Customer Reviews

The Pleistocene Redemption

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I wanted so much to like this book. It's obvious that Dan Gallagher really, really cares about his writing and his subject. He has aimed high, and deserves credit for that--too many science fiction writers these days are cranking out books that are simple entertainment but nothing more, ignoring the social issues and big questions that make science fiction important as a genre. For example, I just finished McDevitt's "Moonfall" which, while a good read, might just as well be another disaster movie such as "Deep Impact" or "Armageddon," with the twist being that the comet/asteroid hits the moon, not the Earth. However, that said, I cannot fathom why this book has gotten such good reviews on amazon.com, much less why it was able to land on the Science Fiction Writers of America preliminary Nebula ballot. Based on the amazon.com reviews, and on the smothering number of endorsements which Gallagher's off-brand publisher pumped into the paperback edition, I was really looking forward to reading "The Pleistocene Redemption." I hoped it would be a rewarding "big issue" novel along the lines of Robert Sawyer's "The Terminal Experiment" or Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow." Was I ever disappointed! I've tried to get into this book on five separate occasions, but each time the wretched, amateurish prose stopped me cold. The writing is so annoyingly bad that it is distracting. While I'd like to know what the book's big message is, I can't force myself to keep reading long enough to find out. Just one excruciating example of the many bad passages in the book: "Harrigan raised his eyes from his study notes. His eyebrows raised in interest then lowered in a frown as Chrissie pranced into the doctoral genetics lab. Her brown hair waved from her slender five-foot-eight figure like a banner in a slight breeze. She alighted on a stool across from Harrigan and shed her white lab jacket, revealing a low-cut red blouse. Her face brightened with a smile--in Harrigan's opinion, a vacant yet sexy grin. She leaned toward him and rested her chest definingly upon the shiny black laboratory table. It seemed to Harrigan that generous portions of her breasts were peeking at him even more engagingly than her flashing brown eyes. "'Hi, Kevin! There's not much going on now 'cause classes are over. And I, like, dropped a hint to Dr. Wentz that I finished all his precipitations...and I even got myself to draw his mean-old blood samples from those cute little fuzz-bunnies and could I get the afternoon off?! And do you know what he said?' She paused to tempt a response..." Jesus Christ, man! Do you really think women talk like that? Even women with more bodily attributes than brains? In your dreams, maybe, but nowhere else! Also, exactly how does one go about resting their chest on a table definingly? What is that supposed to MEAN? While we're at it, although eyes may occasionally roll when in the hands of an amateurish author, breasts do not peek! Count all the cliches and hackneyed phrases in just this short passage. Take note of the awkward structure and word repetition in the first two sentences. Count the commas Gallagher should have used but didn't. Note the inexplicable hyphenation of "mean-old." Also, breathless sentences, even when spoken by a cardboard bimbo character straight out of a horny teenager's idea of central casting, do not end in "?!" As for the cute little fuzz-bunnies... oh please! At the beginning of the book Gallagher has inserted an unbearably pretentious section entitled "Questions on The Pleistocene Redemption for Thoughtful Readers and Book Discussion Groups." Look, a real writer like Mary Doria Russell can get away with this sort of thing (and she puts it at the BACK of the book) but not an inept beginner. I wonder why none of the major science fiction publishers picked up this book... The best thing Dan Gallagher could do would be to attend one of the yearly Clarion science fiction writing workshops held in East Lansing, Michigan or in Seattle. If by any chance he is a Clarion grad, he should go back for a remedial session. With luck, he can translate future ideas into prose that is not the literary equivalent of fingernails scraping across a blackboard. Science fiction needs more writers who care, but they must be able to write. It's one of the requirements for the job.

Not everyone can be an author. This books proves it beyond words. You can publish anything these days, but it doesn't mean that the result if worth reading. In this case, it certainly is NOT.

Mr. Gallagher's attempt to be a published author falls flat from the first sentence. The ideas are nothing new, and the characters never take shape. I forced myself to read the whole thing so that the person who gave it to me could not claim it got better later on in the text, which it definitely does NOT. This is a book written with the skill of an amateur 13 year old but with an impressive cover. The cover gets the single star in this review. The rest has been pulped and is mulching my wife's tomato plants.

