Customer Rating:  
Summary: Marsupial evolution?
Comment: A system of caves and subterranean cliff dwellings are discovered under a volcano in Antarctica. A team of varied specialists are rounded up from around the world. The team is: Ashley - a paleotologist focused on cliff dwelling Indians of the American south west; Ben - an Australian caving expert; Linda - paleo-biologist; Khalid - Middle Eastern geologist; military man Michaelson and two Navy SEALS round out the team. Also along for the trip is Ashley's son who is to remain at Alpha Cavern with the rest of the secret reasearch village.
Endless tunnels and caves are explored, people are disappearing, and then the marsupial dinosaur critters show up. Follow this by the marsupial humanoids (mimi'swee) that had previously been surface side in Australia in the ancient past but cut off by a landbridge that once connected Antarctica and Australia.
It takes a while to get into but picks up pace and unfortunately falls apart again. The romance of Ben and Ashley is unbelievable, the kid's situation is predictable, and the villian has a ridiculous reason for his/her plans to derail the project. Otherwise, with suspension of belief, this isn't a horrible story and the action is paced well enough that you can enjoy it enough. Just didn't work for me, took me too long to finish it and didn't hold my interest to where I became engulfed in the story. Worth picking up in the used book store for a few bucks.
Customer Rating:
Summary: airport material
Comment: This book is airport material. It's OK if you have nothing better to do (or nothing better to read), but it's not very good. You not only don't have to think about it while you're reading, you have to NOT think about it.
Set in an endless chain of caverns under Antarctica that are filled with an assortment of vicious critters, the book is mostly one long action sequence. The story is thin, the plot is predictable, and the characters are flat, but if all you're doing is killing time it's a decent read.
The author is a caving enthusiast, and the aspects of the book that have to do with getting around underground are pretty good.
Outside of that, be prepared to dodge the inaccuracies that litter the book like speed bumps on the road to suspension of disbelief. Like, US Navy officers with the rank of major (major isn't a Navy rank), and a supposedly brilliant paleontologist speculating on whether Neanderthals might have built a ruined stone city that was carbon-dated to a couple of million years old (Neanderthals weren't around that far back, and carbon dating is useless on rock or on anything that old anyway). These errors are not only jarring, they're also the sort of thing that 5 minutes of research by the author or his editor would have picked up.
If you can ignore that, though, it'll help you fend off boredom or that annoying guy in the next seat for a few hours.
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Summary: Great Action Book
Comment: I read this book not knowing who James Rollin was. This is like a Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler story.
Beneath Antarctica, a series of caves have been found. But further investigation leads to the discovery of people having lived in these caves. So, architects and everyone else are called into learn as much as they can.
But, things start happening, people go disappearing, and a full out attack on the under ice base hits leading the survivors further into the tunnels then explored before. Soon they are in complete underground worlds with reptile beasts and caveman like people surviving.
This is one great book that just keeps going. A must read if you like Indiana Jones, James Bond, Dirk Pitt, and others along this line.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The shape of things that came ...
Comment: Like many here, I have been a huge fan of James Rollins since "Subterranean". While the novels he's written between this first entry into the action/adventure genre and his most recent release have improved steadily through the years, the spark, the drive and the imagination were always there.
"Subterranean" was a great 'first' novel. Rollins had already published fantasy books under the name of Jack Clemens, a pseudonym he still uses today. A bumper crop of thriller authors got their start around that time, several no doubt because of Rollins himself.
The measure of "Subterranean", as well as the author, is not in whether this is the best novel he ever wrote. It's whether it is the only novel he ever wrote. Many authors fail to repeat this initial foray, let alone persist in bettering themselves with a succession of bestsellers.
I consider Rollins a pulp author, after the style of the "Doc Savage" paperbacks. That impression has not been lessened by the "Sigma Team" at the heart of his most recent works. I have waited a long time for someone to pick up that mantle, which Cussler (and son) have tirelessly bolstered almost single-handedly, for so many years.
Suspension of disbelief is acceptance of the implausible or untrue in order to take in the story as a whole. As a navy brat, I overlooked the inconsistencies in military titles and weaponry, but understood by the end of that first Rollins novel what I still maintain, down to this day.
Few authors can equal the sheer roller-coaster pace of a James Rollins novel. The sad part is that several of these authors have foregone the pulp styles of their early careers, in favor of more mainstream fare. Only infrequently do a few return to the fold, as with Alten's "Meg" series.
I have waited a decade for someone to write the next creature novel, a la "Relic" (Child/Preston). I am a bit biased in that respect, in that Rollins jumpstarted my own writing career with the beasts he wrote about in "Subterranean". "The Cryptids Trilogy" is an homage to Rollins, and I'm sure we can all agree that, as a reader or writer, he has fueled our imaginations...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Author - My Favorite
Comment: James Rollins is by far the best author I have every read a book by. I became a fan of his after reading "Amazonia". I have read every book he has ever written, some of the older books twice. I love his Sigma Force books, but I have to be honest and say that I wish he would write another novel like "Amazonia", "Excavation", etc. Like I said, I love his Sigma Force books too, but it would be great if he would write another adventure book with strange creatures, crazy locations, and the deadly situations that made me a huge fan in the first place. I will continue to buy and read everything he writes, but one more crazy adventure with unexplained animals would be great. To fans of James Rollins first books like "Amazonia", etc.: you should read James A. David's "Footprints of Thunder" and "Thunder of Time"; and to die hard Sigma Force fans, you should try David Lynn Golemon's "Event" and "Legend".
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