Jul 2024 BOTM: Extinction by Douglas Preston

[Tom]

Maybe I'm jumping the gun on starting this thread, but I wasn't enjoying what I was reading and decided to jump into Extinction. Thoughts after ~15 chapters:

1. The author mentioning a character reading a book by the author made me laugh out loud. The only author I remember referring to himself in his own novels is Stephen King.

2. The Australian accent the audiobook narrator uses for the head of security is also very funny.

3. Probable spoiler: (view spoiler)[In chapter 10, I think a hint gets dropped about the solution to the mystery, and it bums me out a bit that these capable investigators ignored it and are proposing increasingly far-fetched hypotheses. I can't tell if this is a book that is supposed to have a twist, and I'm way ahead of it, or if the author has meant for the solution to be extremely obvious. Or maybe I'm just wrong about the culprit. (hide spoiler)]

4. The CBI agent in charge interviewing the park's CEO and demanding to know what the CEO is doing to solve the murder. Um, agent, that's your job.

5. That said, the two investigators have good chemistry together, and I am enjoying their dynamic very much.

[Steve]

Tom wrote: "Maybe I'm jumping the gun on starting this thread, but I wasn't enjoying what I was reading and decided to jump into Extinction. Thoughts after ~15 chapters …

All good Tom. Same boat here. I read ahead too. Finished the July book Extinction before starting the June book Eruption.

What’s your early theory on what happened? Use spoiler tags. I probably won’t comment, but it’s fun to commit to the guess early on. I didn’t see the ending coming until about 3/4 or more into it. Most people probably probably can’t see what happened until then … though it is possible you might have figured it out early, … just not likely. A few chapters later your guess will be obvious and then verified, but … that isn’t the end per se, and it still isn’t clear how it’s going to end until it does.

[Tom]

OK, here goes:

(view spoiler)[While the CBI agent and head scientist are talking in chapter 10, the scientist says something like, "The animals mate, but there are always genetic mutations in the embryos produced that cause abnormalities and keep them from being born alive." Then the subject is changed, and they don't discuss the possibility of unknown, untracked animals anymore.

In a population that you have carefully genetically engineered, it's very cavalier to assume that just because the first few births failed, they always will, and the most sensible plan would be to put all of the animals on birth control to ensure there are no unknown births.

So my theory is that one or more births were successful, but with genetic mutations that made the offspring predatory towards humans. With the investigators coming up with increasingly dumb hypotheses (eco-terrorists, Satanic cult), nobody has asked, "Couldn't an animal have done this?" The forensic guy even remarks on how the killer's knife must have been damaged because the tip produced a clean cut but the middle was more jagged. To me, that sounds like a rip pattern that a claw would make. I guess he'll figure it out when the DNA analysis comes back positive for non-human DNA, but he said the results will take another week, plenty of time for a rogue predator to kill a few park employees searching the grounds for the missing/dead hikers. (hide spoiler)]

OK, I have put myself out there. Let's see how dumb I look by the end of the book.

[Steve]

I took my early guesses down because Jed was seeing my spoiler material on his Android app. Props for going for it, Tom. Makes it kind of fun.

[Tom]

Ch. 26: This was even crazier than she imagined.

My thoughts exactly. RIP my theory.

[Steve]

Sounds like you made it to where ... surprise ... a fairly wild twist starts to take shape and takes it to the end.

[Steve]

I bumped this back to the Upcoming Books folder until it is July, and then I'll move it to Currently Reading again.

[Tom]

Ch. 56: (view spoiler)[Oh FFS (hide spoiler)]

[Steve]

Ch 56: “There’s something … wrong.”
That’s where the book unexpectedly starts to change gears.

[Jed]

Argh, last night I started reading the wrong Extinction (by Mark Alpert). Gotta switch to this one! Heh, kinda felt something was wrong because I've read Douglas Preston before.

[Jed]

about halfway through. the Jurassic Park parallel is a little distracting, but I'm enjoying the increasing weirdness and mystery.

[Jed]

Done! This is a solid thriller. Fun read, enjoyed the ramp up in the final third. Fun villain reveal, too. Just gotta kinda hand-wave away some of the questions.

[Steve]

Yes, mixed feelings on the end. It was a surprise and gets a little intense, and it was maybe a little annoying too. Overall, liked the book, didn’t love it.