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Relic (Pendergast #1)

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 31,788 ratings · 1,238 reviews

The book that started the New York Times bestsellingcollaboration of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...

But the museum's directors plan to go a...more

Paperback, 480 pages

Published November 27th 2007 by Tor Books (first published 1995)

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Jan 03, 2013 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is another book (series of books) I was introduced to by my late wife (we were married 34 years before she passed so there were quite a few books we ended up sharing, sometimes to the surprise of each of us. I introduced her to things like epic fantasy she "introed" me to things like, well Preston/Child or Koontz). I am surprised not only that I liked it (them) but that I decided to give it 4 stars.

This is a surprisingly absorbing read and the Pendergast character while he could have ended...more

32 likes · like · see review

Mar 17, 2013 Dirk Grobbelaar rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, mystery-thriller, books-i-own, horror

Relic
Some thoughts.

Now, this isn’t really a review, simply because too much time has passed since I actually read the novel to form any objective and cohesive opinion on its literary merit. What I would like to focus on is what remained with me.

I’m sticking to my original rating. This novel is one of the few that my wife and I still discuss on a rather regular basis, even after all this time.

Relic ticked quite a few of the right boxes. Such as:
(1) Atmospheric setting. In this case, the museum....more

16 likes · like · see review

Jan 19, 2013 Willowfaerie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

I'll be damned! This silly book turned out to be one big, over the top, cheesy, load of fun! I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I’ve read some reviews where people called The Relic a mystery horror (and I guess in some ways it is) but I tend to look at it as a crazy, disaster, monster film. If you took The Position Adventure, threw in a furry, brain-eating, velociraptor, and then had a total nincompoop in charge of the rescue mission -- that would be this book. Yes it’s that crazy. There are lots of WTF...more I'll be damned! This silly book turned out to be one big, over the top, cheesy, load of fun! I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I’ve read some reviews where people called The Relic a mystery horror (and I guess in some ways it is) but I tend to look at it as a crazy, disaster, monster film. If you took The Position Adventure, threw in a furry, brain-eating, velociraptor, and then had a total nincompoop in charge of the rescue mission -- that would be this book. Yes it’s that crazy. There are lots of WTF moments.

Were the characters one dimensional? Hell, yes! But I grew to be fond of them. D’Agosta is the hard broiled New York city cop just trying to do his job. Smithback is a slimy journalist who turns out to be not such a bad guy. Dr. Frock is the crackpot scientist genius. Pendergast is the amazing (Sherlock Holmes like) FBI Agent who comes from out of nowhere to assist. Wright is the totally self-absorbed director of the museum who cares more about money than human life (he has a couple of cronies that hang out with him.) And Coffey! OMG that guy was hilarious. He gets the Dwayne T Robinson award for being the most obnoxious (I’m in charge of this operation and we don’t need fire exits) stupid asshat.

I’m still laughing at that guy!

And last but not least there’s Margo Green the doctorial student. She’s pretty boring. I think of her as the token female character that was put in so it wouldn’t be just men. It's a full cast. :D

Did I have problems with the book? Yes -- I thought it was too long. The beginning is painfully slow. I think some text could have been cut out to make the story more taut. Maybe it would have been more interesting if there had been real characters with real dialogue, but that wasn’t the case, so it was a bit tedious to read. There's lots of science babble, which is repeated several times, and since the scientific theory is so damn silly anyway, it’s probably kind of superfluous.

The ending was great though. I couldn’t set the book down. I wanted to know what was going to happen and find out who was going to get eaten. This book has so many clichés, but they are fun clichés. I was laughing while I was reading. So if you want to read a disaster, monster book that doesn’t take itself too seriously, I think you would enjoy this.

I'll definitely be reading another Pendergast book. This was fun.

This was a buddy read with Margaret. :D(less)

13 likes · like · see review

Jan 23, 2008 Bill rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

This was recommended to me by several visitors to my site, but I'm sorry folks, I simply couldn't finish it. Cardboard, cliched characters and a monster on a rampage in a museum don't quite add up to a great read. I gave it a good effort, the quick readability of it got me halfway through it but I don't care how it ends or who lives or dies. I'm moving on.

