The Great Zoo of China

And that's not meant to be a good thing.

I'm not going to do a story recitation here. You can get that from the book's Product Page.

Unlike "Jurassic Park", there's no effort made whatsoever to actually establish any suspense, background, a plot, or three-dimensionality to the characters. A bunch of people are dropped into a setting -- in this case a theme park in China at which the main attraction is a bunch of actual living dragons -- and in literally just a few pages the dragons go on a rampage and everyone's running for their lives, fighting dragons, dangling from cliffs, fighting monster crocodiles, etcetera etcetera ad nauseum.

If we're going to compare this book to "Jurassic Park" -- as the publishers do on the book jacket, as well as many of the other reviewers -- then let's actually do it.

What made "Jurassic Park" such an entertaining book (and movie) was the mounting sense of doom and dread, culminating in a life-or-death confrontation with the dinosaurs. Chrichton took his time in establishing the sense of wonder at the science and setting, and firmly established his characters so we felt we knew (and sympathized with) them.

There's absolutely none of that in this book. It's like a cartoon. As I said, we have a bunch of two-dimensional characters dropped into a locale like lumps of coal in a bin, and immediately they're off fighting dragons. It's as if Chrichton were to start "Jurassic Park" at a point thee-quarters of the way through, and try to stretch what little story remains into a full-length book.

To sum it up in one word: boring.

I received this books as an ARC from Galley books.

I own several books by Matthew Reilly but they are still on my "to-read" list so this book was actually the first one for me. Being a fan of Steve Alten and Michael Crichton I was drawn to the synopsis of fantastic, extinct creatures brought back to life. Naturally you knew something was going to go wrong.
The parallels to Jurassic Park were obvious and in fact the writer makes mention of that in the book when one of the characters mentions how well this sort of thing worked out for Jurassic Park. Turns out he was right on the nose.
This book is incredibly fast-paced with a barely a moment to take a breath before the next disaster or epic battle takes place. It was in no way a relaxing read as I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I almost literally could not put it down, to the point that I considered calling into work just to stay home and read it.
The humans are treated with barely restrained contempt in this novel and I like that. These humans are acting without any humanity, breeding, caging, training with pain, messing with forces beyond their comprehension and simply murdering anyone or anything who gets in the way. The whole idea of the zoo, minus the awe-inspiring nature of the inhabitants, is one that is portrayed as over commercialized, tawdry, dirty and just downright unethical. The idea that humans could "train" these kinds of ancient mythical creatures is absurd and every description of this high tech uber-secret facility is described with this undertone. You get the sense that no one who really knows their stuff is fooled by the shiny exterior of the zoo's operations.
This book isn't light-hearted nor is it for the faint of heart. There is plenty of gore, violence and outrage to be had, served on a buffet of vivid descriptions and action-packed sequences that really test the limits of your imagination.
All in all I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with this read and I absolutely loved the book. Matthew Reilly just moved to the top of my "to read" pile.

Matthew Reilly's The Great Zoo of China is definitely a mixed bag as a read. On one level, it's obviously and undeniably a knock-off of Jurassic Park - but with dragons instead of dinosaurs - and with most of the characters barely rising above one-dimensional cliches, a largely predictable plot, and periodic moments where a willing suspension of disbelief is required. But on another level, it's a highly visual, fast-paced action thriller that, once the action starts, will absolutely keep you gripped all the way to the end.

The basic plot is pretty familiar to anyone who's seen or read Jurassic Park: Dr. Cassandra Jane "CJ" Cameron, a prominent writer for National Geographic and a leading expert on large reptiles, is invited - along with a handful of American journalists and dignitaries - to be given a special advance tour of a new zoo that China has been building, intended to be the largest zoo in the world - The Great Zoo of China. The Chinese government has been very secretive about this zoo however, and upon arrival, it is soon revealed to CJ and the others exactly why. This is a very special zoo, unique of its kind in all the world. This is a zoo for _dragons_.

