[.ca] Codex (ISBN 0765359979)

What happened to the Codex?:
Douglas Preston's "The Codex" is a good read and it kept me going...until the end. For those who haven't read the book you may not want to read any further. I re-read sections of the end to ascertain my conjecture here, but it DOES appear that there is no logical explanation for what happened to the Codex after Tom laid it on the bridge under threat of Hauser killing his father and brothers. After Hauser is engulfed in flames and falls from the bridge, the bridge itself goes down in flames with no one having retrieved the Codex. And there is the fact that Tom made the deal with Hauser to leave the Codex for him if Hauser let he and his family off the bridge. So, how do Tom and Sally get the Codex at the end? Are we to belive that Tom didn't retrieve the actual Codex (since the treasures in the boxes inside the tomb were robbed by the Indian chief and hidden)? If that was the case then who manufactored the fake copy along with the other rare books in that box? I find it difficult to believe that an editor (or the author for that matter) didn't realize this gaping hole in the storyline. I mean the book is titled "The Codex" !!

I'll be at the front of the line for the movie version!:
Mayan ruins; anacondas and bushmasters; cougars, piranhas, agoutis and macaques; bloodthirsty mosquitoes; poison darts and arrows; vine bridges over impossibly deep chasms and raging torrents; Indian mummies; lost tribes; impenetrable, steamy rainforest and jungle; buried treasure, machetes; dugout canoes; heroes and villains; plus an earthy, eco-friendly but suitably gorgeous love interest - Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark certainly had nothing over Douglas Preston's rollicking thriller "The Codex". During his life, Maxwell Broadbent, billionaire art and antiquities collector and noted treasure hunter and tomb robber, thought his three sons, Tom, Philip and Vernon, misguided and lacking in the drive and ambition to be the best they could be. So, when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he decided to set them a quest whose successful completion would prove them worthy of earning their fabulous inheritance. Emptying his vast estate of all of its treasures, Broadbent left behind a video for his sons reporting his impending death and informing them that he was burying himself and all of his art, jewels, artifacts and trinkets in a carefully concealed tomb whose location of course was not disclosed. The clear directive was "Come and get me. If you find it, you earned it"! And, of course, as Sherlock might have said, the game was definitely afoot! One of the artifacts - a 9th century Mayan manuscript called a codex - is a 2000 page catalog of rainforest drugs and medicines together with instructions on how to extract and use them. Its almost incalculable value to the pharmaceutical industry provides an exciting sub-plot and gives Preston the opportunity to showcase his well known ability to provide readers with interesting technical sidebars that inform and entertain without disrupting the flow of a wonderful, high speed thriller. In this case we savour juicy tidbits about medicines, stock manipulation, corporate fraud, the pharmaceutical industry and the history and practice of archeology and treasure hunting. The climax and ending is pure Hollywood entertainment and suitably over the top. But, what the heck, it's warm and satisfying without being hopelessly sappy and will bring a smile to every reader's face. I will definitely be at the front of the line to see the movie version when it's released! Definitely recommended. Paul Weiss

Enjoyable:
It will be impossible to review this book without a comparison to Lincoln Child's Utopia, so I'll do it first. This book is smoother than Utopia. The flow is quicker, the rhythm is more solid, and the book has much more of a brisk pace. Much of this comes from more dialogue and shorter paragraphs. Is smooth necessarily good? In this case yes. The book is an adventure book, through-and-through, and plays well with the speed. The characters are stereotypes, but they're supposed to be. The setup of the book, as you can already tell, is a tad contrived. Aren't they always? The rest of the book works, though, with little groaning or reason to complain. The largest groan, perhaps, could be sex between two people that have spent over a month in the wet, rain-soaked jungle without a proper shower or hygeine concerns. Oral sex, in fact. Improbable, unlikely, completely unbelievable. Overall, though, you can feel the lack of Child, especially after reading Utopia (which, in retrospect, has a lack of Preston). Child seems to be best at bringing slower points of the book - plot developments and information. Preston seems best at bringing the action and dialogue. Neither concentrates much on character development, even though the characters do evolve more here than other adventures they evolve very predictably (yet satisfyingly.) A solid read, great for the beach or a weekend trip. Recommended. On a side note: in the battle of the gimmicky, transparent sidekicks Preston takes the lead. Hairy Bugger isn't nearly as throwaway or one-dimensional plotwise as Wingnut was. Wingnut was a huge groan, Hairy Bugger just a mild one.

ENJOYABLE:
I listened to the Audio CD version of this book and it was abridged. Therefore, I did not know about the "sex scene" between Tom and Sally until I read one of the reviews here. Nor do I now know what happened with respect to the pharmaceutical CEO who was hoping to buy the Codex from Hauser. The CD version never discussed it after the scene between Hauser and the CEO when the CEO agreed to buy the Codex. Can someone fill me in on what I missed? Thanks.

COULDA USED LINCOLN CHILD HERE:
Although the premise is cool, rich kids forced into a grand adventure by their "dead" father, the novel suffers from a paucity of strong subplots. There're only two: 1. CEO of pharmaceutical company, bent on taking possession of the codex; and 2. Yale professor, a perfumed prince, also bent on his "girlfriend" getting the codex. Both subplots were weak, at best, and #2 was left hanging, never addressed in the end. Preston also shows his ignorance of deep-jungle travel, with few details of the treacherous nature of tropical hellholes. Okay, so we encounter an anaconda who tries to eat one of the sons, and some pirhana that devour a guide. Big deal. There's no flavor and aroma of what it's like to BE there. Only an armchair author's impression of what it probably smells and sounds and feels like. Not enough to be genuine. The item that pissed me off more than anything else was his slamming Army Rangers. I used to be one and can tell you from experience: we don't look like Arnold, all big and buff. We're tall and skinny and ferocious as junkyard dogs. The myth that Preston plays is from sheer ignorance. He shoulda called me for some "learnin'." Dummy. So, all in all, a good storyline that lacks sufficiently stable subplots, one of which leads to a very loose end at the close of the story. This book coulda used an injection of Lincoln Child, to be sure. Oh, yeah, and what is all this talk about movies from these books? Preston and Child have only had one adapted from their novels. They best get someone else to rep them in Hollywood, 'cos Matt Snyder isn't cutting the mustard.