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Primordia

In Search of the Lost World

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Primordia

By: Greig Beck
Narrated by: Sean Mangan
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Summary

 Ben Cartwright, former soldier, home to mourn the loss of his father stumbles upon cryptic letters from the past between author, Arthur Conan Doyle and his great, great grandfather who vanished while exploring the Amazon jungle in 1908. Amazingly, these letters lead Ben to believe that his ancestor’s expedition was the basis for Doyle’s fantastical tale of a lost world inhabited by long extinct creatures. As Ben digs some more he finds clues to the whereabouts of a lost notebook that might contain a map to a place that is home to creatures that would rewrite everything known about history, biology and evolution. But other parties now know about the notebook, and will do anything to obtain it. For Ben and his friends, it becomes a race against time and against ruthless rivals. In the remotest corners of the Venezuela, along winding river trails known only to lost tribes, and through near impenetrable jungle, Ben and his novice team find a forbidden place more terrifying and dangerous than anything they could ever have imagined.©2017 Greig Beck (P)2018 Bolinda Publishing Adventure Science Fiction Fiction Suspenseful
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If you like seeing (hearing) rag tag bunches of assorted characters slowly being picked off one by one by an assortment of creepy crawlys and beasty bastard, then you'll love this story.

It's got everything, Rugged men, lovely ladies, old cockroaches, rusty planes, large fronds, small D energy, adventurous Great Granddaddy's, big bot flies and a mean mercenary who should really know better.

I'm a man of simple tastes, and I must say, my appetite was sufficiently satiated for the duration of this listen. This ain't you granny's "Lost World", but it is your teenage sons "Lost World", because he (unlike her) can get behind the idea of someone being eaten alive by.......well, you get the picture, no spoilers here.

Move Over Jurassic Park...

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The opening of the book is almost unbearable. The overly cheesy, teenage-style romance made me seriously question whether this could really be the same author who wrote some of my favourite science-fiction stories. The tone felt jarringly different, to the point where it pulled me out of the experience almost immediately.

I even checked the publication date, assuming this might be some very early work from the author, written before he found his stride. In the end, perseverance does pay off — but only just. As the story progresses, it gradually shifts into something far more engaging, unfolding into violent and surprisingly realistic depictions of life among prehistoric beasts. The action is brutal, and while the violence feels grounded, it’s balanced with touches of “factual fantasy” that add some interest and texture to the world.

That said, the characters themselves remain fairly bland and vanilla throughout, never quite rising above serviceable. They do their job in moving the story along but lack depth or memorability. I’m currently reading Primordial II, and so far it feels very much on par with the first — competent, but not particularly exciting. At times, it’s hard not to feel a bit bored.

Overall, there are far better books out there in this genre, but this one is still mildly entertaining and oddly comforting if you’re in the right mood. Just don’t go in expecting anything exceptional. Choose wisely.

Cheesy and cliché with elements of action

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There's no way to be polite about this: In the opening chapters the narrator sounded drunk! He was slurred and dismal and sounded like an old man. I nearly gave up.

Once the story got going either I got into it enough to overlook the narrator, or he got caught up in the story.

This was a fun adventure, much like the books I read as a young adult. it did occur to me that it would make an entertaining movie.

Slurring narrator nearly ended it for me

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Certainly not up to previous GB novels. Lost interest in the plot about 1/3 of the way through but I stayed with it until the end where there was the only real surprise.
Others have rated this highly so possibly just not for me.

An old rehashed story

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What if the lost world is real but only accessible for a few days every ten years. When Ben finds his Great Grandfathers expedition diary it starts him and his naive friends of a journey of wonder and horror. The story is inventive and very well written, although the characters are a little thin and the villains a bit of a cliche once they arrive at the plateau the story becomes a tense rollercoaster of shocks and tragedy, where everything a lethal .and humans are just prey no matter how many guns they have. I will definitely be reading more of these books. The narration is perfect for the story. I received a complimentary copy of the audiobook and am leaving a honest voluntary review

Really entertaining and tense

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