Ancestor

A Novel

By: Scott Sigler

Narrated by: Scott Sigler

Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

“The ancestors are out there…you have to believe me.”

From acclaimed author Scott Sigler—New York Times bestselling creator of Infected and Contagious—comes a tale of genetic experimentation’s worst nightmare come true. Every five minutes, a transplant candidate dies while waiting for a heart, a liver, a kidney. Imagine a technology that could provide those life-saving transplant organs for a nominal fee...and imagine what a company would do to get a monopoly on that technology.

On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, PJ Colding leads a group of geneticists who have discovered this holy grail of medicine. By reverse-engineering the genomes of thousands of mammals, Colding's team has dialed back the evolutionary clock to re-create humankind’s common ancestor. The method? Illegal. The result? A computer-engineered living creature, an animal whose organs can be implanted in any person, and with no chance of transplant rejection. There's just one problem: these ancestors are not the docile herd animals that Colding's team envisioned. Instead, Colding’s work has given birth to something big, something evil. With these killer creatures on the prowl, Colding and the woman he loves must fight to survive — even as government agents close in to shut the project down, and the deep-pocketed company backing this research proves to have its own cold-blooded agenda.

As the creators become the prey in the ultimate battle for survival, Scott Sigler takes listeners on the ultimate thrill-ride—and offers a chilling cautionary account of what can happen when hubris, greed, and madness drive scientific experimentation past the brink of reason.

©2010 Scott Sigler (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

"Sigler writes as if he is channeling a collaboration between Stephen King and Michael Crichton, as edited by H.G. Wells...He is gifted with the ability of explaining complex topics in an interesting, understandable and even entertaining manner, creates memorable characters who are likable and otherwise, and keeps the pace of the narrative moving so quickly that the pages should be soaked in flame retardant. This is one of those rare books that makes me wish that I could be stricken with selective amnesia, so that I could read it anew again."--Bookreporter.com

“A tremendously entertaining horror novel…the premise is thought-provoking, Sigler populates the novel with a lively cast of characters (unlike many thrillers, the heroes are as interesting as the villains), and the action is virtually nonstop—and, at times, quite graphic. If you combined Michael Crichton’s scientific exploration with Matthew Reilly’s lightning-fast pace and colorful characters, you might get something that feels like this book, which, incidentally, would make a great movie.”--Booklist

Love this book

Fast paced lots of action and love the science behind the story. My only complaints was I kept think about the perry dosy and the other characters from The infected books and pooki from nocturnal.

A Delicious Nightmare

As always, Scott Sigler delivers with his all too possible horror, amazing characters, and killer narration. 5 stars all the way!!!

Mr. SIgler, please let somone else narrate!

Great story. Enjoyed it almost as much as Infected and Contageous (which I read in paperback). Unfortunately, Mr. Siglar narrates this himself, and I personally couldn't take his characters seriously because of the way he gave them funny accents and over-the-top delivery of their dialogue.

If you read this Mr. Sigler, please let somone else narrate your next novel, and I'll gladly buy it!

Science Gone Wrong In The Backwoods

Awesomely entertaining if you're into weird science w/ a liberal splashing of horror... Outstanding pace w/ some truly memorable characters, dog included;). The production is on the poor side while the actual narration is spot on...

Great book

I love this kind of story. The characters were all well-written and quite interesting, and the story itself was quite interesting with plenty of action and a good dose of science. I agree that it would make a great movie - I'd love to see what the ancestors actually look like!

Jurassic Dairy

Fairly predictable. Really struggled to finish. Epilogue was not good at all. Too many unanswered questions.

as always scott kills it as with all his books

It was hard to limit myself on how much i listened to a day fun

Scott Sigler is Crazy

Would you listen to Ancestor again? Why?

I relisten to books that I like. Some, several times.

Have you listened to any of Scott Sigler’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes. Same crazy guy.

Any additional comments?

Anyone can get Sigler’s books for free via his podcast but I buy them here in their complete form. One, because I don’t want to wait for the next episode and two, because I want to give him money so he will continue to write. I like that he reads his own work. He reads with a lot of energy and passion. Definitely not a “polished actor” and I like it. I do not like it when he kills off a character that he has made me care about. And yet I continue to listen to his stuff. The jerk.

another great novel

Scott sigler has another great novel to add to his library. I recommend this book for one of the novel's you just can't stop listening too.

Awful narration

Who in the world told the author reading his own work was a good idea? Listening to this was like when I was a small child and my father read to me. I guess there is a good reason why writers are paid to write and readers are paid to read. It wasn't just the awful, flat delivery but the production value was low. There were numerous long pauses where there shouldn't have been and many occasions you could tell it was the end of a sentence or a new paragraph but this guy plowed right through the period. I was under the understanding that I had purchased a professional book but this was pure amateur hour. That said the book wasn't bad and i may enjoy reading some more of his work but I'll have to read those since he also narrates most of those. What a joke.