Tyrannosaur Canyon

By: Douglas Preston

Narrated by: Scott Sowers

Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

A moon rock missing for thirty years....
Five buckets of blood-soaked sand found in a New Mexico canyon....
A scientist with ambition enough to kill....
A monk who will redeem the world....
A dark agency with a deadly mission....
The greatest scientific discovery of all time....
What fire bolt from the galactic dark shattered the Earth eons ago, and now hides in that remote cleft in the southwest U.S. known as Tyrannosaur Canyon?

©2005 Splendide Mendax, Inc. (P)2005 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

"Better than Crichton." (Publishers Weekly)
"Preston keeps the adventure high, springing plenty of nifty surprises along the way." (People)
"Give him lots of credit...for thrills. He can write gripping escape scenes and bloody confrontations with the best of them." (Booklist)

Very good listen

What was one of the most memorable moments of Tyrannosaur Canyon?

I liked his "day in the life" narrative of the female tyrannosaur.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Pretty much. We were listening on a road trip.

Any additional comments?

It got a little "Hollywood" toward the end, but overall we really enjoyed it.

Great plot

I thought this was a great book and have recommended it to family and friends. It has a great plot and it never goes to far astray. This could have been just a great mystery, I was concerned when the author took a different tack about two thirds of the way through the book and added a new ominous character but he did not lose focus. The ending is as good as the beginning, some of these thrillers lose focus and seem to collapse at the end but this one never did. It was believable, exciting, and intelligent. I thought the narrator was OK, he is no George Guidall, but he is adequate. Even the author interview at the very end was good. Two thumbs up on this one.

Incredible story

I love Douglas Preston's books because they are born out of research and facts. The interview at the end of this book was a real treat.

Good, not great.

OK, the narrator is awful. The only thing worse than his feminine voices was his ridiculous attempt at an English accent. He also has a habit of simply reciting words instead of reading the story; e.g., he says "he watched her smiling" when the text obviously reads "he watched her, smiling". Then there's the story. I enjoyed Preston's work with Lincoln Child on the Pendergast novels, but this story is a literary bas-relief - a story that merely suggests depth of charcters and plot, but doesn't deliver any real dimension. It was a good listen and seems well researched, but I wanted it to be better.

Great plot.

The book had several twists and turns that kept you guessing. I enjoyed this very much. Will read next book in the series.

great book

this was a fantastic book. I listened to it on a long road trip.and found myself gripping the steering wheel during intense moments.

Great interview at end of Douglas Preston

Enjoyed the book overall. It seems just made for an action adventure movie. Best for me however was the thoughtful interview of the author at the end.

Not bad, but...

Not a bad book, but it suffers a bit from an image problem.

If you are like me you read the publisher's summary, and still had no clue what this book is about. So, if you are like me you went to the book store and read the description in the book jacket. Wow, still no clue what the book is about. So, if you're still like me you decided that the title was interesting, the teasers in the description were interesting, and you went home and downloaded it from Audible.

So what did I end up with? A very odd, quirky, interesting story.

Don't let the teasers fool you. This is not a high tech thriller. This is a good old fashioned murder mystery, with some very interesting characters thrown in. The science angle is almost an afterthought. So much so, in fact, that it doesn't really come into play until the final few chapters. And then only as the explanation for the murder that happens in the first chapter of the book. And the explanation, when it comes, is quite far-fetched.

But buy this book, and listen to it. You'll be glad that you did. Preston does a great job of developing the characters, and leaves the door open for the two of the characters to star in a series of stories. I hope they do!

Excellent Listen

Without a doubt, this is one of the best listens I've gotten from Audible. Kind of like, a Tony Hillerman novel mixed with Indiana Jones and Jurraisic Park. The narrator is excellent and makes this book a delight to listen to. A definate page turner that's hard to put down. If you like mystery and adventure then I highly recommend this book.

A Good Listen

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. From beginning to end, it takes you from man's exploration of the moon, the death of a prepector in New Mexico and the search for and government cover-up of dinosaur fossils. This book is filled with action and clever twists while educating the reader about earth's early history and evolution. I also found the discussion with the author after the novel to be interesting.