I wish I could say good things about this book--Dan Gallagher is clearly very proud of his work. Unfortunately, this self-published novel is amateurish at best. The text is full of cliches, the plot meanders and is unfulfilling, and the prose style is hideously underdeveloped.

Gallagher may have possessed the best of intentions for this novel, but in the end it's possibly one of the worst books I have ever read. I'd sooner watch "Land of the Lost" reruns than ever open this book again.

This is quite possibly - almost certainly - the worst book I have ever encountered. "Read" would not be honest; I was unable to read all the way through this LONG and excruciatingly bad text. To do so would require an indurated doggedness which I do not possess. Gallagher's handling of written English is almost awesome in its ineptitude; his prose clanks and clunks and his images don't work and he makes grammatical errors even a bright ninth-grader would avoid. His characters are not even cardboard; stick figures, perhaps, and the words they speak bear no resemblance to the speech of any humans who have ever lived. (Except perhaps for the scenes involving Army Ranger training; for all I know these people actually do talk that way - in which case I am profoundly glad I never volunteered for Ranger school.) The plot is, in a word, ridiculous; this in itself, however, might not be a fatal flaw (plenty of otherwise good SF stories have silly plot premises, if you let yourself think about them - Gallagher's scenario is probably not much more scientifically absurd than Crichton's) if it hadn't been so execrably written. It is clear that Gallagher had quite a noble intention in writing this book; obviously he wanted to make an important statement, to argue for the existence of an ultimately merciful Supreme Being. Unfortunately he has accomplished the opposite: even the limited success of this ghastly book - and I see that it is selling fairly well, for a self-published title - could be seen by some people as proof that there is no God.

This is the "Plan 9 From Outter Space" of print sf. It is quite simply one of the worst sf books ever written. It is so bad it is funny. You see one star above this review only because the system would not let me enter "none".

Dan Gallagher's book has the potential for considerable insight and philosophical depth. The novel itself is about a scientist who pursues genetic engineering to the point of recreating extinct Pleistocene species --- including archaic and early modern humans --- but in the end the experiment goes completely wrong. There is a lot of action in the book, but no real depth. Gallagher had a philosophical idea --- that there are some things that humans are incapable of tampering with unless they want the potential to destroy life --- but the idea is buried in a mound of clunky writing and dialogue. The blurb on the dust jacket implies that Gallagher studied a number of modern languages, but when he creates dialogue for people whose native language isn't standard English, his efforts border on the stereotypical. Because his premise that it is possible to recreate fossil forms is so interesting, it is really too bad that this book did not have the services of an editor. In short, "The Pleistocene Redemption" is a poorly-written mishmash of ideas which never reaches its full potential. If one wants to read good "prehistoric" fiction, Jean Auel is your author of choice. If you like good science fiction, try Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy". For good "religious" fiction, try C.S. Lewis's "Narnia" series. But the reader is wasting his or her time with "The Pleistocen Redemption".

The Pleistocene Redemption is an interesting story, that would have been a good book in the hands of a better writer.

The interesting, if unimaginative, premise is that, through genetic engineering, a theme park and preserve is created featuring an extinct Ice Age fauna (including Cro-Magnan and Neaderthals). As in Jurassic Park, things get out of control.

Gallagher's writing is very poor, however. Cliches are everywhere. He has a very annoying habit of italicizing all the emphasized words in his dialouge. His characters are flat, and he never allows his characters actions to reveal anything about their feelings. Gallagher takes the lazy way out and just tells you how they feel.

Not a very good book.

I love to read, and I love books. However, I honestly feel that every copy of this book should be recycled and pulped. Incoherent, amateurish, incomprehensible, dull, ridiculous, pretentious, boring, and just plain BAD! Before you even finish the first page, you understand why Dan Gallagher had to pay to get this book published. I've seen better writing from fifth-grade English students. And let's not forget "plagiaristic". This book is Jurassic Park if Michael Crichton had failed to graduate from elementary school.
...

This is the "Plan 9 From Outter Space" of print sf. It is quite simply one of the worst sf books ever written. It is so bad it is funny. You see one star above this review only because the system would not let me enter "none".

Thank god I read this book while working in a used book store. That means I did not pay any money for the experience of wading through the incredibly bad prose and extraneous plot lines.