After struggling for months to finish The Fall of Hyperion (see the previous entry), I wanted something that I knew was going to be fun and go quickly. Douglas Preston is a past master of this sort of book, whether he’s writing by himself or with colleague Lincoln Child, and sure enough, Tyrannosaur Canyon didn’t disappoint me.
As with all of Preston’s books, Science with a capital “S” exerts a heavy presence on the narrative. And not just archeology or paleontology, which one might expect; virtually every page is laden with jargon from fields as diverse as astronomy and cryptology, and understanding how the science works is, in places, vital to the plot. It’s to Preston’s credit that he manages to weave all of this into the story without sacrificing speed and continuity. For once the back-page blurbs are right; he really does do this sort of story better than Micheal Crichton. Far better.
What I particularly like about Preston’s work is a sort of ragged quality of the plot. People die (or survive) unexpectedly, not every plot thread is completely wound up, minor characters exert a more-than-minor effect on things here and there. In other words, his stories work a lot like life – there are loose ends. It makes things pleasingly unpredictable, and while some of the plotline is obvious from a hundred pages out, this unpredictability in other areas provides a nice balance.
I’ve liked certain of his books better than others, but I’ve never been disappointed in a Douglas Preston novel, and Tyrannosaur Canyon is no exception. If you don’t mind a heavy dollop of science with your mystery/thriller and you’re looking for a good read to take on a flight or to the beach, it’s going to be hard to beat.
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[...] think I like Richard Preston’s stuff even better than I like his brother Douglas’. Richard tends to write more in the way of dramatized real-life stories than novels, and he’s [...]
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