And like in Jurassic Park, as part of the tour, an explanation is given as to how the Chinese have come to have dragons, how they keep the dragons under control, and why the park is absolutely, completely, beyond any shadow of a doubt, safe. And then things go wrong, horribly spectacularly wrong, and you're in for quite a ride.

Here's a sample of what you can expect both in terms of style and action:

"CJ dived left, pulling the wounded Johnson with her as the troop truck smashed through the windows on the eastern side of the restaurant and bounced up its broad levels.
---CJ glimpsed the red-bellied black emperor that had hurled the truck at the restaurant. It banked away before pulling up, its wings spread wide, and landing on the roof of the restaurant with a loud, floor-shaking thump.
---The troop truck plowed through tables and chairs, sliding on its side right through the circle of commandos that had been threatening CJ. It ran right over the lead trooper and two other commandos before crushing two more when its side-turned grille smashed them against the wall.
---While CJ had dived left, Li had dived right, only to have a section of the restaurant's ceiling come crashing down on top of him. The young electrician's shout was cut off as he was buried beneath the rubble.
---The truck came to a halt and it was only when the noise of its spectacular entry had subsided that CJ heard the groans of the men inside it.
---The dragon must have picked the truck up somewhere -- with the troops inside it -- and flung it at the restaurant.
---Wind and rain whipped in through the gaping thirty-foot-wide hole in the eastern side of the restaurant. The open sky loomed beyond the opening. The valley floor yawned a thousand feet below it.
---CJ Lay on her belly beside Johnson inside the darkened restaurant, staring in disbelief at the side-turned troop truck.
---There was a truck inside the restaurant. The mountaintop restaurant.
---And then the other dragons came."

I don't want to say too much in order to avoid any spoilers as there are some details that should only come out in the reveals that occur as you read the novel. That said, however, I can comment on the positives and the negatives of the book in general.

Weaknesses:

(1) Predictability - Most of what happens, at least on the human side of things, is pretty predictable, especially to anyone who's seen or read Jurassic Park.
(2) Lack of character development - Most of the characters never rise beyond bare sketches or outright cliches, particularly on the Chinese side: officious bureaucrats, blindly loyal military types, pampered party officials, lowly workers, etc. The main character, CJ, ends up as a different kind of cliché, a cross between Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. And all of the characters are either good or bad, never a mix or anything in-between.
(3) Wait-a-second moments - a number of times there are moments in the novel where the reader will tend to blink and think "Wait a second, that ain't right." By that I mean that you'll read something and suddenly realize that a character has done something or that something has happened that just wouldn't work or couldn't happen. I can't be specific without creating spoilers, but you'll know them when you come across them.

Strengths:

(1) Fast pace - this, more than anything else, is what overcomes the book's weaknesses. Reilly keeps things moving and keeps your attention gripped so firmly that you don't stop to think - or care - about the lack of character depth, the predictability or the wait-a-second moments.
(2) Highly visual style - Reilly is really good at using words to create a highly visual sense of everything that is happening as the novel progresses. You really feel like you're in the novel and seeing it happen all around you.
(3) The dragons - Reilly does an excellent job of first making the novel's case for the existence of dragons, and then of fleshing them out in terms of their natures and behaviors, even their social structure as a distinct species. While the humans in the novel are almost completely predictable, a lot of what makes The Great Zoo of China work is that you _don't_ know what the dragons are up to and what that is only gradually becomes clear as events proceed.

Recommended for fans of Jurassic Park-ish action thrillers and anyone who likes a book that can make you feel like you're watching a movie - from the inside. And for anyone who likes dragons.

I have to agree with the reviewer who compared this story to Jurassic Park -- except in this case, that's not a good thing. The plot is virtually the same: park owner has experts in to check out the park, everything goes wrong, experts die, park goes bust. Unfortunately, this book spends WAAAAAAAY too much time with battling dragons (sorry for the spoiler) and not nearly enough with telling an actual story. Normally, this would be my kind of tale, but this one is just plain boring. Too much repetition and not enough originality. Nice try, but no cigar.