11 likes · like · see review

Jan 25, 2013 StoryTellerShannon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-very-best-reads, owned, thrillers, books-reviewed, need-reviewing

A chilling thriller that takes place mostly in a colossal museum in NYC. Don't be fooled if you hate museums. It's still very interesting with a combination of horror, sleuthing and melodrama. Characters are mostly vivid and while one could argue several plot points were predictable they were still satisfying. BTW, the movie is a terribly poor representation of the book.

CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: A minus; STORY/PLOT POINTS: A minus to A; CREEPINESS/HORROR: B plus; OVERALL GRADE: A minus to A; WHEN RE...more

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Dec 24, 2007 erin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Surprisingly good...I thought this was an airport type book..you know...amusing enough for the moment and then you leave it somewhere and never think about it again.
It did really draw me in. I kept thinking that it would make a great suspenseful horror movie. It has all the elements...good characters, hateful antagonists and pretty Hollywood boys and girls playing smart historians and scientists and most importantly ancient curses and horrifying deaths.
What is up Hollywood? Here's your next Jur...more

6 likes · like · see review

Sep 03, 2011 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, mystery, science-fiction

At first I had a hard time getting into it, but after a while I thought it captivating.

Something strange is happening at the Museum of Natural History. People disappear or die. At the same time, a new exhibition, "Superstition", is being set up, which involves objects from the Kothoga tribe - a mysterius tribe connected to a very strange myth.

Spoilers...

Despite dead bodies, the director doesn't want to postpone the exhibition and the very night of the premiere, another gruesome murder makes hund...more

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Jan 01, 2008 Mairi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read

01 Jan 08, early: There are, of course, major differences from the movie and some of them had become interchanged in my head. It is still much, much better than the movie. Amusingly, people don't usually interact with me when I read on the bus. (Notable exception was the WWII conspiracy theorist who went on and on over A Man Called Intrepid.) This book, however, inspired three people to talk to me on three different busses on one day: one who'd seen the movie and wanted to know more; one who'd r...more

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Apr 15, 2008 Nick Pappas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of fun quick reads.

Recommended to Nick by: Sean Kreycik

Shelves: pop-fiction

This was one of those books that was a fun quick read. I enjoyed it from start to finish. Just don't get hopes up for something that is far to "literary." That being said, I'm glad I pulled my head out of my own far to self important ass in order to read this mass maket fiction book. Because of it I was introduced to one of the most compeling characters I've read in a long time, Agent Pendergast. This character alone is worth the price of admission, and I'm intrested in reading more of him in th...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jul 23, 2010 Tess added it · review of another edition

I was right, not my genre, but engaging enough to finish. Liked most of the characters (clearly good or bad), hated the gore and blood. Science was too weird (even for me). Don't think I'll read more of the series (but I've been wrong before).

1 like · like · see review

Jan 30, 2009 Diana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are my guilty pleasure reading because they don't pretend to be anything more than thrillers with some interesting characters and plot twists. With all the more serious literature and scholarly material that I read, do research on, and teach, it's a welcome relief to just sit back on a weekend and take what I know will be a fun ride with these two authors.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, actually; it was the first of their many books that I...more

4 likes · like · see review

Aug 22, 2007 Irishcoda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed Cabinet of Curiosities so much I decided to go back and read all of Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's books featuring the charmingly weird Detective Pendergast. The very first one was Relic and I was not disappointed, although Pendergast was a secondary character in this one. Still, I found myself turning the pages and reluctant to put the book down until the end. What a twist--I was expecting some kind of weirdness with the killer character but certainly not what happened! A very...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This is only the second full novel I've read of Preston and Childs, and I think they are my new favorite collaborators. The story is sharp and seamless, and it flows from the very beginning. I had an idea where the story was going, and I couldn't care less, for once. I even knew the secret of the whole story line and was perfectly fine with it. I was hoping the authors collaboration were just as good in the beginning as they were in Cemetery Dance, and it is.
All the technical, scientific jargon...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Spinster rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was surprised of how much I enjoyed this book, despite some very weird biological leaps of faith. I can imagine some very unlikely scenarios, like extracting dinosaur DNA from mosquitos in Jurassic Park, but there are some fundamental evolutionary facts I can't dismiss.

