin in Cambodia. Meanwhile, college dropout and frustrated astronomer Abbey Straw, who believes she witnessed a meteor's fall, embarks on a search of small islands near her Maine home to locate pieces of the meteorite to sell on eBay. In California, soon-to-be murdered professor Jason Freeman sends Mark Corso, a Mars mission technician at the National Propulsion Facility, a classified hard drive with evidence of gamma rays emanating from the red planet. The three story lines end up neatly intersecting, though the final payoff doesn't do justice to the engaging setup. Preston refrains from inserting the scientific minilectures of which the late Michael Crichton was so fond. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

Wyman Ford, the former CIA agent turned freelance investigator introduced in Blasphemy (2008), returns. This time the U.S. government sends him on a seemingly straightforward mission to locate a secret Cambodian mine, the source of some unusual gemstones. But Ford’s assignment quickly gets a lot more complicated, and soon he’s immersed in a mystery involving conspiracy, murder, and a strange object buried in a moon of Mars, an object that might be about to unleash something unimaginable upon Earth. Blasphemy felt almost claustrophobic at times (much of its action took place on a single set), but here the author opens up the stage, with plot threads unspooling in various countries and involving various supporting characters, who seem, at first, to have no connection to one another. Where Blasphemy tread on some controversial ground (the nature-of-God question), this book is a more traditional thriller, substituting adventure for philosophical exploration. Is it a better book or a worse one? Different readers may answer the question in different ways, but one thing’s for sure: once Preston kicks the story into high gear, they won’t put the book down until it’s finished. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; First Edition edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765317680
• ISBN-13: 978-0765317681
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (260 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Douglas Preston, who worked for several years in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction works Dinosaurs in the Attic and Cities of Gold, and the novel, Jennie. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#49 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#65 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

#75 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#77 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror

#95 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#49 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers

#65 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

#75 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers

#77 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror

#95 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

185 of 202 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Douglas Preston's homage to H.G. Wells? January 5, 2010

By Susan Tunis TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Doug Preston's latest solo effort starts with a bang--literally--in the form of a meteoroid impact off the coast of Maine. And that's where the juggling begins. Preston's juggling three narrative threads. The first involves two young girls who go in search of the fallen meteoroid. They're after big bucks on Ebay and maybe a little adventure. They get a hell of a lot more than they bargained for.

The second thread involves a researcher with the Mars Mapping Orbiter (MMO) project at the National Propulsion Facility (NPF, but you might as well think JPL). Mark Corso has just been promoted. In fact, he's taken the position of his disgraced mentor, Jason Freeman, who was fired and then murdered in a random home invasion. (Uh huh.) A few days after Dr. Freeman's death, Mark receives a package from his mentor with a stolen hard drive full of very classified, very illegal data. He can NOT have this data! He's got to destroy the thing, forget he ever saw it.... but he can't help looking to see what's on it first. And so Mark Corso gets sucked into what may be the biggest, most dangerous scientific discovery of all time. And possibly the biggest cover-up, too.

And finally, the third thread involves our old friend Wyman Ford. (Don't worry if you haven't read his previous adventures. This book is essentially a stand alone. There's not a thing you need to know from previous books that will effect your reading of this one.) Ford's a former CIA operative, a freelancer now, and he's just been offered a job. There have been some very unusual gems showing up for sale in Asia. They're strikingly beautiful, but notably unlike anything anyone's seen before. And potentially quite dangerous. Ford is tasked with finding the source of the stones and reporting back. One of the easier assignments he's taken in recent years. (Uh huh.)

Preston does a good job of keeping all his balls up in the air. This 368-page book has an even 100 chapters. You can do the math. That's a whole bunch of short, fast-paced chapters. Almost every one of them ends on a hook, making the novel virtually impossible to put down. Preston places his characters in every type of peril you can imagine, from the everyday unpleasantness of a strung out drug addict, to an extraordinary threat to all life on earth. Simply put, Preston goes all out with this one.

