Subterranean - James Rollins

   1999; 410 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Thriller & Suspense; Action-Adventure.  Overall Rating: 8½*/10.

 

    Antarctica.  The only continent that doesn’t support native life.  Animals like penguins and walruses may live there; but they have to get their sustenance from the surrounding oceans.

 

    It’s been that way for millions of years, but not forever.  Earth’s tectonic plates shift slowly but inexorably.  Antarctica wasn’t always stuck at the South Pole.  Theoretically, someday we will dig down through all that ice and look for traces of plant life in the form of fossils.  Maybe even animal life.

 

    But that’s somewhere in the future.  At least that’s what paleoanthropologist Ashley Carter thinks.  Until someone contacts her and wants her to travel down to Antarctica to check out a recently discovered underground cavern.

 

    Which was found to have abandoned cliff dwellings in its walls.

 

What’s To Like...

    Subterranean is an early book by one of my favorite Thriller authors, James Rollins.  It predates his more famous Sigma Force series, and utilizes his standard, and satisfying, plot structure:

    Assemble a team of heroes and send them off on an adventure,

    Scatter them, put them all in peril, and make one or more of them a baddie,

    Keep the storyline interesting by jumping from one hero to another,

    Toss plot twists aplenty into the tale,

    Use incredible timing to get the gang back together for an over-the-top ending.

 

    In addition to lots of thrills and spills, Rollins examines what might occur if an isolated landmass, in this case Antarctica, is given millions of years to follow its own separate path of evolution.  In the real world, the Galapagos Islands give us a glimpse of what can happen, so does the second excerpt, below.

 

    There are a bunch of creatures for our adventurers to meet and flee from, usually unsuccessfully.  Listing them here would be a spoiler, but my favorite one was nicknamed “Tiny Tim” and is very definitely not the urchin from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

 

    Both the good guys and the baddies suffer some casualties along the way, and everything builds to an over-the-top, boffo ending.  All the plotlines get tied up, and there’s even some literary space for a sequel although I don’t think James Rollins ever penned one.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.3/5 based on 3,429 ratings and 767 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.02/5 based on 26,250 ratings and 946 reviews.

Excerpts...

    “I have a proposal to—”

    “Not interested.”  She pointed to the door.  “You and your entourage can hit the trail now.  Thanks anyway.”

    “If you’ll only lis—”

    “Don’t make me toss your butt outta here.”  She snapped her arms toward the screen door.

    “It pays a hundred grand for two months’ work.”

    “Just get your—”  Her arm dropped to her side.  Clearing her throat, she stared at Dr. Blakely, then raised an eyebrow.  “Now I’m listening.”  (pg. 10)

 

    She helped him sit up and raised a cup to his lips.  With shaky hands, he collected the cup and managed himself.

    “What happened?” he asked, glancing at Khalid, who now snored quietly from under the wet cloth.

    She explained the story of poisonous fungal spores while he finished his water.

    He handed her the cup.  “Is there anything down here that doesn’t want to eat us?”

    She grinned at him.  “This is a hostile environment.  I think for anything to survive it must learn to utilize the scarce resources to the fullest.  That means intense competition and varied modes of attack.”

    “Great.   What’s next?  Carnivorous butterflies?”  (pg. 206)

 

“Great, we’ve been captured by a bunch of kangaroos.”  (pg. 246)

    There’s not much to nitpick about in Subterranean.  I counted 21 instances of profanity in the first 10% of the book, and there were a couple of rolls-in-the-hay later on.  That’s pretty normal for a thriller novel.  I only caught one typo, breech/breach, so the editing was very good.

 

    The timing of some of the action scenes and heroes reuniting with each other seemed incredibly coincidental at times; such as Tiny Tim’s ultimate contribution to the action.  But hey, if it heightens the excitement, I’m all for it.  My biggest quibble concerns the stereotypical portrayal of one of the bad guys.  Just for once, can we please build a character from the Middle East who isn’t a brainwashed, murderous, zealot based on his religion and ethnicity?

 

    But I quibble.  Overall, I thought this was a solid debut Action-Adventure novel by James Rollins which showcases his literary and storytelling talents and hints at more exciting novels being penned by this author as he gets comfortable in this genre.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  I liked that the outcome of Subterranean would have a permanent impact on our world.  Creatures and beings we didn’t know are about to emerge  from the depths of Antarctica, and the only event to compare it to would be the (re)-discovery of the New World by Europeans in 1492.  I for one would love see what James Rollins could do with such a scenario.