First of all, a combination mammal and reptilian genes and attributes in the same animal/creature/whatever? Like having three fingers but five toes? Sorry, not buying that one. I also had problems with the evolutionary theory of...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Jay Massiet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Relic is a lengthy book that provides much to think about while entertaining the reader from nearly beginning to end. I say nearly because there were a few things that I feel slowed the book down, but only a few. The Mbwun, the monster of the story, played my imagination well, but I felt he had too small of a role in the work. The book was written in 1995 and uses a lot of technology and although the majority of the technology is long outdated, it still provided a fascinating read.

The book is ab...more Relic is a lengthy book that provides much to think about while entertaining the reader from nearly beginning to end. I say nearly because there were a few things that I feel slowed the book down, but only a few. The Mbwun, the monster of the story, played my imagination well, but I felt he had too small of a role in the work. The book was written in 1995 and uses a lot of technology and although the majority of the technology is long outdated, it still provided a fascinating read.

The book is about twelve years old now, so it’s obvious the electronic equipment will be outdated. I don’t have any complaints with that and reading Relic reminded me just how fast technology advances. The complaint I do have is I felt the amount of technology was a little too much. Personal opinion of course, but without so much of it the book may have progressed at a much faster pace, which at times I felt it needed. The monster terrorizes the characters continually in the last quarter of the book, but was absent through a large amount, primarily in the middle section. There were a couple brief scenes, but I wanted more. Technology was the focus of the middle and seemed to bog down the narrative. This is one of two complaints.

As for the second: the word “gingerly” is ubiquitous in the novel. There’s nothing wrong with the word and can at times sound pleasant, but reading it over and over got to be annoying. For example, in chapter sixty “gingerly” was used three times in a page and a half. There are also many more times the word was used throughout. Neither of my two complaints irritated me too badly and did not hinder my enjoyment, but the enjoyment may have increased if not for these two things. There may be some who disagree as novels are subjective.

Onto the good stuff. Despite the overuse of “gingerly,” Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are excellent writers. I admire the vocabulary of the book and the characterization within was good. The structure of the work seemed to be more film-like than most novels. This isn’t a bad thing but I noticed it right away. The narrative is in third person omniscient and switches scenes quickly and from different characters points of view often, to include short scenes that show the creature, such as the reefer smoking guard who immediately gets killed shortly after being introduced. Scenes as in my example make the novel film-like.

I’ve already mentioned the pace when technology was used, but when the monster is attacking, the pace is great and kept me turning the pages to see what was going to happen next. When the Superstitions show goes on as planned and after the security system traps the people inside of the museum, the pace was incredible, the action was exciting, and the creature turned into a true monster.

The Mbwun was a very interesting beast and one that fascinated me. There are times I read of a monster and wish I could steal it; but because I would never do that, creatures like the Mbwun provide plenty of motivation to create my own monster in hopes of competing with them. Preston and Child’s monster was formidable, fast, intelligent, and seemingly indestructible. I did, however, think of shooting it in the eye after Pendergast shot the Mbwun in the head the first time because it would be the perfect place to get to the brain. I didn’t know if that’s how it would go down so I still kept wondering how the characters would kill it. Pendergast eventually kills the monster in the way I envisioned.

And for Pendergast. I found him likable, but sometimes he seemed to throw his incredible intelligence in the faces of the others. Maybe he couldn’t help it and I’ve known a lot of very smart people who have done this and never realized it, so it’s plausible. Pendergast was very interesting, but he changed very little throughout the book. He was already too perfect. Even in hard and ridiculously threatening times his speech remained constant and wordy. Sometimes I thought he could have been quicker in dialogue to provide a more dramatic Pendergast.

