Most Helpful Customer Reviews
68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful book production, but really bad grammar., January 10, 2007
I was impressed by the quality of the physical book, but not by the quality of the intellectual material within its pages. The plot seemed to be laid out as a bad screenplay, the dialogue was stilted, and the characters were shallow. These defects could have been corrected through the judicious use of a good editor. A good copy editor would have helped, too, because the grammar is atrocious. Now, I'm not an effete intellectual, I am an rpg gamer, a voracious fantasy and science fiction fan, but most of all a reader. As a reader, I can't recommend this book.
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64 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not up to the hype!, January 21, 2007
Based on the 5-star reviews and the premise about excavating a woolly mammoth, I went ahead and purchased this book, hoping it would really be a great adventure yarn -- especially since it was recommended by James Rollins. As I read the book, however, the story for me devolved into a comic-bookish sci-fi story complete with opposing sets of aliens! I believe the author was a comic book writer and I think this is very evident. I did enjoy the setup for the story and the first parts about the mammoth excavation. And the story does have a lot of action but I really can't recommend it.
Another thing that was distracting to me was the numerous typos in the text. This book was published by a new publishing house (Breakneck Books) and this could be the reason for the errors.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scientifically Accurate and a Damn Fine Read, February 9, 2007
Last summer I went and volunteered for some time with a scientist who had led one of the expeditions to Siberia to recover a frozen mammoth. Their intent was to see if the DNA of the animal was still intact enough to enable a clone to be built (grown, developed, whatever). While the meat was still 'fresh' the DNA was destroyed so no clone.
This was enough, however to tempt me into this book. And his story of the digging up of the animal is very well told. His comments on digging in Russia are exactly right, you can't take the animal or even sample tissue out of Russia, etc.)
This story is, of course is science fiction (which I like) so he has expanded the story to move the mammoth to Canada. And then built a story around an alien artifact. This part was a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's 1948 story, 'The Sentinel.' which later became a novel and a movie under the name '2001: A Space Odyssey.' That is, an artifact burried where it can't be found is finally found and used to send a signal to an advanced species.
The rest comes down to the tone of the story, the writing, the characters. Not, I'm afraid going to make it to the all time best, but a damn file read.
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