Book Review: Primordia by Greig Beck (Primordia #1)

Ben Cartwright, former soldier, home to mourn the loss of his father stumbles upon cryptic letters from the past between the author, Arthur Conan Doyle and his great, great grandfather who vanished while exploring the Amazon jungle in 1908.

Amazingly, these letters lead Ben to believe that his ancestor’s expedition was the basis for Doyle’s fantastical tale of a lost world inhabited by long extinct creatures. As Ben digs some more he finds clues to the whereabouts of a lost notebook that might contain a map to a place that is home to creatures that would rewrite everything known about history, biology and evolution.

But other parties now know about the notebook, and will do anything to obtain it. For Ben and his friends, it becomes a race against time and against ruthless rivals.

In the remotest corners of Venezuela, along winding river trails known only to lost tribes, and through near impenetrable jungle, Ben and his novice team find a forbidden place more terrifying and dangerous than anything they could ever have imagined.

My Review: 
I don't think I read The Lost World in my younger days, or if I did I don't remember, but I certainly saw at least one film version as a kid, not that I can actually remember that now! I've always been fascinated by dinosaurs and would look at anything connected to them, something that I still do today. When I first became aware of this trilogy I knew I just had to pick it up and read it, especially with such great covers. I liked the idea that Ben was following in the footsteps of his long dead relative and that it was this man's expedition that inspired a classic novel. It sounded like a nice plot twist to get things started instead of just a retelling of the original story. Ben and his friends do use the journal to pinpoint their location and it leads them to the plateau.

I'm always fascinated by the idea of a Lost World than can only be accessed at a certain time. Here in the jungles of Venezuela, every ten years the brief visit of a comet overhead signals a short window of time where an empty plateau above the jungle is turned into a dangerous Lost World of dinosaurs that can be explored. The location is hidden at the end of a secret river that the locals avoid but Ben's group and a rival group will not be stopped by tales of terror when they want to see this alleged plateau for themselves. However as fascinating as I find the idea of going looking for this dinosaur world, the reality of the danger and big hairy jungle spiders would stop me going anywhere near it.

Ben's team come up with the idea of the expedition after a few drinks and Ben's tale of what he found in the attic. They first have to go in search of the journal mentioned in the papers, unaware that an internet search of things mentioned has triggered the interest of another man who has been searching for the lost world for years and will stop at nothing to get there. Now there are two groups who want to find the plateau and their paths will cross in the jungle-one a group of friends with no exploration experience and the other a group of mercaneries led by a ruthless man out to make money from his discovery. The clash of the groups turned out a little different from what I expected, but it added more potential dinosaur meals to the equation!

The characters are a decent enough group, along with a couple of characters where you look forward to them becoming dinosaur chew toys. The book takes a bit of time to set the scene for the expedition and allows the reader to get to know the characters during the search for the journal and the jungle trek itself. The real action begins when they find the actual plateau and after that it is full of dinosaurs, danger and death, which is what I was looking for. There are lots of scary dinosaurs to enjoy and also a gigantic titanoboa which was a great addition to the story that I wasn't expecting to see. Our group enjoy several days of terror trying to stay alive and then looking for a way to get off the plateau before the comet vanishes and leaves them standed there for another ten years.

My main issue with the book is that it took 124 pages out of 231 pages to actually reach the plateau. I think the jungle trip could have been shortened as nothing of any note was happening or they could have spiced it up a bit with a spider attack or something similar. The first half of the book was certainly slower, though I wouldn't say it was boring. I just wanted to get to the good stuff a bit quicker. Once we get to the dinosaurs, the plot certainly livens up and we get the danger and death that we were expecting. I also felt that the poor attempt at a love triangle, which fizzles into nothing before it even starts, was pretty much a waste of time, and the sex scene appeared to have been put in for the sake of it. It really didn't fit well into the story for me and could just have been missed out. 

Overall it was still a very enjoyable dinosaur book with enough action and gore to keep the interest of the creature feature fan. Fans of the original work might find it interesting to look at as well though I have no idea if it sticks close to the original story or is totally different. I have already read and am about to review book 2 in the series, and have purchased the third book which I have not yet read.

Read February 2019
4 stars.