Review: Christine's Horror Fiction Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 19, 2014
It said Episode One right there on the cover, so I have nobody to blame but myself for my agonized groan when I reached the end of the book to find it was nowhere near the end of the story!My first piece of advice, therefore, is that you might as well go ahead and spring for the entire trilogy or omnibus versions right out of the gate. Assuming that you like lost worlds, remote tribes, paleontology, eco/bio thrillers, extinct species turning out to be not so extinct after all, and … what am I saying? Who DOESN’T?The First Bird belongs right up there on the shelf with Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and Congo, Preston and Child’s Relic, the better of Clive Cussler’s stuff, and any number of adventure flicks from the scientifically plausible to the entertainingly goofy.An explorer, an expedition, an exotic specimen smuggled out of its native habitat. Not just any exotic specimen, either, but what appears to be a genuine archaeopteryx, the first bird, a living fossil and link to the time of the dinosaurs.Never mind the legends and taboos, or the locals trying to stop him. Never mind quarantine. It’s the find of the century, the career-making discovery of a lifetime! What could possibly go wrong?Well, for starters, he might collapse in the middle of his revolutionary presentation. His mysterious sickness might trigger an outbreak, and an investigation by the CDC. They might try to trace the contagion back to its source, which means finding out where he picked up the specimen.And for that, they’ll need a team of experts! Enter linguistics professor Matt Kearns, recruited whether he likes it or not for a trip into the uncharted jungles. His assignment will be to communicate with the natives. Provided he, or any of them, can get there alive.It doesn’t help that not every member of the team is on the same page. The movie mogul, for example, is more interested in the cinematic, licensing and merchandising potential of the archaeopteryx and whatever else might survive down there.Now that I’ve got the rest of the series, I can’t wait to find out!