Get With It!

I'm out of it lately. I meant to post last night and I think I half convinced myself that I actually did because I completely forgot.

Argh.

It's summer time. I wish I was a kid again so my brain could go on summer vacation! I really think us adults deserve it. Don't you agree? Not that kids get much vacation these days anyway. My sister has summer assignments. No, not just summer reading. Actual deadlines throughout the summer. She has to email the assignments to her teacher. She might as well be in school! Craziness.

Well even if you can't have a real vacation, I know all of us are searching for the perfect summer reads to sweep us away, if only for a little bit. I had wanted to do some themed weeks for summer reads. If I can get it together, I'll try to start next week with some of those recs. Today, though, I'm pulling one from way back in my reading past -- all the way back to 1997 when I had an extra credit assignment in English class to read a book and then it compare to its screen adapted counterpart.

One of the books I chose was Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Relic, and amazingly I've never posted about it here.

A lot of you have probably already read this, but I'd be willing to bet that there are a few of you who haven't. This is technically the first appearance of Agent Pendergast, FBI agent extraordinaire who has since become the lead character in many of Preston/Child's books. I love Pendergast! Just in case you couldn't tell.

He's not the lead in Relic, though, just to make that clear. And it's been ages since I've read this one, so here's the synopsis from the official Preston/Child website:

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 ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.

Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who--or what--is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre?

Relic was followed by its sequel, Reliquary, and then Cabinet of Curiosities and so on and so on. Seriously. I'm not sure if the authors ever thought that they would take their characters as far as they have today, but I'm sure glad that they have. Main characters become peripheral characters or supporting "cast" in subsequent books, but there are a core few who appear over and over. Even the books that are technically stand alones eventually tie in in some way.

Pendergast's latest tale, Fever Dream, has just hit shelves and while I recommend all of Preston and Child's books (co and solo), you have to see where it all began with Relic. It's action/adventure, with a smattering of sci-fi, and archaeology that somewhat fringes on paranormal, and just oh, so fantastic! You simply have to read it. It's classic in my opinion!