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A review by jaipal
The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly
3.0
I liked the premise of this book. The story is about a group of foreigners, famous journalists, photographer, a reptile specialist, and the US ambassador to China, invited to a preview of the Great "Dragon" Zoo of China.
It seems the Dragons were discovered in China and they decided to put them in a zoo. These dragons aren't mere beasts but intelligent apex predators. So, you might ask what could possibly go wrong with putting intelligent flying predators in a zoo.
There are multiple sub-species of dragons and one of those, the red-bellied black dragons decide they want to get out of the zoo. The start attacking the people and infrastructure to escape from the zoo. The foreigners find their tour cut short and end up trying to escape the dragons and then trying to stop them from escaping.
This is an action adventure novel and the scenes were described cinematically, which unfortunately felt cliched. The description of the Chinese were stereotypical and I feel does injustice to the Chinese. I do think a good story requires a good villain but none of the people here were more than one dimensional villains. The dragons on the other hand were much better villains, as they were unrelenting and inscrutable.
All in all, I found the book followed the typical action adventure formulas, use of stereotypes to describe "them", i.e. the Chinese, and has a number of deus ex machina moments.
It seems the Dragons were discovered in China and they decided to put them in a zoo. These dragons aren't mere beasts but intelligent apex predators. So, you might ask what could possibly go wrong with putting intelligent flying predators in a zoo.
There are multiple sub-species of dragons and one of those, the red-bellied black dragons decide they want to get out of the zoo. The start attacking the people and infrastructure to escape from the zoo. The foreigners find their tour cut short and end up trying to escape the dragons and then trying to stop them from escaping.
This is an action adventure novel and the scenes were described cinematically, which unfortunately felt cliched. The description of the Chinese were stereotypical and I feel does injustice to the Chinese. I do think a good story requires a good villain but none of the people here were more than one dimensional villains. The dragons on the other hand were much better villains, as they were unrelenting and inscrutable.
All in all, I found the book followed the typical action adventure formulas, use of stereotypes to describe "them", i.e. the Chinese, and has a number of deus ex machina moments.