Excavation

Written by James Rollins

Narrated by John Meagher

“A real page-turner….Rollins keeps the story in overdrive, with plenty of twists and turns before the final shocker.”
—Douglas Preston, co-author of The Monster of Florence

 

A classic adventure from James Rollins, the author of The Doomsday Key, The Last Oracle, The Judas Strain, Black Order, and other pulse-pounding, New York Times bestselling thrillers, Excavation carries readers deep into the jungles of South America, and into the terrifying heart of dark mysteries that should never be unearthed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9780061958595

James Rollins

James Rollins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers that have been translated into more than forty languages. His Sigma series has been lauded as one of the “top crowd pleasers” (New York Times) and one of the “hottest summer reads” (People magazine). In each novel, acclaimed for its originality, Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets—and he does it all at breakneck speed and with stunning insight. He lives in the Sierra Nevada.

Reviews for Excavation

[Bryan Austin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book, however, the narrator is TERRIBLE. His transitions between plotlines is seamless, at least a nanosecond of a pause between paragraphs would be fantastic. That way, as a listener, you would easily be able to tell when the author is writing about different characters in different locations in different situations. It's a new paragraph, not half a comma.

[pinprick_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

To me this read like a romance book written by Indiana Jones. The action was fun and quick, but I got sick of the romantic stuff fairly quickly. Which is odd, since I'm a woman and I'm pretty sure those parts where in their for my benefit. The story centers on some archaeologists, Incan ruins, and the Catholic Church, with a dash of alien/monster thrown in to keep things lively. The characters were interesting if a bit stereotypical, and it was an easy book to get swept up in.

[df1a_aubreed · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excavation is about an archaeology team that gets trapped in a cave and face traps that they have to fight through. At the end of their journey, they stumble upon a mysterious treasure that hasn't been touched in hundreds of years. This novel is a science fiction thriller that is perfect for people who want to question the strange and think about wierd things that science can do. This is an excellent page-turner that keeps the reader on their toes and wanting more. This was ingeniously written and an excellent novel by James Rollins.

[miznitch · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

James Rollins is my all-time favorite author- hands down! I wish he would find someone else to record his audiobooks though- this guy has done a couple of them and I think he's terrible. He can't do accents and his range for different characters is extremely limited. 5 stats for Rollins and 3 for the narration.

[Jesscam Campbell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I always enjoy a good James Rollings story. Love how he incorporates history, technology & speculation into his works

[Daniel W · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Since I started with the Sigma series, I just can’t appreciate James Rollins’s earlier works. Excavation was just too far out there to be believable. Good adventure story though.

[susan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Always spellbinding a good read. Makes you wanting more. Enjoyed!

[Martay Burton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a book with a great story. The characters are very personable. If you adventure and mystery novels the this book is for you.

[YaYa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Full of action, excitement and suspense. Excellent read as usual.

[fhudnell-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The plot was just too preposterous for me. It also had awkward romances and a constant stream of threats, dangers, spiders, etc. followed by inevitable escapes. I did not enjoy any of this. The exploding mummy at the very beginning of the book was a nice touch though.

[Christian Garvin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I felt that the plot and story line were great, but I found the characters to be overly cliché and corny. From the western cowboy and rebellious Irish lass, to the shortround-esque native boy, the protagonists were painfully stereotyped.

[Cha Chi · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's like a 90s video game, alot of actions, but characters seems stupid and overly emotional at times - especially the female characters.

[brookeashley-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

James Rollins has really been filling that archaeological-action-adventure-thriller niche in my library. Although it could be ridiculously melodramatic in places, Excavation was even better than his first book, Subterranean. It spent less time setting things up and practically plunged right into the action and mystery right away. It also rolled along at a brisker pace - I didn't have the need to skim like I did with Subterranean. Rollins is a fun author; his books aren't high literature, but they're certainly lots of fun. The only downside is that his characters only exist for the action. I'd love it if he could come up with some memorable characters like Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child do in their collaborations.

[Nina Quartuccio · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Too neat...no blood or guts... no seductive romantic development...all very vanilla including the narrator...a few action scenes but nothing to write home about.

[thewere8472 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my all time favorite books with an interesting final sci-fi twist in the end, with a lost Inca village and a secret order - what more could you want from a book.

[karenduff · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As a second book this isn't bad but when compared to the Sigma novels and his books as James Clemens it loses something.

I liked the fact that when the scientists were doing their thing he didn't feel the need to explain it in laymen's terms, treating the readers as adults and assuming that if we don't know what something means and we want to know we will go and look it up. It did make me want to know more about the Incas and the tribes that came before them.

[britt barnes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

outstanding James Rollins is the best writer I know outstanding

[anfirind · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was good.

