Douglas Preston wrote an engagingly funny but also historical account of his adventures and misadventures following Coronado's trail by horseback from the Mexican border in SE Arizona northeast to Pecos, NM. His anecdotes are entertaining and his historical accounts describe the region and peoples past and present accurately.It's a must read for people interested in southwestern history.

A thoroughly engrossing book summarizing Preston's journey following Coronado's route to the New World. I couldn't put it down! I fell in love with the people he met and the places he went. I had my map out beside me as I read the book. The history, geography,and geology were incredible. The accounts from Coronado and others of his time were engrossing. The fate of the Indians they encountered was troubling. Does it not foreshadow our own fate?

I enjoyed "Still Life With Crows" more than "A Cabinet of Curiosities" but not as much as "Relic". It is a fast, fun read. Special Agent Pendergast is back and in fine form. There's a new locale, but with plenty of allusions to past Preston and Child novels. The book has some very graphic descriptions in it of gruesome murders, but other than that it's a fine mystery. I think we can look forward to another Pendergast book soon, judging by the side story with Wren and the cabinet of curiosities.

Still Life With Crows was a very captivating read and kept me on the edge of my seat for the last half of the book! I have not read all books by Preston and Child, but this reminded me most of Relic because of the creepy atmosphere and excellent chase scene finale. The authors are very skilled writers and bring alive the town of Medicine Creek, Kansas with the summer heat, rural town life and claustrophobic cornfields. Agent Pendergast is an excellent character and the writers obviously have fun with him (also in Relic, Reliquary and Cabinet of Curiosities). Avid fans of these authors will also find a few references to previous works! All together I would recommend this book to any readers that enjoy suspense/thriller books. If you are squeamish it is a little gory at times with the descriptions of the murder scenes. But I really enjoyed the novel and the time I got to spend with these characters!

Medicine Creek, Kansas. Nothing exciting happens here, nothing changes, and there is never any crime...until now.

A body has been found, mutilated beyond recognition, and positioned elaborately in a corn field. The local police rules this as a single murder, until Special Agent Pendergast arrives and declares this the work of a serial killer.

Within hours the small town is swarming with reporters, and the local residents are in fear for their lives.

Pendergast begins investigating the crimes with only the clues of crows(a twisted secret you need to read the book to understand) to help, but when he teams with Corrie Swanson he will come face to face with an evil he is not prepared for.

'Still Life With Crows' is a creepy thriller that starts off fast and keeps the twists coming. The surprises start as the plot develops, and as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place you are held captive. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child pack their story with thrills and chills while maintaining a cinematic flair reminiscent to that of 80's horror films. I couldn't stop reading once the book was started, and the ending blew me away.

An entertaining summer read that will be surely land on the bestseller list's, 'Still Life With Crows' further proves Preston and Child masters of original horror tales.

Nick Gonnella

This is a fun history of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. If you're fan of the museum, you'll certainly appreciate this book. It's full of tales of scientific expeditions and the often controversial and eccentric characters who trekked all over the world to create the museum's collection. The author does a great job of explaining the 19th century American values that created public science museums, which were part schoolhouse and part carnival sideshow. It will give you an appreciation of, and a healthy skepticism for, the talent, folly, and sacrifice that go into any museum.

Until I read this history of the American Museum of Natural History and the stories of its great collections, I had little desire to visit NYC. While I thought "Relic" (the book AND the film) was a piece of junk, this book definitely made me travel to New York JUST to see the items described in this book. This was the first account I read of the tales of rival dinosaur hunters Marsh and Cope (now there is a film story). The hundreds of anecdotes such as the bone stripping beetles made it a fascinating read. I recommend it to anyone interested in the story of the finest collection of natural history artifacts on earth.

More than a book about a museum, Dinosaurs in the Attic is a survey of the last two centuries' at times predatory and rapacious drive to collect. I read this book years ago, and am still recommending it to people as one of the most interesting and enjoyable books I've ever read. The story telling is marvelous and the insights about the museum fascinating.

"Relic," a dark, twisted tour through a museum stalked by terror, is a book one would imagine would be difficult to follow. Does "Reliquary" do this successfully? Yes... to a point.

This time, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child take us on a horrifying subway ride, past underestimated homeless "moles," a rabbit's warren of black tunnels, and a frightening continuation of the first book's monster story. "Reliquary" is a relief in that it doesn't suffer from "sequelitis," that "deja vu all over again" feeling that most sequels seem to have. There's no rehashing of the original story, here. "Reliquary" goes where "Relic" was afraid to, and with enjoyable results.

