Reviewing: "Impact" by Douglas Preston

It is never good when the cover is far better than the actual book.

the book begins with a brilliant flash of light and an immense sonic boom as something crosses the sky above the small coastal town of Round Pond, Maine one evening. For Abby Straw, college drop out and waitress, the falling meteor means treasure and money. She knows it didn’t crash into the ocean but must have impacted on one of the five nearby islands. All she and her friend, Jackie, have to do is find it, recover the meteorite, and sell it for a lot of money. A plan far easier said than done.

Half a world away in Cambodia, villagers are being forced to dig out gemstones from a new mine. Known as “honeys” the orange gemstones are radioactive and possibly created by illicit nuclear activity. Sent by Stanton Lockwood III, science advisor to the President of the United States, Wyman Ford is sent to asses what is going on, document it and bring the info home so that the U. S. government can decide what to do. A plan that is far easier said than done.

Mark Corso is moving up at the NPF (National Propulsion Facility) located in Pasadena, California. His promotion is partly because he is very good at his job, partly because of his old professor and mentor, Jason Freeman, was murdered in what appears to be a botched home invasion and robbery. Now part of the Mars Mapping Orbiter Mission, Corso has his old professor’s job but zero guidance on how to deal with the political aspects of the job. A small part of his job is to consider an anomaly in the Gamma Ray data from a recent orbital pass of Mars. Something that Jason Freeman was working on right before his death and something the political bureaucrats at NPF seem determined to cover up. The Gamma Ray data anomaly becomes an obsession for Corso and jeopardizes everything he holds dear. Corso comes up with a plan publicly expose what he knows. A plan easier said than done.




When reading Douglas Preston, one always has to suspend disbelief a bit. Whether he is writing solo or with Lincoln Child, the books always push the boundaries a bit both in terms of science as well as realistic characters. While the science does work here, the same can’t be said for some of the characters. The biggest offender is Abbey Straw whom we meet in the opening pages. Twenty years old, college dropout, back home waitressing and trying to help her father survive financially and yet she is smarter than the entire scientist community at NPF, NASA, etc. together. That is the issue. Not the fact that a college dropout can’t be smart. I have known quite a few over the years who were far smarter that what they got credit for just like I have known folks who had doctoral degrees and yet could not figure out what to do with a paper bag. The problem here is, beyond a certain two dimensionality she is portrayed with through the book that manages to frequently bring up her race, she is so smart she figures out thing long before those who study space every day do. This creates an almost a laugh out loud moment on more than one occasion. To say more would ruin the point of reading the book.

This same basic issue extends to the character of Wyman Ford who is portrayed as some sort of super agent, gun for hire. After far exceeding his mandate in Cambodia and aware that something is going on far more than what he has been told, he begins searching the Maine coast trying to find anyone who saw the meteor come in that night. He finds Abbey and they quickly form a team, with occasional support from Jackie, against all odds to save the world from sure destruction. Destruction that nobody else has figured out is about to happen with in hours.

The result is a fast paced novel full of real science and two dimensional characters at best. If you can suspend your disbelief long enough to get by the clichéd stereotypes, the book is fairly decent. But, if you take this thriller seriously as a work of fiction, you may find yourself laughing out loud way too often.

This is why you shouldn’t come over and sit on my apartment porch and read it. The neighbors are already concerned about me. Let’s not give them somebody else to worry about. This complex already has its resident weirdo. I just need to get the t-shirt made…..


Impact
Douglas Preston
http://www.prestonchild.com/
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC (Forge)
http://www.tor-forge.com/
January 2010
ISBN# 978-0-7653-1768-1
364 Pages
Hardback
$25.99


Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System. If it wasn’t for libraries and librarians, my TBR pile would be much smaller.


Kevin R. Tipple © 2010