I am honestly baffled by the great reviews on this book. Apparently, the posters have never heard of (let alone read) the far superior Jurassic Park. It would be bad enough if this book were simply a rip-off of Crichton's tale (which it most definitely is). The bigger problem, however, is how shoddily this is written. From wildly predictable "twists" to the endless, repetitive use of key phrases, it is at times literally difficult to read. It is one of those books which is clearly written in the hope that it will be turned into a summer blockbuster. The characters are not only one-dimensional, but they also fall into easily divisible camps: The heroes and those who will be eaten by dragons. You can tell the heroes because as the crisis unfolds, they develop not only superstrength but photographic memories and the ability to easily and quickly adapt to any challenge. Were it not for the fact that I have major completion issues, I would have put this book down long before the telegraphed-a-mile-ahead finale. As it is, I skimmed the last 20 or 30 pages. I can not recommend highly enough that you skip this book and instead re-read Crichton's Jurassic Park. It wasn't perfect, and yet it blows this away.

Where were the editors? As others have mentioned, the plot holes are absurd. At one point the plucky heroine, who is a veterinarian, sews up the previously described armor plated dragon skin that bullets bounce off of with.....a twig and a shoelace! Another time she does emergency repairs on her "pet" dragon, sewing up a gash that has only happened less than an hour ago, but that is described as now "oozing pus". Really, pus develops in an hour? And the premise, that the dragons could rub off their external "ears" and thus disable their sensitivity to the ultrasonic barriers that keep them from attacking humans? Sound is processed in the brain and through bones. External ears or lack thereof is not going to stop ultrasonics from working (Ever have your teeth cleaned with ultrasonics and have the "sound" go through the bones and give you a jolt?). This book was obviously written to be made into a movie for 12 year olds.

I was hoping for a decent sci-fi thriller, and the premise (dragons existing) was exciting. Wow...how disappointing. Flat characters, flat plot line, ridiculous action scenes that are so unbelievable it almost made me angry to read it.
I am not going to go into all of the plot holes, as that would contain spoilers for anyone who cares to slug through this mess.
Seriously, I don't get the four and five star reviews at all.

This book is so full of implausibilities, it stands as little more than the author's painfully obvious attempt at writing a screenplay for a Grade B Godzilla flick. Several hours of my life were wasted in an attempt to find anything redeeming between its covers. Spare yourself the trouble as there is nothing there.

Oh dear. To be honest I was looking for a bit of mindless fun, but got a bit too much of it to enjoy it. When I say mindless, you do have to get over significant casual racism from the offset, even in the preface and prologue. I do wish Reilly would fact check (where are China's international brands and cultural icons on a par with America's? - erm Reilly, please do some research), with one dimensional portrayals dripping with every stereotype - and worse, the kind that are assumed. Reilly takes every opportunity to portray the country and it's 1.4 billion souls as merely aping the West, scrabbling for our validation and, casually cruel, hierarchical and deceitful as a norm. A lowly worker is slapped in the face for the crime of dropping work tools in front of VIPs, and it takes a vastly more emotionally intelligent Western visitor to point out the unnacceptability of the situation, comfort the victim and remonstrate against the boss, while the Chinese wander dimly, callously past. Constant, passing references to imported Western tech, the rewriting of history, the corner cutting of the scientific method (once again, it takes a Westerner to see it), the fakery (of GDP figures, of safety standards, of PR, of er dragons etc etc) and utter lack of emotional intelligence, style and general humanity afforded to the locals becomes grating despite promising oneself that it'll get better, slough on, they'll start character developing soon. But by the second chapter the 'self deprecating' refererences to 'Chinamen' start (but that's okay, as it was said by a Chinaman in tongue-in-cheek mode!!!) really does make you put the book down and facepalm the bus window. I kid ye not, all this from the first 100 pages.

