Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2024
384 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
With Extinction, #1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston has written a page-turning thriller in the Michael Crichton mode that explores the possible and unintended dangers of the very real efforts to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other long-extinct animals.
Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire's son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.
As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection—but extinction.
"Preston tweaks the 'resurrected species go haywire' trope with a series of ingenious plot twists, and his well-rounded characters make this more than a knowing genre exercise. The results are as smart and spine-chilling as the best of Michael Crichton."
―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Science, imagination, storytelling, and action are all here. Fast-moving fun and a highly creative plot."
―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Preston's novels are a lot of fun because he really commits to the stories. He might be writing about ordinary people in a fantastic situation, but he isn't writing a fantasy. The villain of the story, as out-of-this-world as it might be, is presented as realistically as any human villain, which gives the story an unsettlingly plausible atmosphere. Highly recommendable."
―Booklist
"A thriller as breathlessly riveting as you would expect from a genre master like Douglas Preston, but much more too: it's meaty and thought-provoking, and tells us a lot about our distant past―and our immediate future. Spectacular!"
―Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Preston's latest thriller, Extinction, is Jurassic Park for the Pleistocene Era―and that's no exaggeration. It's got everything I love: fantastic creatures, wild adventures, and dynamic heroes. But most frightening of all, it shines a disturbing light on where the science of genetic engineering might be venturing next. Read at your own risk!"
―James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Doug Preston is a master storyteller. I'm still thinking about Extinction―which is both entertaining and frightening―every page like a tasty treat. You have to read this!
―Steve Berry, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"One of the most heart-stopping, terrifying climaxes of any novel I've read in recent years. Preston ingeniously combines real-life science and technology into his novels, and Extinction brings it all together in a thriller that's truly thrilling!"
―Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Spy Coast
This information about Extinction was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
© Christine Preston
Douglas Preston has published forty books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which over thirty have been New York Times bestsellers, a half-dozen reaching the #1 position. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He also writes nonfiction pieces for the New Yorker Magazine. He worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He is president emeritus of the Authors Guild and serves on the Advisory Board of the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.
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