Like the "Dark Continent" of Africa, the dark island of Madagascar holds many chilling secrets. One of them is a long thought extinct species of dinosaurs living at the country’s core.A massive earthquake rocks the mountain range within the Andringitra National Park. The splitting earth reveals a network of tunnels, hidden away for millennia. Responding to the series of violent upheavals, a pack of hypersensitive predators flee their subterranean home, frenzied and hungry they head for the surface. Former Navy SEAL Ian Hunt begrudgingly accepts an offer to lead an exploratory team. What they uncover is the find of a lifetime…if they survive long enough to tell anyone. Dinosaurs are alive and well at the heart of the DARK ISLAND.
My Review:
Ian and his wife were searching the island nation for evidence of a dinosaur bird when he watched her being killed by strange creatures who appeared after a series of seismic events on the crater rim.After finally proving he was innocent of killing her, Ian stayed on the island, not ready to leave but never brave enough to go back to the scene of her death. Mack's journalist father believed in the story of the dinosaur bird and after his death, Mack is going to Madagascar to investigate for herself. She hires the reluctant Ian, his friend Bob and British ex-military man Thomas Nash to take her there. But when history begins to repeat itself, the team find themselves split into two pairs and trapped in tunnels below ground that lead to an entire Lost World within the mountain itself.
This book had mixed reviews when I looked at it but I decided to give it a try because I can never resist the Lost World concept, whether it is forests, caves, caverns, plateaus or in this case inside a volcano. I very much liked the idea of hapless explorers getting attacked on the ridge by dinosaur birds and falling into a tunnel complex during an earthquake. With creatures following them, the only option is to go forward and down into the mountain where much worse awaits them. Mack and Nash, and Ian and Bob face different terrors inside the mountain as they search for the other pair and try to stay alive amid dinosaurs, mutant bugs and beasts, fast moving land crocodiles and the menace of the dinosaur birds. Trying to find each other sounds like a hopeless task but then they have to somehow find a way out of the mountain. The concept was certainly interesting.
The characters were ok. I thought in the beginning that Mack was a bit of a loud mouthed idiot but she did grow on me. I liked the guys and their complicated friendships and rivalry. I really liked local man 'Bob' the best as he was capable without being military trained. I also loved the intelligent lemurs that the group meet on their travels. Having once had a lemur sit on my back at a zoo visit, I have seen how social and friendly they can be so it was fun to see them in the story. There was a big variety of various dinosaur birds, creatures and mythical monsters for the group to deal with. I do like a variety of creatures but there really are a lot in the book. It wasn't that which bugged me. Had the monster attacks been spread out through a book with time to explore, observe and then build tension, it could have been really good...but the manic pace of events was just too much.
We would be with one pair as they escaped an attack by the flying birds, ran into mad killer ostrich things and ran away from them to be suddenly attacked by a land crocodile thing which they run from right into the path of giant insect things. The other pair might be escaping the birds to be stalked by a jaguar and run into three other creatues in the space of a chapter. For me there was too much happening one thing after another, with no time for the injured and hungry people to eat or rest. I can't imagine that someone ordinary like Mack could have that unending energy to constantly keep going through all of this without seeming to suffer.The military guys might be able to but they were both sporting really bad injuries. The book had good things in it but the pacing was just too manic and rushed for it to be regarded as a really great read. The ending also wasn't what I expected and there could maybe be a sequel.
I'm not really sure how to rate this. It wasn't a terrible book. It had good ideas, decent characters and an interesting setting. The monsters were varied. It could have done with a few more scenes of tension like in the tree attack and more of the lemurs. It had a couple of plots that were a bit too convenient or bizarre for me and the pacing was too breakneck to really let the story develop. Sometimes less can be more, y'know? That said, I only had a couple of mild niggles over the actual story and I didn't think there was anything wrong with the author's style so I would consider reading more by him. I thought I was going to rate this as 2.5 but it feels a bit mean so I think I'll up the rating to three. It was after all, a book I did finish and there was good stuff in it, just a few things that didn't suit me. Hmm not sure!
Read December 2019
2.5/3 stars.
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