Relic is a good read. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are excellent writers and can spin a yarn pretty well.(less)

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Oct 16, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the fans of the Pendergast series

Recommended to Mark by: the movie

Shelves: dark-tales, mystery-adventure, preston-child

I admit honestly having seen the movie first and I liked it in a B-movie monster show. By coincedence I found a 1st edition Hardback at a flea market and decided to buy it to read it on one of my daily traintrip from and to work. And suddenly I found that the writers of this novel were very shortchanged by the movie. However I do hope some folks discovered the writing of messieurs Preston & Child because in my humble opinion they are the current best writers in thriller/adventure/fantastic n...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Nicole Galloway-Miller rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mfa-jan-2012

The Relic: A Huge Disappointment

Overall, the relic disappointed me. Although it was an enjoyable read, the techniques Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child used to tell the story were not as effective as they could have been. The story dealt with several issues I strongly identified with. However, the excess explanations of genetics and lengthy computer printouts of results came dangerously close to destroying the overall impact of the novel.

It was a combination of personal experiences and my love o...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Erica Hughes rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

So one of the reviews printed on the cover says "Far above Crighton's JURASSIC PARK," which leaves me wondering in what possible way that comment was intended.

This book in no way that I can see surpasses Jurassic Park. The characters are completely wooden (except for Agent Pendergrast, who, I admit, has some charisma but is improbably wonderful in every way and has every imaginable kind of life experience). No one acts the way actual human beings would act. Motivations are spoken out loud in ext...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, thriller, horror

Creature stories are one of my guilty pleasures and Relic is the perfect entree. the novel is the earliest work of the partnership between Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and is certainly representative of much of their work: a mixture of horror, crime, and the supernatural. Although considered a techno-thriller, Relic leans more toward the horror category in my opinion. It is nonetheless a fun, quick read.

After years of rumors, and just days before the opening of new exhibit on superstition,...more

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Sep 30, 2011 Dave rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was interesting - it felt a little unpolished at times, but the story was compelling. It moved, was well-written, and the right characters were likable. Some people who were set-up as obstacles to the heroes seemed a bit standard, like we've seen them on TV dozens of times - including the Public Relations director who controls the story at the expense of the truth. However, it seems to work in this. I even felt myself cheering for the monster once or twice as it faced some of the obstacle p...more

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Sep 25, 2011 Mom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

OK, OK, I guess this thriller area may actually be my all time favorite type of books to read. I have always loved mystery/romance, etc. But they all kind of fit into thriller. Anyway, I love Lincoln and Child, and wait for their next book to come out. It started with this one. I like the characters and the way you get to know them and like them. Even if they are a little weird! This book was one of the scariest books I had read, at least up to this point. Many books you just can't put down when...more

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Sep 17, 2011 Meredith rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Meredith by: Tina Falkner

Shelves: adventure, animal, fiction, mystery, science-fiction, series, audio

I'm in the middle of listening to this, but wanted to note this while it's fresh in my mind. What's the deal with the reader changing in the middle (and then I think changing back)? It was as if there had been two different readings that somehow were spliced together for this digital version. Weird.

It's a good thing I accidentally read one of the later books in the series, because if I'd read this one first, I doubt I would have continued.

Granted, there's lots I enjoyed - the suspense, the dec...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Riju Ganguly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Long ago, in the days of "Jurassic Park" craze, my imagination had been caught by a couplet that was (supposedly) the sure-shot formula at that time (maybe even now) to produce a best-seller: "techno-thriller". Any reader of James Rollins (and Matthew Reilly, before he abandoned writing novels and started composing video-games through words, a highly praise-worthy process, but not entirely suited to my tastes) would know the essential ingredients that go into making of these books: some exotic t...more

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May 13, 2011 Mitch rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had never read a Douglas Presten or Lincoln Child book before, so when I picked one of their books up, I was sad to see that it was a later part of a series, The Penergast Series, and because I always must start a series from the start, I quickly ordered "Relic".

