Robinson (Secondworld) puts his distinctive mark on Michael Crichton territory with this terrifying present-day riff on The Island of Dr. Moreau. Oceanographer Avril Joliet, a member of the research vessel Magellan, which has been exploring a huge polluted area in the Pacific known as the Garbage Patch, makes an intriguing find—a loggerhead turtle whose body and shell are pinched in the middle. An autopsy reveals that the turtle’s stomach is distended to more than twice its normal size. Joliet and her colleagues later end up shipwrecked on an island, where they encounter even stranger creatures, unnatural hybrids that are hostile to human life. Joliet and Mark Hawkins, a gifted tracker and former park ranger, work frantically to keep themselves and the rest of the crew alive while searching for answers. Action and scientific explanation are appropriately proportioned, making this one of the best Jurassic Park successors and on a par with Warren Fahy’s Fragment. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group. (Mar.)
Island 731
Narrated by RC Bray
Jeremy RobinsonUnabridged — 10 hours, 46 minutes
Island 731
Narrated by RC Bray
Jeremy RobinsonUnabridged — 10 hours, 46 minutes
Overview
Mark Hawkins, former park ranger and expert tracker, is out of his element, working onboard the Magellan, a research vessel studying the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But his work is interrupted when, surrounded by thirty miles of refuse, the ship and its high-tech systems are plagued by a series of strange malfunctions and the crew is battered by a raging storm.
When the storm fades and the sun rises, the beaten crew awakens to find themselves anchored in the protective cove of a tropical island...and no one knows how they got there. Even worse, the ship has been sabotaged, two crewmen are dead, and a third is missing. Hawkins spots signs of the missing man onshore and leads a small team to bring him back. But they quickly discover evidence of a brutal history left behind by the island's former occupants: Unit 731, Japan's ruthless World War II human experimentation program. Mass graves and military fortifications dot the island, along with a decades-old laboratory housing the remains of hideous experiments.
As more crew members start to disappear, Hawkins realizes that they are not alone. In fact, he suspects they were brought ?to this strange and horrible island. The crew is taken one by one, and while Hawkins fights to save his friends, he learns the horrible truths: Island 731 was never decommissioned and the person taking his crewmates may not be a person at all-not anymore.
Editorial Reviews
Robinson puts his distinctive mark on Michael Crichton territory with this terrifying present-day riff on The Island of Dr. Moreau. Action and scientific explanation are appropriately proportioned, making this one of the best Jurassic Park successors.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Take a traditional haunted-house tale and throw in a little Island of Dr. Moreau and a touch of Clash of the Titans and you wind up with this scary and grotesque novel. Robinson, a skilled blender of the thriller and horror genres, has another winner on his hands.” —Booklist
“The premise is reminiscent of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, but the author adds a World War II back story...vivisection, genetic engineering, Black Ops, animal husbandry, and mayhem. This is the stuff that comic books, video games, and successful genre franchises are made of.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A book full of adventure and suspense that shows ‘science' in a whole new horrific light. This is one creepy tale that will keep you up all night! And it is so well written you will think twice before taking a vacation to any so-called ‘Island Paradise!'” —Suspense Magazine
Evil scientists experiment on people and animals on a hidden Pacific island, creating monstrous hybrids with a taste for blood. Based on a notorious Japanese research operation that killed thousands during WWII, ISLAND 731 creates a frightening scenario in which evil scientists create creatures that obey their orders. Narrator RC Bray’s taut style builds the suspense in this piece of science-fiction horror. You can feel the fear in Bray's voice as the men and women on the island fight for survival. Bray perfectly evokes the sturdy hero, Mark Hawkins, a former park ranger who fights to rescue his girlfriend and other captured members of an ecological research team that is stranded on the cursed island. M.S. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
The novel's premise is reminiscent of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau, but the author adds a World War II back story and a contemporary setting to make it a generic, improbable thriller. Robinson (Ragnarok, 2012, etc.) gives us the scientific vessel Magellan, on a mission to explore the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating mass of trash in the Pacific, and study its environmental impact on sea life. We meet Mark Hawkins, former park ranger, unofficially adopted son of a Ute, Howie GoodTracks, who taught him tracking, ecology and platitudes about predation. Mark, aka Ranger, saves crew member Dr. Avril Joliet, holder of two Ph.D.s in biology and oceanography, from a shark while she is trying to salvage a sea turtle with strange injuries. Joliet is beautiful and impulsive, good both at heart and with a scalpel. Of course, Hawkins has fallen for her. Hawkins' roommate is Bob Bray, a paunchy high school science teacher on sabbatical, with useful knowledge about the tortured history of the denizens of the island of the title. Capt. Drake, his engineers, cooks and interns are all introduced just in time: A storm is brewing, and the ship's systems are on the fritz. When they wake up, the ship is in a lagoon, and members of the crew are missing. Hawkins, Bray and Joliet go ashore to search. When they find signs of past occupation, the story shifts from the improbable to the preposterous. It is not long before we get vivisection, genetic engineering, Black Ops, animal husbandry and mayhem. This is the stuff that comic books, video games and successful genre franchises are made of.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172436192 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2013 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Island 731
By Jeremy Robinson
Thomas Dunne Books
Copyright © 2013 Jeremy RobinsonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312617875
1.
