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A review by ericbuscemi
The Great Zoo of China by Matthew Reilly
4.0
This novel's set up is fairly simple. Protagonist CJ Cameron is on assignment from National Geographic to see The Great Zoo of China ahead of its grand opening, and her photographer brother Hamish is tagging along to take the accompanying photos. Both are unaware of what exactly lurks inside the Great Zoo until they arrive at a hidden valley in China under great secrecy and see it for themselves. They are awed, of course, to discover the secret is real, live dragons. From there, of course, things start to go terribly wrong, but I won't spoil details on exactly how.
Suffice it to say, the novel quickly picks up momentum and maintains a breakneck pace up to and through the climax, leaving the reader shot through with nearly as much adrenaline as the characters. It has large, bombastic action scenes, and what it loses in originality in makes up in sheer spectacle.
Speaking to the lack of originality, there is obviously a lot of similarity here to Michael Crichton's [b:Jurassic Park|7677|Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1)|Michael Crichton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348796998s/7677.jpg|3376836]. In fact, the Die Hard on a X trope for this would simply be "It's Jurassic Park in China!" But the author owns it, lampshading it in dialogue early in the book. And the novel has enough differences -- no, the dragon DNA is not taken from prehistoric amber -- that it stands on its own merits. For example, the China setting is not tacked on in the least, and the motivations of the Chinese officials were an interesting and integral part of the plot. The author admits to loving Crichton's classic in an interview afterword, and I think he does a nice job paying homage to it here.
I did have two small gripes. First, at some later points in the novel my suspension of disbelief was pushed to its limit (and this from someone who was totally willing to accept a dragon zoo). Second, the author has a penchant for using exclamation points, and not just in dialogue, but in the prose of the action sequences, which I felt tended to be unnecessary. Once you mention that dragons are chasing the characters, their stress is obvious enough without exclamation points.
Update: Life imitating art?
Full disclosure: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
Suffice it to say, the novel quickly picks up momentum and maintains a breakneck pace up to and through the climax, leaving the reader shot through with nearly as much adrenaline as the characters. It has large, bombastic action scenes, and what it loses in originality in makes up in sheer spectacle.
Speaking to the lack of originality, there is obviously a lot of similarity here to Michael Crichton's [b:Jurassic Park|7677|Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park, #1)|Michael Crichton|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348796998s/7677.jpg|3376836]. In fact, the Die Hard on a X trope for this would simply be "It's Jurassic Park in China!" But the author owns it, lampshading it in dialogue early in the book. And the novel has enough differences -- no, the dragon DNA is not taken from prehistoric amber -- that it stands on its own merits. For example, the China setting is not tacked on in the least, and the motivations of the Chinese officials were an interesting and integral part of the plot. The author admits to loving Crichton's classic in an interview afterword, and I think he does a nice job paying homage to it here.
I did have two small gripes. First, at some later points in the novel my suspension of disbelief was pushed to its limit (and this from someone who was totally willing to accept a dragon zoo). Second, the author has a penchant for using exclamation points, and not just in dialogue, but in the prose of the action sequences, which I felt tended to be unnecessary. Once you mention that dragons are chasing the characters, their stress is obvious enough without exclamation points.
Update: Life imitating art?
Full disclosure: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.