"Relic" is the story of a beast that is running wild in the maze of the basement of New York City's biggest musem. Headless bodies with devoured brains are piling up. Policeman D'Agosta and FBI Agent Pendergast are sent to investigate...more

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Dec 23, 2010 Jared rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had read some other books by these authors, all of which were amazing, and finally decided that I needed to read the Pendergast books in order. This book is incredibly good, but I wouldn't say it's as good as some of their other books, particularly the later Pendergast books (Cabinet of Curiosities springs to mind). Nevertheless, this is certainly a book that keeps you guessing and entertained throughout.
Without getting too long-winded, it's about a creature in a museum that is killing people...more

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Apr 24, 2010 Jack rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A few nice touches and a cool denouement don't entirely save this book from its staggeringly two-dimensional characters or their collective fondness for expository dialogue. Seriously, if there were an original, fleshed out human being in this book, he'd die of loneliness long before the monster got to him. The gang's all here: the plucky young female grad student, the grizzled but competent NYPD detective with the italian name and the cigar clamped between his teeth, the ludicrously capable and...more A few nice touches and a cool denouement don't entirely save this book from its staggeringly two-dimensional characters or their collective fondness for expository dialogue. Seriously, if there were an original, fleshed out human being in this book, he'd die of loneliness long before the monster got to him. The gang's all here: the plucky young female grad student, the grizzled but competent NYPD detective with the italian name and the cigar clamped between his teeth, the ludicrously capable and suave FBI agent whose amazing deductive powers and marksmanship don't distract him from his fondness for art and classical music, and finally, the wizened but frail old professor character who helps the young people make sense of their discoveries. On the other side, of course, are the human antagonists: the sinister bureaucrats who run the museum and care more about their attendance figures than public safety, and the arrogant, incompetent "company man" FBI director who's stupid enough to doubt the suave field agent and who throws his dress over his head the second the $%!# hits the fan. Until I met the evil museum administrators, I didn't know that literary characters could chew scenery.

But the real stars of the book, and the things that save it to some extent, are the creature and the setting. I don't think the authors get all the mileage out of the creepy museum atmosphere that they could have - it's like they describe the museum's haunted, cavernous quality without really capturing the atmosphere - but they still get a lot out of it, particularly in the basement and sub-basement scenes. And the creature is quite well done. The authors create a genuinely scary but somehow plausible aberration and unfold his characteristics and backstory – which are interesting – at a good pace. It creates a pretty effective "monster in the city" scenario that is genuinely entertaining and makes the book worth the time for people looking for a light read. Probably, in all, about 2.5 stars.

(less)

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Feb 19, 2010 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-suspense

My first audiobook, woo hoo!

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's a quick, fun ride of a book. I absolutely plan on reading the next book in the series. Which, usually I'm not a mystery series kind of gal, but these have a nice little twist of horror and scifi to them. I guess I'd call it a thriller overall. The test for the series will be if they rehash this book in the second book (the reason I quit reading Sookie Stackhouse books), or will there only be glancing references that only I, the series...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Januario added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-2009

Because of its intriguing plot, this book has become one of my favorites. In a museum of natural fossils and relics, horrendous murders occur. One of the worst cases is when two young boys are found dead and covered with blood. When the crime investigators inspected the murders, they came to realize that the murderer was not human. It was a monster that resulted from laboratory experiments. It is not until in the end of the book that they encounter and dispose of this criminal. Although it is a...more

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Aug 26, 2011 Papercuts1 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: killer-thrillers

My first Preston/Child, and I intentionally started with the Pendergast series.

All in all, a suspenseful, pseudo-scientific thriller/horror story with a promising 'Special Agent' in charge.

Positive:
Hard to put down, particularly during the last third, when the pace increases.

Crisp, short chapters with cliff-hangers in best thriller fashion.