PACIFIC OCEAN, NOW
“Man overboard!”
Mark Hawkins reacted to the words without thought. He hadn’t even seen who’d fallen and couldn’t identify who had shouted the words. But he heard the confirming splash and saw several crewmembers on the main deck look over the port rail.
At a run, Hawkins leapt up onto the port rail and launched himself over the side. But he wasn’t on the main deck, which was just eight feet above the waterline. He was on the second deck, twenty-five feet up and six feet in from the main deck’s rail. As he dove out and looked down he saw an undulating, solid mass of plastic, rope, and wood. He had no idea how thick the layer of garbage was, or how dense, but when he didn’t see a body languishing atop it, he knew the crew member who’d fallen overboard was trapped beneath it. He also knew that his landing would hurt.
He heard a gasp as he fell past the main deck, just missing the rail. His feet struck the layer of trash a moment later, punching through like a blunt spear. The rest of his body followed, slipping through the chunky film, but not before becoming tangled in rope. Stunned by the impact and chilled by the Pacific waters, Hawkins nearly panicked, but the memory of someone in need of help kept him focused.
His eyes stung when he opened them. Visibility was poor thanks to a swirling cloud of small plastic chips churned up by his explosive arrival, and worsened by the noonday sun being filtered through layers of colored plastic, casting the depths in dull, kaleidoscopic shades.
He tried to swim, but something tugged at his ankle, rooting him in place. He leaned forward and pulled his leg in close. His ankle was wrapped in a loop of rope bound to a lump of congealed refuse that floated like a giant buoy. Had he landed on the mass, his rescue effort would have been cut abruptly short. Not that it was going well at the moment.
But Hawkins was not completely unprepared. He unclipped the sheath on his belt and freed his seven-and-a-half-inch San Mai Recon Scout hunting knife. The razor-sharp blade cut through the rope like it wasn’t there. After sheathing the blade, Hawkins pushed off the heavy chunk of garbage and swam deeper. Six feet from the surface, he came free from the lowest traces of floating debris and immediately saw the kicking feet of the fallen crewmember just twenty feet away.
As he swam closer, he saw that the small feet were attached to a pair of smooth, lithe legs. The man overboard was a woman.
Dr. Avril Joliet.
Despite being a genius, or damn near close to one, Joliet didn’t always make the best choices. How she’d earned two Ph.D.s in biology and oceanography without getting lost at sea, eaten by a predator, or hit by a bus was beyond Hawkins. It wasn’t that she was absentminded, just impulsive. Quick. But it was those same qualities that allowed her to learn fast, blow the doors off conventional theories, and make discoveries while her peers spent time wondering if they should bother. But this time, Joliet’s speed might have finally caught up with her.
Her quick, jerky movements confirmed his fears. She was stuck. Hawkins swam up behind her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her white blouse billowed as she spun around, eyes wide with fear. There were a number of predators—large sharks, mostly—that prowled beneath the Garbage Patch, waiting for prey animals to become stuck.
When she saw him, she relaxed, but as she turned, a large, beaked face came into view, startling Hawkins. A burst of bubbles shot from his mouth as he shouted in surprise. When the bubbles cleared, Joliet stared at him with a single eyebrow raised. A second glance over her shoulder revealed the face of a sea turtle, its black eyes staring lifelessly into the abyss.
Confused, Hawkins moved around the oceanographer for a better look. She wasn’t tangled at all!
The turtle, on the other hand, looked like a sacrifice bound to a pillar for some ancient god. Loops of rope around the fins held it tight, the struggle for freedom long since abandoned. The loggerhead sea turtle looked like all the others Hawkins had seen, with one startling exception—the body and shell were pinched at the middle, narrowed to a diameter no thicker than Hawkins’s forearm.
What the hell?
Desperate for air, and confused by Joliet’s actions, he hitched him thumb toward the surface and kicked through the layer of trash. Pushing through the refuse, Hawkins took a breath and craned around, looking for the Magellan. The ship cut through the ocean two hundred feet away, coming around in a wide arc.
