Altar of Eden

A Novel

By: James Rollins

Narrated by: Paula Christensen

Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

A master at combining heart-stopping suspense and scientific intrigue, New York Times best-selling author James Rollins returns with a thrilling adventure like no other--a shocking story of cruel genetic experiments done in the name of national security and, most disturbing of all, tied to a secret history of the Book of Genesis.

Following the fall of Baghdad, two Iraqi boys stumble upon armed men looting the city zoo, opening the floodgates for the smuggling of hundreds of exotic birds, mammals, and reptiles to Western nations. But this crime hides a deeper secret. Amid a hail of bullets, an underground secret weapons lab is ransacked--and something even more horrific is set free. Seven years later, Louisiana state veterinarian Lorna Polk stumbles upon a fishing trawler shipwrecked on a barrier island. The crew is missing or dead, but the boat holds a frightening cargo: a caged group of exotic animals, clearly part of a black market smuggling ring. Yet, something is wrong with these beasts, disturbing deformities that make no sense: a parrot with no feathers, a pair of Capuchin monkeys conjoined at the hip, a jaguar cub with the dentition of a saber-tooth tiger. They also all share one uncanny trait--a disturbingly heightened intelligence.

To uncover the truth about the origin of this strange cargo and the terrorist threat it poses, Lorna must team up with a man who shares a dark and bloody past with her, now an agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, Jack Menard. Together, the two must hunt for a beast that escaped the shipwreck while uncovering a mystery tied to fractal science and genetic engineering, all to expose a horrifying secret that traces back to mankind's earliest roots. But can Lorna stop what is about to be born upon the altar of Eden before it threatens not only the world, but also the very foundation of what it means to be human?

©2010 Jim Czajkowski (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers

A new favorite!

This book was perfect! loved every second! The action, the New Orleans location, the characters and and the science. I hated for it to end. Awesome from word 1

I wanted to like it

The narration was such a hodge podge of incredibly bad New Orleans, southern, and cajun accents that it made the experience of the book probably seem worse that it actually was.

Story is fine

But the voice actor is awful, to the point it was hard to listen to.

Sacrificial lamb

Vince Rowan‘s intro says he’s going back to his roots. I suggest he move forward Because backward didn’t capture my imagination past the first 30 words. Maybe a book would’ve been a Ferrer

Story is engaging, but new reader needed

I found the story quite engaging. However, for the first time ever, I stopped listening because I absolutely could not abide the reader. She continually changed accents (most of which were hard to even identify) making it very difficult to follow the speaker. I will never purchase another book that she narrated.

waste of time and money

this is the worst James Rollins novel I've ever listened to. the narrator doesn't know how to pronounce certain weapons. the whole premise of the female protagonist is not what James rolling should be writing about. please let this character die and go back to the sigma Force novels or things along that line.

Alter of Eden

I have listend to many James Rollins books and this reader is horrible! I can't get through the book because she is sooo bad. Can't distinguish between characters and I am sorry but she has a very annoying lisp!

Fire this reader

This was not my favorite Rollins book. In addition to the flaws in the script, Rollins changed from his usual, very good reader to someone so awful I could only listen in small increments, it took me weeks to listen to this book it was almost painful

Typecast characters, painful narration, weak plot

Everybody???s taste is different nevertheless I was disappointed in this book. The main characters I found to be dull and typecast : ???Jack Menard??? a superman-with-a-disturbed-past type and ???Lorna Polk??? irritating and flat. Descriptions of weapons and military equipment where often inaccurate, their terminal effects like something out of a B grade movie. The plot was also a stretch of the imagination??? Unfortunately, I also must agree with other reviewers regarding the narration, the attempt at Cajun accents didn???t meet with much success, I would have to rate the narrator as ???painful at times???.

The accents! Ugh!

Would you try another book from James Rollins and/or Paula Christensen?

Not by Paula Christensen!

Would you recommend Altar of Eden to your friends? Why or why not?

NO! Where in the world did she get the Cajun accent? So fake unbelievable!

How could the performance have been better?

She needed to have come to the area and listened to the true Cajun. Which is not French!

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Not that I can remember, unfortunately about all I can remember is the bad accents from the Cajun to the doctor who was preforming experiments