Those of us who are video-game challenged have action author James Rollins, who provides slam-bang, over-the-top, Indiana-Jones style stories with more gobbling-up than a vintage Pacman.
In fact, Rollins has penned the novelization of the latest Indiana Jones movie, a paperback due in May, and in Amazonia he demonstrates why he is suited for that task.
Like the great action stories, Amazonia features a trip into the deepest, darkest regions of the rainforest, a sort of fountain-of-youth expedition on behalf of a pharmaceutical company. The mission begins when a member of a failed previous mission walks out of the jungle after being missing for years.
The thing is – he went into the jungle as an amputee, and stumbled out four years later having re-grown his lost arm.
There is a fortune waiting for whoever discovers the source of the medical miracle, and two pharmaceutical companies send in teams, with the second led – naturally – by a psychopath who will stop at nothing to steal whatever the first team finds.
Rollins crafts his quest with one chase after another, with the unfortunate first expedition falling victim to giant caimans (those alligator-like snappers), land-roving piranhas, panthers, a plague of locusts, and poison dart blowguns.
There is almost a videogame quality to the way the poor souls are dispatched, but Rollins keeps the action fast and furious, and it is nearly impossible to put the book down, even if some of the events have an eye-rolling outlandishness. (I couldn’t figure out why the psychopathic second-expedition leader had to blow up the source of the miracle-cure after obtaining only the tiniest quantity. The drug company might have bought it by the barrel!)
The book is a barrel of fun, regardless, and readers will likely begin a quest to read the rest of Rollins’ full-of-action adventures.
Showing posts with label action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action. Show all posts
Monday, March 10, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Cussler Machine
The machine is large, and cranked into high gear. The exact design isn’t clear, but it’s probably shaped like an antique aquatic car, and powered by a twelve cylinder, 3,760 horsepower marine diesel. From a specialized conveyor belt jutting out from the side comes book, after book, after book. The machine is the Cussler.
Clive, to be more specific.
He’s probably America’s number-one action author, and is responsible for three different action lines – with heroes Dirk Pitt, Kurt Austin, and Juan Cabrillo. There are a couple of titles just out and several due this year from Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos, and Jack Du Brul, the three men primarily responsible for the action-output.
“Polar Shift” has been out long enough to find in paperback. It’s a Kurt Austin adventure with Paul Kemprecos doing the bulk of the writing. To his credit, he is able to maintain the flying-at-the-edge-of-believability quality of Cussler’s style, and duplicates the wise-cracking, pulp-fiction dialogue that fans have come to expect.
A group of well-funded bad guys have invented a giant spark plug that they dangle from a huge ship, and when they throw the switch, it creates tidal waves, boat-sucking whirlpools, electrical flares, radioactive rays, a shifting of the earth’s crust over the core, and car chases. (To be honest, the car chases are an indirect result.) The pretty archeologist is threatened by thugs, the dwarf wooly mammoths are threatened with extinction, and it falls to Kurt to save the day.
Cussler novels have long been filled with technical jargon. The bad guy never wields a rifle. He’s usually described as having a gas-operated Automat Kalashnikova modernized AK-47 7.62mm with machined receiver capable of 600 rounds per minute. The pilot never flies a simple airplane; it’s always the same lengthy description.
Kemprecos manages to tone down the internet-driven descriptions and keep the fiction moving at a Cussler-inspired pace, and fans will find familiar lines and action a’ plenty…enough to satisfy until the next unit is ejected from the machine.
Clive, to be more specific.
He’s probably America’s number-one action author, and is responsible for three different action lines – with heroes Dirk Pitt, Kurt Austin, and Juan Cabrillo. There are a couple of titles just out and several due this year from Clive Cussler, Paul Kemprecos, and Jack Du Brul, the three men primarily responsible for the action-output.
“Polar Shift” has been out long enough to find in paperback. It’s a Kurt Austin adventure with Paul Kemprecos doing the bulk of the writing. To his credit, he is able to maintain the flying-at-the-edge-of-believability quality of Cussler’s style, and duplicates the wise-cracking, pulp-fiction dialogue that fans have come to expect.
A group of well-funded bad guys have invented a giant spark plug that they dangle from a huge ship, and when they throw the switch, it creates tidal waves, boat-sucking whirlpools, electrical flares, radioactive rays, a shifting of the earth’s crust over the core, and car chases. (To be honest, the car chases are an indirect result.) The pretty archeologist is threatened by thugs, the dwarf wooly mammoths are threatened with extinction, and it falls to Kurt to save the day.
Cussler novels have long been filled with technical jargon. The bad guy never wields a rifle. He’s usually described as having a gas-operated Automat Kalashnikova modernized AK-47 7.62mm with machined receiver capable of 600 rounds per minute. The pilot never flies a simple airplane; it’s always the same lengthy description.
Kemprecos manages to tone down the internet-driven descriptions and keep the fiction moving at a Cussler-inspired pace, and fans will find familiar lines and action a’ plenty…enough to satisfy until the next unit is ejected from the machine.
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