Primeval: Extinction Event by Dan Abnett
| Primeval: Extinction Event by Dan Anett | |
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| Category: Fantasy | |
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Reviewer: John Lloyd
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| Summary: A perfect tie-in novel with lots of Cretaceous critters for fans, and a very good action fantasy for anyone else. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 320 | Date: January 2011 |
| Publisher: Titan Books Ltd | |
| ISBN: 978-0857680624 | |
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There are rifts in time and space that allow for prehistoric animals to enter our modern world, and it's up to Professor Nick Cutter and his team to track them down and send them back. It's a manageable job, until two animals best described as "demon pigs" hit Oxford Street in London. Cutter feels his days might be easier if he had anyone to share his hush-hush scientific secrets with. Little does he know he's about to be forced to do that, and face something much worse, when his Russian counterparts come demanding help.
Right from the start this volume smacks of being a high quality TV tie-in novel. With no room for introduction it's in to the capture of London's new population of entelodons, then the capture of Cutter, as he faces potentially his biggest ever problem, in Siberia. The book is certainly successful in going that bit beyond what the TV episodes can muster. There clearly is more destruction, more geography covered, a bigger threat - and a greater number of disposable grunts in the support cast.
With the help of Abnett directing our mental camera the story looks a hundred million dollars. All the creatures are described very vividly - and a lot more so than the humans here. The action is rendered in perfect style, with realism, surprise and a pace formed partly by a reining in of the cliffhangers.
Abnett does very well with a slightly flawed set-up - the man against dinosaur scenario is a perennial fantasy favourite, but he brings new things to it. And old - the Stargate-styled anomaly-hopping is new to the series since I first met these people in the first book, Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar by Steven Savile, and comes across a bit cheesy. Fans and newcomers will equally notice his Abby is a distinctly weak character, there only to receive exposition.
Most serious, perhaps, the crux of the plot is easily predicted halfway through. But if there are flaws beyond those - and I'm counting all those as forgivable - I failed to notice them, with the kinetic plotting and adventure being spot on, and this is assuredly a must-buy for any Primeval watcher. While I have read hardly any similar TV tie-ins since the days when the X-Files became laboured and naff, it is most evident the craft, invention, action and great humour that Abnett brings to these speedily-read pages could hardly be bettered.
I must thank Titan Books for my review copy.
If this book appeals then try Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar by Steven Savile.
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