Primordia

In Search of the Lost World

By: Greig Beck

Narrated by: Sean Mangan

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

Well...

I really like the author and the person that reads his work. In fact I automatically buy their work with full confidence that it will be worth the money. This book wasn't a favorite. I felt like a lot of characters were here just to be "red shirts!" (Star Trek joke) And while the story had all the things I usually like there was the feeling that this book was more about the author fufilling the obligations of a contract to the publisher than actual passion about the project. In the acting world it's referred to phoning in a performance. Would I recommend this book? Sadly I cannot.

Good Book, Ruined by Narrator

The book itself is good. I like the storyline, though it does ask you to suspend belief at times - people just don’t have that much luck, finding stuff on the first try. But to me a good story drags you in, and this one tries to do that. However, the narrator ruins the effect. He reads very precisely at a set pace, not modulating his voice for exciting parts of the story. His reading style lets you know it’s just a book and you can’t really get drawn in.

Fun Prehistoric Adventure

Overall I enjoyed it. The premise is a fun one. "What if "The Lost World" was based on real events?"

The set up for the main adventure in the Lost World is honestly better than what happens once they arrive there. Which is a bit disappointing. After they travel around the world getting the things they need for their prehistoric journey, the story just kind of drops... They explore, get attacked, someone dies, explore, get attacked, someone dies, and the process repeats until they decide to try and leave. There's no real goal once they are in the Lost World so there's no story to keep your interest other than who will survive at the end of the book.

Some of the characters are set up for what seem like bigger plotlines later in the book, but are just killed off and/or hardly mentioned again... Kind of making the setup earlier pointless. As an example, one character is played up to be almost a romantic foil for the lead couple... And you think that it's going to be a small side plot... But it goes nowhere. It's never mentioned again after its initially brought up.

That said, I still enjoyed it and look forward to what the sequels bring... Hopefully a meatier story though...

Entertaining, but not sequel worthy

I turned up the treble in my equaliser and lowered the bass. But other than that, the narration was acceptable.

The story was good, based on an interesting concept, yet a concept that fell well into place since the author was the "god" of that world. That being said, you really felt that certain events happened due to the author's lordship over the world he was building. In a sense, I would have rather some events to happen in less convenient ways.

I enjoyed how the characters were developed, and how they were not humans who could defeat all adversity. The main character is ex military, and I have read/listened to books where that one fact made the character more like a Rambo figure.

However there was a point where you knew what would happen once they got to where they were going.

I didn't like the story enough to buy the sequel. But I wouldn't reject the book entirely. It was entertaining for sure.

a very enjoyable story

surprisingly good the beginning was a little slow and I'm not crazy about narrator sorry to say but all in all it was a very good story and get me interested