Rocketgirl's Full Review: James Rollins - Excavation
Reading the description on the back cover this sounded like an Indiana Jones type of adventure novel. I like that type of a movie or book so figured I would like this one. I had never heard of this writer before but I see that he has several other novels in case I want to go back for more.
In this story, Professor Henry Conklin has organized an excavation in the mountains of Peru. While there they find a mummy that he is hoping that proves his theory that the Moche tribe existed on the site prior to the Inca. He takes the mummy back to Johns Hopkins University while his students continue to excavate. While examining the mummy, they discover that it is of European origin, namely a Spanish monk. Conklin is disappointed he did not discover what he hoped to, but they find out something else even more interesting. A Spanish cross with an encrypted message on it and a mysterious gold-like substance buried in the skeleton's skull. Though it looks like gold it has mysterious properties and a metallurgist is brought in to study it.
Meanwhile at the dig, the students find a secret door. Just as they are about to uncover its contents, a greedy mercenary, hired on for security, sabotages the site and blows up the entrance to the site. The students are trapped inside. The only way out is through the secret door. But the room is booby-trapped and they'll have to figure out how to get through before the roof collapses behind them. They ultimately discover the secret only to find themselves trapped in a secret cavern with a yellow brick road. Now they are stuck in a cave with secret Indian ruins, but also no food, scary spiders, and weird monsters that threaten them at every turn.
These two lines of narrative eventually merge--and bad guys are after them too, to get the secret of the strange gold-like material. There is a great deal of suspense, finding the secret of the gold, the secret of the lost civilization, and hoping all of the characters come out alive.
I enjoyed this story because of its use of archaeology, which I have always found fascinating, and because its reliance on Incan mythology. It is interesting how the author weaves the native stories with the information they are uncovering to try to understand what they are seeing. This was very well done and interesting. I enjoy finding a more unique plot and different types of settings.
Another reviewer commented on the wooden characters. I would have to agree with that. On the other hand, well-rounded characters aren't necessary for this type of story. You only need to know enough to care about their fate. It does go far enough to develop a budding romance between Sam, Conklin's nephew, and Maggie, another student. The lines that were written for this are so ridiculously out of place. Not that feelings couldn't develop in a stressful situation, its just the way it was described. Like something straight out of a romance novel. Ugh.
The story is written with an air of the supernatural. The gold changes shape. A man acquires a new body. Mysterious monsters live in a cave. The cover description hints at this and is totally fine for me as long as I know that's the type of story it will be. However, the solution is not supernatural, and that's why the ending was so disappointing for me. It just didn't seem to ring true. Also the solution was given in about two paragraphs in almost a postscript fashion. I didn't like this at all. Very unsatisfying.
The book was mostly very suspenseful though and moved at a quick pace. Switching back and forth between the two story lines helped create the suspense as did the constant dangerous situations the characters kept finding themselves in. They must have had a cat's nine lives.
Because of the type of book this is there are no sexual scenes, or even innuendo, an no profanity. There isn't violence in the usual sense of the word, though there are deaths--from falling rocks, from monsters, etc., though they are not graphically described. I think the average teen could read the book without being scarred. As I said this an adventure story along the lines of Indiana Jones. A very fun read, even though the ending was a bit disappointing.
Following the success of his debut, Subterranean , Rollins takes readers to an ancient hidden city of the dead in a South American jungle. A team of r...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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