My quibble with "Reliquary" is that it isn't quite as tight as "Relic." The plot seems to meander a bit more, and I prefer the museum setting of the prequel. The writing, however, is top-notch (as expected), and it's a sign of the writers' talents at characterization that I felt as though Margo, Smithback, Pendergast, and the rest of the returning cast were old friends of mine. The authors hint at a promise that these characters will feature in future books, and I would love that. I look forward to it.

All in all, "Reliquary" is a satisfying and worthy sequel to "Relic." Given some of the plot twists and differences between "Relic" and its unfortunate silver screen adaptation, it appears that Paramount couldn't make "Reliquary" into a movie without running into some serious continuity errors. Of course, looking at the first film, it doesn't seem like Paramount was very concerned with that to begin with, so I'll just have to hope that they don't get their grubby mitts onto "Reliquary." The world doesn't need another movie like Paramount's "The Relic." More books from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, however, are more than welcome. :)

It would have been nearly impossible for "Reliquary" to live up to the fame of its predecessor, "Relic." But to this reader, it came very close. The authors start the story about a year and a half after the "Museum Beast" event They keep most of the same great characters from the first book: D'Agosta, Agent Pendergast, Margo Green, Dr. Frock, and Bill Smithback -- and introduce two well-drawn new characters: Sgt. Laura Hayward and Mephisto, mysterious, charismatic leader of an underground society. Some of the original characters, more than others, are still feeling fallout from the events of "Relic." This time, however, the action is centered not in the New York Museum of Natural History, but in a fantastic underground world of the homeless and society's outcasts below the streets of New York. The two books are linked by the fact that the creatures of "Reliquary" are different, yet definitely tied, to the Mbwun monster of "Relic." Besides the usual gruesome attacks and tense action sequences, highlights include the dark, dank atmosphere of the underground world, intriguing information about the underground society, much of it fact-based, an interesting sub-plot involving the ugliness of class prejudice, and twists to this story that make us look at two of the original characters in a new light. I also highly recommend the very well-read unabridged audiotape.

Relic and its sequel remind me of alien and aliens. In the first, you have a thriller about a single creature that seems to be unstopable, while in the sequel, they are dropped left and right, with a larger emphasis on action. That's not to say one style is better than the other. Reliquary has all the techno-jargon you've come to expect from preston and child, but unlike Michael Crichton, they are horror writers at heart. and horror you get, with equal amounts of suspence and gore. Occasionaly, the characters fall a little close to stereotype, with a cool professional FBI man and a street smart NY cop, but do not compromise the story. If you want a satisfying thriller, you can always count on Preston and Child, I'm waiting eagerly for the next one, guys! one last note, If you have only seen the movie of relic, read relic before you read this. Otherwise the story will be paradoxal to say the least.

Lots of ice and plenty of farfetched suspense make for perfect summer escapism with Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's latest adventure thriller.

The book opens with a bang as a lone scientist on a desolate island just north of Antarctica makes the discovery of a lifetime, which promptly incinerates him. Cut to the seventh richest man in the world, American businessman Palmer Lloyd, who throws his financial weight around at a Christie's auction, much to the humbled participants' disgust and admiration, then flies off to the Kalahari to buy a prominent meteorite hunter.

Lloyd is building the world's greatest natural history museum and the meteorite hunter, Sam McFarlane, is going to help him acquire his centerpiece - the world's largest meteorite - found by Sam's former partner on that Chilean Antarctic island. Lloyd also acquires an engineer to plan the expedition, a humorless perfectionist who prides himself on his flawless success record. Eli Glinn plans for every contingency, human nature included. The party sets out on a state-of-the-art tanker, disguised as a rustbucket on an ore mining job. Like Glinn and McFarlane, its dignified female captain has been made wiser by a career-blighting error.

The expedition attracts the attention of a bitter and suspicious Chilean destroyer captain, whose powerlessness is matched by his tenacity. And then Glinn, who thinks of everything, allows Sam to bury his former partner's body without inspecting it. Uh oh. But the initial digging of the meteorite goes off without a hitch. Palmer Lloyd jumps down on the surprisingly red rock and presses his cheek to it without ill effect.