Joliet surfaced next to him, sucking in three deep breaths and then saying, “You have to help me!”
“The turtle is dead,” he replied.
“Hawkins. Mark. This is an important find. It’s tangible evidence. Provoking. Something like this will be hard to ignore. Who doesn’t love a sea turtle?”
Hawkins didn’t disagree. The loggerhead turtle was an endangered species and images of the deformed creature would make a compelling photographic addition to the article he was writing, but that didn’t mean she had to dive in after it. “It’s not going anywhere. Drake would have come back for it.”
“There isn’t time!” Her eyes were wide. Frightened.
Hawkins had only known Joliet for a month, but in that time he’d seen her step between two fighting crewmen, go toe-to-toe with Captain Drake, and haul in a thirty-pound bluefish, which became a meal for the crew. She wasn’t a timid person. But something had her spooked. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean that usually meant one thing.
Shark.
“Please tell me it’s not a great white,” Hawkins said with a frown.
Joliet’s eyes somehow widened a little bit more.
He had no doubt she was rethinking the wisdom of her actions. She’d seen the turtle, and then the shark—probably just the dorsal fin—and leapt in without thinking. Like he did when he gave chase.
Just like he did the first time he found himself in a similar situation. And while he had no desire to relive that particular event, they were already in the water, and she was right about the turtle. He drew his knife and held it above the water for her to see. “I’ll cut it free, you hold it.”
A nod.
Hawkins looked over his shoulder. The Magellan finished its turn and headed back toward them. The crane, which normally lowered submersibles and Zodiacs into the water, rotated out over the water, a line dangling down. If they held on to the wire, the winch would have no trouble plucking them from the ocean. He waved his knife in the air, hoping the glint of sunlight off its blade would alert them to their position. A shark was bad news, but being run over by a two-hundred-seventy-four-foot, three-thousand-ton research vessel could really ruin a guy’s day. “It’s going to be dead weight once it’s free, so we’re going to have to time this right.”
With the Magellan closing in, Hawkins said, “Ready?”
“After you,” she replied.
Hawkins didn’t really understand how he’d become the ring leader of this unauthorized salvage, but he was determined to see it through. He pushed the air from his lungs and descended through the debris.
The turtle, still bound to the lump of plastic detritus, was easy to find, despite the poor conditions. Hawkins kicked over to the loggerhead and began cutting away its bonds. As the first flipper came free, Joliet slipped up next to him and took hold of the turtle. He had no idea if the turtle would be buoyant at all—it might sink like a stone—but he hoped there was enough gas trapped in its deformed body to keep it afloat. If it sank, there was no way he and Joliet could keep it aloft.
He moved to the second of the four bound flippers and began hacking away at the ropes. The lines fell away like overcooked spaghetti. Free from its bonds, the turtle fell forward, but its descent stopped when it leveled out. Hawkins allowed himself a grin. Gas trapped beneath the shell would make the job much easier.
Gripping the cut lines, Hawkins pushed himself down and started on the line binding one of the back flippers to the mass. But the knife had no impact.
Steel cable, Hawkins thought. Damn.
A distorted shout and hard tap on his shoulder brought his eyes around. Joliet clung to the turtle with one hand, but the other stabbed out toward the open ocean.
A shadow slid through the debris like a wraith through fog. Circling. Closing in. Sharks weren’t above scavenging the dead, but the electric impulses of their racing hearts and kicking feet drew the predator toward the promise of a fresh meal. Man-eating sharks, bears, and big cats were often treated as aberrations needing to be hunted and killed, but Hawkins knew his place in the food chain.
With renewed urgency, Hawkins moved the knife up and hacked off the turtle’s rear flipper. The large reptile came loose, but it didn’t sink. Joliet kept it aloft. Hawkins looked for the shark again, but it was lost in the field of debris. That he couldn’t see the hunter didn’t put him at ease. The sharks ampullae of Lorenzini—jelly-filled electroreceptors on the snout—would easily detect the electric field produced by their bodies. While they were blind, the shark would see them with the clarity of a falcon hovering overhead.
A loud rumble through the water announced the presence of the Magellan, reversing its screws and coming to a stop. Hawkins slid over the top of the turtle, took hold of its shell on either side, and kicked for the surface. He felt lumps of hard plastic bounce off his back as he rose. The debris grew bigger as he neared the surface.
Almost there, he thought. But a garbled scream and jarring impact told him he wouldn’t be reaching the surface. He turned to the right and saw the maw of a great white shark open to envelop him.
Copyright © 2013 by Jeremy Robinson
Continues...
Excerpted from Island 731 by Jeremy Robinson Copyright © 2013 by Jeremy Robinson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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