Preston and Child

[Older Fish]

Long time ago, I read Preston and Child's Relic and got addicted. The setting of the book blended perfectly with the horror movie like aura of the story, and I have never thought about a museum in the same way since. As it was the first book that introduced Special Agent Pendergast, he wasn't as overbearing and overly caricatured as in the later books.

 

I have read and own most of the books the duo have produced, as you may have guessed, I am not a fan of "series" books, and I have come to dislike how the need to have Pendergast in every book they write has limited the imagination of this otherwise creative duo. Such "series" books ultimately become dreary, unimaginative litanies of how some superhuman hero survived yet another overly engineered trap by an equally superhuman nemesis. Ok, the content is interesting, but you know from the moment you turn the first page, that Alouysius Pendergast, the scion of an ultra rich and ultra enigmatic family, and an FBI agent to boot, and his numerous wards and proteges will survive to carry on to another book - even if they get walled up in a Tuscan castle.

 

Their non-Pendergast books are mind-blowing. Ice Limit is one such feast for the brain. So are the books written individually by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

 

Are you a fan of Preston and Child? What are your favourites?

[Madeleine]

I've never heard of them I'm afraid!

[Older Fish]

Ah, now that is a deficit that ought to be rectified. If you'd like to start, I would recommend Relic, Still Life With Crows, or Brimstone. If you are scientifically or technically oriented, Ice Limit is a fantastic read.

[Madeleine]

Looked them up and realised that I have seen the film version of the Relic, years ago.  I didn't know it was based on a book.

[Older Fish]

Unfortunately, as in many such cases, the film version left much to be desired. The book paints a more adrenaline-inducing picture of the museum than the film did. The sounds and smells described in the book cannot compete with the weak imagery presented in the movie.