Still, the thing is strange. Its rich, ruby color is mesmerizing, its weight is mind-boggling and it's so hard it burns out a big diamondhead drill without giving up a fragment of itself. Its origins and properties stir up Sam's old obsession - interstellar meteorites. All previous meteorites have come from our own solar system and the possibility of an interstellar rock is a statistical impossibility, or so the scientists say.

And soon the problems begin. Though Glinn plans for everything, the rock (the heaviest object ever moved by humans) seems to have ideas of its own.

With increasing momentum, several suplots, budding romances, raging storms and sinsiter mysteries clash, collide and hurtle towards an explosive climax among the deadly ice islands of the Ice Limit surrounding Antarctica. The characters are more fleshed out than in previous books and the settings - the high-tech tanker, the forbidding island, the stormy sea - are well done. There are a few holes in the plot (no ship would be racing full speed through 100-foot seas, for one) but who cares? Mystery and suspense are what we are looking for and Preston and Childs ("Riptide," "The Relic," "Thunderhead") deliver.

"The Ice Limit" is an astounding book, one that leaves you haunted and mesmerized. The team of Preston and Child have written some great stories, and ironically, this one is the most "different" of their tales. The concept is typical Child/Preston: give us a huge cast of characters; a seemingly impossible challenge; a truly nasty villain; and some breathtaking moments of action and suspense. The story is fairly simple: a huge meteorite has been discovered on the Isla' Delacion, near the end of the world (Antarctica). Fanatical billionaire/trillionaire Palmer Lloyd wants the meteorite in his own private museum, and so hires a remarkable team of specialists to transport the humongous meteorite back to New York City. Wow, what a challenge! The pacing of this book is much more deliberate and methodical than previous Child/Preston books; and that's not negative in the least. We're given some complex characters, human and imperfect. The scenes in the little village of Puerto William are awesome in their descriptive power. Never has a book so enthralled me with its ability to transport me into a world I will probably never see, but find fascinating and spellbinding. The scenes depicted on the stormy and icy seas are truly nervewrecking and draining.

What makes the book work, however, is its characters. First and foremost is the fascinating Eli Glinn; not a villaint/not a hero, just a perfectionist whose brilliance is unmatched. It is his inability to accept failure that makes him such a tragic character; Rachel is a beautifully drawn female character, with definite hangups and frailties, but she's marvelous; Sally Britton, the indomitable captain with her own history of failure, is likewise remarkably drawn. The Chilean Villain (nice rhyme?) is despicable and you can't wait for him to meet his just desserts. His manic drive to revenge the death of his first mate, so to speak (no plot giveaways here), is frustrating and unnerving, because you can't believe how close he comes to his goal.

In reading the book, it was amazing. I wanted the team to succeed; sure we have our typical crazy wealthy man sacrificing human life for his own needs, but the characters are so committed to making it work, that I felt like I was right there with them.

It's amazing: Preston/Child give away the novel's "secret ending" early on in the book, but you don't know it until you reach the end. And, oh what an ending. I should have known----it needs a sequel! They can't just leave us hanging, can they? Let's hope not.

"The Ice Limit" is unique in its exploration of human drive, determination, and refusal to give up. Although tragedy certainly results and some memorable people are gone, the spirit of success and adventure far outweigh the greed and manipulation.

Read this for an interesting change of pace.

These boys did their homework. The Ice Limit is a complete work. The premise--an expedition to retrieve the world's largest meteorite from an inhospitable Chilean island near Tierra del Fuego for a billionaire's museum--is worthy. The plotting is above par. Plenty of twists and page-turning suspense. And the surprise ending, foreshadowed throughout but difficult to predict, is a special treat, ratcheting the tale up another notch on the Richter scale of excellence.

But two things make The Ice Limit a best-seller and sure candidate for a movie. One is the characterizations. With nearly ten major characters, it must have been a daunting task to keep them well-defined, easily identifiable, and fresh. Readers want characters, not caricatures. Child and Preston make their efforts look easy and transparent. My favorite was Eli Glinn, head of the engineering firm hired to scoop up the heaviest object ever moved by Man. He was unique, sort of a mixture of Roddenberry's Spock and Verne's Captain Nemo.

The other bonus was the science. I almost thought they had overdone it at times, but by book end I was simply left impressed. And it's not the depth of their understanding of one particular subject; it's all the subjects. They researched everything. Meteorites, Chile, Antarctica, navigation, oil tankers, periodic charts, meteorology, structural engineering, naval ordnance, electronics, and on and on. They don't necessarily beat you upside the head with it. But they do prove that they're two smart guys. Bravo! --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.