[tara714 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book reminded me a lot of his first book Subteranean. A group of people are looking for a piece of history, they get lost, discover a lost civilization, fight off intruders and then get rescued and famous. Don't get me wrong I liked the book. I'm a big fan of the archaeological mystery and if you are too you should read it. It kept me intrigued, but I widh there was more of a twist to it.

[moonfish_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

An outstanding display of GARBAGE !!! This is the second book by him that I read (the first was The Judas Strain - a little bit better than this one). Thousands of Tarantulas, hoards of Monster Cave-Dwellers and add a lost Inca Tribe. Why waste your time on this author when they are some Good Authors out there ???

[robfreeze · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good story line and action but it was a bit slow in places and I would loose interest from time to time as it jumped from one group to the next. Still it was entertaining. If I could have I would have given it 3.5 but definitely not a 4.

[sringle1202 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book. It is not what I normally read. I like mystery/thriller type books, but this has opened my eyes to adventures. I have always thought it would be fun to be an archaeologist, and this book convinced me so even more. Leaving out the huge battle at the end and the other evil in the book, all the actual discovery and learning parts were interesting and make you want to go on a dig.

[Shannon Ayers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Loved it. Hated it to end...but the ending was a huge surprise and well done. Did not disappoint, and narration was very good.

[van_stef_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a really awesome book. What I love about all of James Rollins books is that they're all woven with such rich historical detail. In this case the Incas. He weaves the history and the myth of the ancient peoples with very good adventure story.

[gttexas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great adventure story, full of action, thrills, mystery and suspense. But then that's to be expected from James Rollins!

[shesinplainview · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read a couple of these books by Rollins and on the third I read just a little and had to put it down. They are so much alike, predictable and lack imagination. Read one, you've read them all.

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you like adventure stories with a few supernatural/outer-spacey elements thrown in, you're really going to like this book. When I started the book, for some reason the theme to Indiana Jones started floating in my head.A group of archaeologists are excavating a newly-found site in Peru under the guidance of their mentor, Dr. Henry Conklin. Conklin is not at the site, but back in the US where he is overseeing the delivery and analyses of a mummy from Peru which he hopes will bolster his claim of a Pre-Inca civilization. His hopes are dashed when the mummy goes into the CT scan machine and its head explodes, spewing some bizarre substance all over the room. He makes it his business, along with another scientist, to find out what this substance is and why it was drilled into the mummy's head.Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Peru, one of the guards who had been hired to keep watch on the dig gets it in his head that with all the gold he knows is in the recently-discovered temple, he should take his chances, steal the gold and kill all of the archaeologists in the dead of night. He enlists two compadres to help him. Armed with guns & grenades, while everyone else is sleeping, the three unseal a temple door, creep into a chamber where the floors are marked in a pattern of silver and gold tiles. The ceiling is marked the same way, reflecting the tiles on the floor. They begin to cross the room toward a gold statue with jewels & other priceless objects, when suddenly a trap springs and one of the men is slowly tortured to death.Yada yada yada (I won't give it away)...eventually 4 of the archaeologists and a guide who is there as translator realize that something is wrong and make their way to the temple site. They descend to the level of the temple opening, and an explosion from above literally seals them in. Their mission: to get themselves out of the temple and fast.The two story lines come together and make for a very very fun read.

[panaranjado · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was so much fun..! Things get more and more unbelievable as the book goes on- I felt compelled to call people with similar senses of humor and read the particularly good (as in absurd) (as in Swarm of Albino Cave Tarantulas!) parts aloud. It was nice to spend a few hours drunk on Ultimate Adventure Glee.

[olivermagnus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"Excavation" starts out on an archeological dig in the Peruvian Andes. . It was a fun read and the action never let up. After an unplanned event the main characters in the book are trapped in a cave and have to find their way to daylight again, encountering everything from booby traps, spiders, bats and aggressive, carnivorous mutants. There are two main story lines going at the same time. The group that is trying to survive and return to the world again and a connected story that involves two other main characters that are trying to solve a mystery tied to the dig.

On his dig in Peru, Professor Henry Conklin believes he has unearthed a mummy that will prove that there was an ancient Indian civilization that predated the Incas and inhabited the jungle first. Henry has left the dig site in the hands of his nephew Sam and the other graduate students while he escorts the mummy back to the United States for further examination. No one can foresee the danger that is waiting for everyone associated with the dig. Years of searching for a mysterious substance that can heal wounds and resurrect the dead have led multiple groups with multiple motivations to terminate the Professor and his discoveries.

James Rollins never fails to entertain with his wild stories of mystery and intrigue set in an archeological setting. The story and adventure kept me turning the pages. This is another fun and exciting James Rollins novel.