Is some of it ridiculous? Sure. I mean, what waitress knows that much about astrophysics? But then again, I'M a college drop-out that knows a hell of a lot about physics. It could happen. Actually, now that I try to think of examples of ridiculousness, they evade me. My point is, read Impact with a sense of fun. Enjoy it as the thrill ride, and the homage to they greats of science fiction, that it is. If you try to pick it apart, you'll be able to find flaws. Just leave it alone and have a good time. Because this book IS a really good time. You're going to be holed up inside some snowy weekend this winter. I seriously can't imagine a more entertaining way to pass the time.

56 of 69 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars solid..not great, but solid...3.5 stars January 6, 2010

By Matthew Schiariti

Format:Hardcover

I look forward to every new offering from Preston and Child, whether it be their solo efforts or (and these are some of my favorite books) their combined efforts. I'll say that Impact didn't grab me quite like I expected it to.

What we have here are three concentric stories enveloped in a bigger story.

A series of strange and exotic gemstones never before seen suddenly start to show up and garner the interest of the CIA. Why? The stones have never been seen before. Oh, and they're quite deadly from a radioactivity standpoint. Wyman Ford is contacted by his old CIA higher ups in order to head to cambodia and take pictures of the mine.

At the same time the gems start showing up in Cambodia, a waitress/Princeton University dropout in Maine (Abbey) is using her telescope to gaze at the stars when she captures a picture of a meteoroid that struck the earth at just that time and landed off the coast of Maine. She's the only one who has any idea of the general area in which it fell. What's her idea? Find it and sell it on ebay!

Moving across the coast to California and the National Propulsion Facility at Cal Tech. A Mars mapping mission was set in motion nearly a year ago. Its mission to take high resolution pictures of the surface of Mars as well as using ground penetrating radar to see below the surface. An employee of NPF and professor at Cal Tech finds some strange gamma ray emissions from the surface of mars during his usual work. He finds the anomaly dangerous and brings it to his superiors. This being impossible, his superiors call him crazy, discredit him and have him fired. Shortly after he's found in his home, mysteriously murdered by a homeless person, but not before he forwards his research to one Mark Corso, senior technician on the Mars mapping project. Mark's curiousity gets the better of him and he delves into the stolen data only to find a shocking discovery.

The book's premise is interesting and it really heads places I wasn't expecting. There are a couple reasons why I didn't rate it higher though.

The book is separated into parts. The first part more or less tells each of these three stories independently, before they all start to meld together into the same, and main, plot line. I just found these buildups and back stories to be a bit involved. Not so much Mark's part in the story, but Abbey's particularly. Her 'hunt for the meteor' saga is a little drawn out and alot of it could have been left out with no detriment to the book. I have to say that I really wasn't all that engaged during the first part of the book and nearly put it down for a while.

I also found that Abbey, seemingly a genius despite being a Princeton dropout, seems to know TOO much at just the right times. It was a bit of a stretch to beleive. That being said, she was still an interesting character. I just found her constantly bailing everyone out at the right time was a bit much.

The second part of the book is where the three stories meld and the story really takes off. That's when I started to like it more. But I found the ending to be a little abrupt, albeit interesting. It seemed as if there was alot of build up to get to the final climax and then it was pretty much cleared up in several chapters which in this book, are short and rapid fire. I will say that the VERY ending was pretty clever when you stop to think about how it all worked out in.

In the end, definitely a solid read for Preston fans. It just has some slow going in the beginning and a supporting character that just seems to know too much at times to be believable.

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Preston's weakest February 15, 2010

By Michael Cronin

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Let me start by saying that I am a big Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child fan overall.

As far as Preston's fictional work, I truly enjoyed "Tyrannosaur Canyon", found "The Codex" pretty good, loved "Jenny". Unfortunately for readers, I consider "Impact" to be Mr. Preston's first true flop. Even "Blasphemy" had more going for it.

"Impact" has an intriguing start, and could have gone in many fascinating directions. Sadly, it doesn't. The plot becomes silly, and then gets sillier. The characters (even the heroine) are rather bland and uncharismatic, the twists are predictable, the pacing is uneven, the ending rushed, abrupt, and absurd.
Uncharacteristically lightweight and amateurish writing from Mr. Preston. Let's hope his next offering is back to his true form and skill.