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Summary
Summary
In this powerhouse of suspense--as brilliantly imagined asJurassic ParkandThe Ruins--scientists have made a startling discovery: a fragment of a lost continent, an island with an ecosystem unlike any they've seen before . . . an ecosystem that could topple ours like a house of cards. The time is now. The place is theTrident,a long-range research vessel hired by the reality TV showSealife.Aboard is a cast of ambitious young scientists. With a director dying for drama, tiny Henders Island might be just what the show needs. Until the first scientist sets foot on Henders--and the ultimate test of survival begins . . . For when they reach the island's shores, scientists are utterly unprepared for what they find--creatures unlike any ever recorded in natural history. This is not a lost world frozen in time, an island of mutants, or a lab where science has gone mad: this is the Earth as it might have looked after evolving on a separate path forhalf a billion years. Soon the scientists will stumble on something more shocking than anything humanity has ever encountered: because among the terrors of Henders Island, one life form defies any scientific theory--and must be saved at any cost. From the Hardcover edition.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fahy's imaginative debut puts a fresh spin on the survival-of-prehistoric-beasts theme popularized by Jurassic Park. When members of the cable reality show SeaLife, aboard a ship in the South Pacific, respond to a distress beacon from Henders Island, several of the show's scientists wind up slaughtered by bizarre animals on the remote island. In response, the U.S. government blockades Henders Island to contain the serious biothreat its unique fauna could pose to humanity. The ship's botanist, Nell Duckworth, joins the investigative team, which quickly finds that arthropods on the island have evolved into sophisticated and ferocious life forms. Particularly memorable and frightening are the creatures Nell dubs "spigers," which have eight legs and are "twice the size of a Bengal tiger." Exciting debates on topics like the role of sexual reproduction in the development of life on Earth provide a sound scientific background. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Imagine a lush tropical island in the South Pacific teeming with bloodthirsty animals and plants. Henders Island is not your traditional vacation getaway. It's an isolated enclave where evolution has taken a radically different route for the past 500 million years. Jungles of bloodsucking trees teem with two-ton beasts that are a cross between tigers and spiders, the grass exudes sulfuric acid, and flying insects can bore through polycarbonate windows. A research vessel crewed with young, attractive scientists in the employ of a popular reality TV show, Sealife, happens upon the remote island, and the crew decides to go ashore and see the sights. Unfortunately for them, and to the shock of the couch potatoes viewing from their living rooms, the sights are quite vicious and quite hungry. The blood really flows in this page-turner, so don't get too attached to the characters as they won't be around for too many more pages. Fragment closely follows the patented Michael Crichton style, where stuffy scientific theories are extrapolated into an outlandish yet strangely fascinating plotline. Highly recommended for all popular collections a perfect read for poolside this summer.--Gannon, Michael Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The cast and crew of a TV reality series get more than they bargained for when they land on a remote, unexplored Pacific island. Within minutes, they are attacked by lethal superpredators unknown to science, creatures that appear to have evolved in a completely different direction from all other life on Earth. Is the island's ecosystem threatened by human contact? Actually, it's more likely that these creatures will bring catastrophe to the rest of the world. Though hardly subtle in plot or characterization, this debut thriller effectively combines bone-chomping, blood-spurting action-adventure mayhem with intriguing (if improbable) scientific speculation. The subject matter and the author's acknowledgments may inspire some readers to explore the late Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life and other nonfiction titles about the early evolution of life and the many bizarre shapes it has taken. Suitable for anyone who likes fast-paced action adventure with a speculative scientific edge.-Bradley Scott, Brighton Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
AUGUST 21 5:27 P.M. "Captain, Mister Grafton is attempting to put a man ashore, sir." "Which man, Mister Eaton?" Three hundred yards off the island's sheer wall, H.M.S. Retribution rolled on a ten foot swell setting away from the shore. The corvette was hove to, her gray sails billowing in opposite directions to hold her position on the sea as the sailing master kept an eye on a growing bank of cloud to the north. Watching from the decks in silence, some of the men were praying as a boat approached the cliff. Lit pale orange by the setting sun, the palisade was bisected by a blue shadowed crevasse that streaked seven hundred feet up its face. The Retribution was a captured French ship previously called the Atrios. For the past ten months, her crew had been relentlessly hunting H.M.S. Bounty. While the British admiralty did not object to stealing ships from other navies, they had a long memory for any ship that had been stolen from theirs. It had been five years since the mutineers had absconded with the Bounty, and still the hunt continued. Lieutenant Eaton steadied the captain's telescope and twisted the brass drawtube to focus the image: nine men were positioning the rowboat under the crack in the cliff. Eaton noticed that the seaman reaching up toward the fissure wore a scarlet cap. "It looks like Frears, Captain," he reported. The dark crack started about fifteen feet above the bottom of the swell and zigzagged hundreds of feet across the face of jagged rock like a bolt of lightning. The British sailors had nearly circled the two-mile-wide island before finding this one chink in its armor. Though the captain insisted that they thoroughly investigate all islands for signs of the Bounty's crew, a more pressing matter concerned the men of the Retribution now. After five weeks with no rain, they were praying for freshwater, not signs of mutineers. As they pretended to attend their duties, 317 men stole furtive, hopeful looks at the landing party. The boat rose and fell in the spray as the nine men staved off the cliff with oars. At the top of one swell the man wearing the red cap grabbed the bottom edge of the fissure: he dangled there as the boat receded. "He's got a purchase, Captain!" A tentative cheer went up from the crew. Eaton saw the men in the boat hurling small barrels up to Frears. "Sir, the men are throwing him some barrecoes to fill!" "Providence has smiled on us, Captain," said Mister Dunn, the ruddy chaplain, who had taken passage aboard Retribution on his way to Australia. "We were surely meant to find this island! Else, why would the Lord have put it here, so far away from everything?" "Aye, Mister Dunn. Keep a close counsel with the Lord," replied the captain as he slitted his eyes and watched the boat. "How's our man, Mister Eaton?" "He's gone in." After an agonizing length of time, Eaton saw the scarlet capped man finally emerge from the shadow. "Frears's signaling . . . He's found freshwater, Captain! He's throwing down the barrecoe!" Eaton looked at the captain wearily, then smiled as a cheer broke over the decks. The captain cracked a smile. "Ready four landing boats for provisioning, Mister Eaton. Let's rig a ladder and fill our barrels." "It's Providence, Captain," cried the chaplain over the answering cheer of the men. " 'Tis the good Lord who led us here!" Eaton put the spyglass to his eye and saw Frears toss another small barrel from the fissure into the sea. The men in the longboat hauled it alongside. "He's thrown down another!" Eaton shouted. The men cheered again. They were now moving about and laughing as barrels were hauled up from the hold. "The Lord keeps us." The chaplain Excerpted from Fragment by Warren Fahy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.