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A review by rhubarbguru
Reliquary by Douglas Preston
2.0
SPOILERS:
I marinated on this one for a bit before editing my review, because I was far too generous initially. I was a very big fan of "Relic". I think it was a lot of fun, kept me interested and was a page turner for me. Even though I knew a general idea of where it would go thanks to seeing the movie the book is based on years before it, I was still very pleasantly surprised and it kept me wanting to read.
This one? nope. I put this one down for over a week because I hated the plot. Look, it's not like Relic was a believable story, at all. But it was a very fun suspenseful creature feature. This was so ridiculous though - hybrid Mbwun's without any of the cool Mbwun features living in abandoned tunnels under NYC praying on homeless people (and a few surface dwellers) controlled by......Dr Frock?!? I absolutely HATED that twist (and to me it became predictable as to who the "other" was by the time of the reveal). Frock was one of the good guys in Relic and for him to become basically a mad scientist and murderous villain just because he was in a wheelchair was ridiculous. His whole rant after the reveal, especially with taunting Margo, was just too far out of left field and the authors were just going for the shock factor in all this because they didn't hit it out of the park w/ the major plot twist in the epilogue of Relic of what the creature really was (if you saw the movie first, you knew who/what the monster was even with the differences between the book and film - but the book's reveal was pretty mundane).
I just can't get over Frock being the big bad pulling the strings, it left a sour taste in my mouth even with suspecting it - I was just hoping to be wrong when the time came and I wasn't. Again his explanation for becoming evil was just so dumb. I really didn't like this one, and I am wondering I will continue on w/ the Pendergast series.
I marinated on this one for a bit before editing my review, because I was far too generous initially. I was a very big fan of "Relic". I think it was a lot of fun, kept me interested and was a page turner for me. Even though I knew a general idea of where it would go thanks to seeing the movie the book is based on years before it, I was still very pleasantly surprised and it kept me wanting to read.
This one? nope. I put this one down for over a week because I hated the plot. Look, it's not like Relic was a believable story, at all. But it was a very fun suspenseful creature feature. This was so ridiculous though - hybrid Mbwun's without any of the cool Mbwun features living in abandoned tunnels under NYC praying on homeless people (and a few surface dwellers) controlled by......Dr Frock?!? I absolutely HATED that twist (and to me it became predictable as to who the "other" was by the time of the reveal). Frock was one of the good guys in Relic and for him to become basically a mad scientist and murderous villain just because he was in a wheelchair was ridiculous. His whole rant after the reveal, especially with taunting Margo, was just too far out of left field and the authors were just going for the shock factor in all this because they didn't hit it out of the park w/ the major plot twist in the epilogue of Relic of what the creature really was (if you saw the movie first, you knew who/what the monster was even with the differences between the book and film - but the book's reveal was pretty mundane).
I just can't get over Frock being the big bad pulling the strings, it left a sour taste in my mouth even with suspecting it - I was just hoping to be wrong when the time came and I wasn't. Again his explanation for becoming evil was just so dumb. I really didn't like this one, and I am wondering I will continue on w/ the Pendergast series.