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A review by evieshka
Amazonia by James Rollins
4.0
Back when I was a kid, "Congo" was considered the last great adventure novel of the jungle-expedition type. I've always wanted to find an author who wrote similarly to Michael Crichton, with the same brilliance and excitement - and I guess I've found that in James Rollins!
Amazonia was well-paced, intriguing, and reminded me not only of M.C. novels, but of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Rollins has his own unique imagination and style, and his work definitely kept me engaged until the very end. Not a small feat when I'm reading while sick!
I knocked off a star because I felt his female characters could have used more development and critical examination as people rather than women. A good piece of advice for those who aren't comfortable writing women as something more than either weak, wibbly messes or untouchable hardasses is to write them as you would write your male characters, and then simply change the pronouns. This is just a nitpick of mine, and not really a hill to die on; Rollins' work is good enough to excuse the minimal character development. And, of course, this was written in 2002, so I'm sure the author has improved greatly since then.
Criticism aside, I'm eager to read more of his work.
Amazonia was well-paced, intriguing, and reminded me not only of M.C. novels, but of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Rollins has his own unique imagination and style, and his work definitely kept me engaged until the very end. Not a small feat when I'm reading while sick!
I knocked off a star because I felt his female characters could have used more development and critical examination as people rather than women. A good piece of advice for those who aren't comfortable writing women as something more than either weak, wibbly messes or untouchable hardasses is to write them as you would write your male characters, and then simply change the pronouns. This is just a nitpick of mine, and not really a hill to die on; Rollins' work is good enough to excuse the minimal character development. And, of course, this was written in 2002, so I'm sure the author has improved greatly since then.
Criticism aside, I'm eager to read more of his work.