An interesting main character - the white-haired, pale-eyed and meticulously dressed Southern gentleman Pendergast. Calm, well-mannered, with a sharp mind h...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Rafal Jasinski rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dość przyzwoicie napisana powieść, której największa wadą jest sztampa ujawniająca się na wszystkich niemal płaszczyznach, od jednowymiarowych postaci począwszy na - nazywając rzecz nieco na wyrost - słabej intrydze skończywszy. Fabuła balansuje, gdzieś pomiędzy tym, co znamy z twórczości Mastertona, a którymś z epizodów "The X-Files", czy może bliżej jej do odcinka serialu "Fringe". Niespodzianek większych nie ma, zwroty akcji i zakończenie łatwo przewidzieć, jakkolwiek trzeba oddać autorom, ż...more

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About Douglas Preston

Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the deadly boring suburb of Wellesley. Following a distinguished career at a private nursery school--he was almost immediately expelled--he attended public schools and the Cambridge School of Weston. Notable events in his early life included the loss of a fingertip at the age of three to a bicycle; the loss of his two fr...more Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1956, and grew up in the deadly boring suburb of Wellesley. Following a distinguished career at a private nursery school--he was almost immediately expelled--he attended public schools and the Cambridge School of Weston. Notable events in his early life included the loss of a fingertip at the age of three to a bicycle; the loss of his two front teeth to his brother Richard's fist; and various broken bones, also incurred in dust-ups with Richard. (Richard went on to write The Hot Zone and The Cobra Event, which tells you all you need to know about what it was like to grow up with him as a brother.)

As they grew up, Doug, Richard, and their little brother David roamed the quiet suburbs of Wellesley, terrorizing the natives with home-made rockets and incendiary devices mail-ordered from the backs of comic books or concocted from chemistry sets. With a friend they once attempted to fly a rocket into Wellesley Square; the rocket malfunctioned and nearly killed a man mowing his lawn. They were local celebrities, often appearing in the "Police Notes" section of The Wellesley Townsman. It is a miracle they survived childhood intact.

After unaccountably being rejected by Stanford University (a pox on it), Preston attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he studied mathematics, biology, physics, anthropology, chemistry, geology, and astronomy before settling down to English literature. After graduating, Preston began his career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York as an editor, writer, and eventually manager of publications. (Preston also taught writing at Princeton University and was managing editor of Curator.) His eight-year stint at the Museum resulted in the non-fiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, edited by a rising young star at St. Martin's Press, a polymath by the name of Lincoln Child. During this period, Preston gave Child a midnight tour of the museum, and in the darkened Hall of Late Dinosaurs, under a looming T. Rex, Child turned to Preston and said: "This would make the perfect setting for a thriller!" That thriller would, of course, be Relic.

In 1986, Douglas Preston piled everything he owned into the back of a Subaru and moved from New York City to Santa Fe to write full time, following the advice of S. J. Perelman that "the dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he's given the freedom to starve anywhere." After the requisite period of penury, Preston achieved a small success with the publication of Cities of Gold, a non-fiction book about Coronado's search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. To research the book, Preston and a friend retraced on horseback 1,000 miles of Coronado's route across Arizona and New Mexico, packing their supplies and sleeping under the stars--nearly killing themselves in the process. Since then he has published several more non-fiction books on the history of the American Southwest, Talking to the Ground and The Royal Road, as well as a novel entitled Jennie. In the early 1990s Preston and Child teamed up to write suspense novels; Relic was the first, followed by several others, including Riptide and Thunderhead. Relic was released as a motion picture by Paramount in 1997. Other films are under development at Hollywood studios. Preston and Child live 500 miles apart and write their books together via telephone, fax, and the Internet.

Preston and his brother Richard are currently producing a television miniseries for ABC and Mandalay Entertainment, to be aired in the spring of 2000, if all goes well, which in Hollywood is rarely the case.

Preston continues a magazine writing career by contributing regularly to The New Yorker magazine. He has also written for National Geographic, Natural History, Smithsonisan, Harper's,and Travel & Leisure,among others.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/dougla...(less)

More about Douglas Preston...

Books by Douglas Preston

The Cabinet of Curiosities (Pendergast, #3)

Brimstone (Pendergast, #5; Diogenes, #1)

The Book of the Dead (Pendergast, #7; Diogenes, #3)

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Quotes from Relic

“What we have here is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” — 11 people liked it

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title link	preview: Relic
avg rating	preview: Relic Goodreads rating: 3.96 (31788 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1393182.Relic?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312052121l/1393182.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1393182.Relic?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Relic by Douglas Preston[/url]

Relic (Pendergast #1)

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