As a Westerner and one with Chinese roots, I have to say the book sits uneasily. It hurts, on both sides. I really hope not everyone thinks or so freely assumes like this. China is definitely no angelic civilisation or superior superpower, but the impression one gets from this book is not so much about fantastical beasts or a rip roaring yarn with flying dinosaurs, but civilisation-state posturing thinly disguised. A part of me wants to point out the wrongs, assumptions and misjudgments (China being the global leader in patents, start-ups, contemporary art, the internet and scientific papers for starters), but that's being sucked into the dark hole of competitive prejudice right there. (I hope you see what I did there).

I think it has dragons in it.

If there is one thing I have come to expect from Matthew Reilly, its a unique perspective on whatever he's writing about--one literally dripping with action on a scale that puts virtually all other action authors to shame--quite literally. He is one of my absolute Go-To Authors nowadays. He earned that by giving this reader what I crave most when I open a book: fine brain candy that helps me forget the world for a bit, and makes me wonder, sometimes desperately so, what in the world is going to happen next?

Some criticize Reilly for his rather over-the-top, almost cartoonishly wild action sequences. I will stipulate that the action can be sometimes--okay, most times--be almost ridiculously wild...but after I had the opportunity to interview Matthew once, he was able to confirm what I had long believed: the action isn't meant to be realistic. If you want realism, read Clancy. If you want breathless action that was written to specifically provide you with over-the-top entertainment, oh yeah, you really need to be reading Reilly.

Matthew gives an open and honest nod to Jurassic Park, acknowledging up front that it was one of the chief inspirations for this story. No, he isn't attempting to re-write it. The Great Zoo of China is more accurately put written in homage to Crichton's most successful novel. With that said, there is plenty original within its pages to keep you coming back for more. Just because it was written in the same vein doesn't mean its a carbon copy by ANY stretch. How the dragons were discovered and nurtured and bred borders on near believable (I said, NEAR). Sure, some suspension of belief is necessary (okay, a LOT) but if you can manage to do that successfully, you are in for quite the roller coaster ride. In order to gain legitimacy to the rest of the world, a group of experts are called in to tour the Great Zoo and share with the world just how awesome a place it truly is. Along the way, they are assured--repeatedly--of the absolute safety of the zoo, despite having some dragons within that are literally the size of a jumbo jet. Now, as we all can rightfully assume, that somewhere along the way, something will in fact go spectacularly, horrifically wrong. Nobody should begin any Reilly novel without understanding that from the beginning. Of course we expected it...so it didn't come as a surprise. In fact, the more they assured everyone to how safe they truly were only meant that the exact opposite was only that much more assured to happen...and boy does it.

The dragons are separated by names and species. The smallest being about the size of a horse, followed by the size of a small bus, and then the largest breed being literally the size of a passenger jet. They are also much smarter than anyone expected. Instead of "life finds a way" scenario playing out, these animals are just plain smart enough to create the disaster that eventually envelops the visitors and park employees overwhelming all. The Chinese government is also determined to make this a success, even at the expense of lives--however many are necessary. No word of the disaster can possibly make it to the public or the fate of the zoo and the reputation of the Chinese people in general could be forever tainted, meaning nothing is beneath them in order to ensure success--NOTHING. The action sequences are of course, many and varied and contains more than any 5 or 6 other novels combined (typical for Reilly). The story unfolded easily and for me, loaded with sheer entertainment along the way. For fans of Reilly you will already have an idea of what to expect, even though you don't know the details...those who have read his stuff know what I'm talking about here.

Take note, if you read this and decide you like it, I encourage you to seek out his other novels and give them a try as well. His creativity knows no bounds and some of his best stuff is still out there awaiting your discovery. If you can get past what I have listed above and still enjoy it, you have quite the treat in store for you. From the Scarecrow novels to the exploits of Jack West Jr...Reilly never disappoints. I simply LOVE his books--even though I realize he isn't for everyone. But those who DO--look out. His books are like the literary equal of meth. Addicting.