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(More customer reviews)I've been a fan of Lincoln Child's work (solo, and paired with Douglas Preston) ever since I read "The Relic" more than ten years ago. The fact that I've purchased and read all of the books they've published since then might be the reason why I'm becoming disillusioned with their work now. Child long ago discovered a formula that works for him (and his writing partner), and is very faithful to it. Whether you will like "Terminal Freeze" depends entirely on how you feel about that formula.
Some examples? Well, like most of their stand-alone books (outside the Pendergast series), "Terminal Freeze" has a mysterious treasure, one which experienced readers of Lincoln and Child know they shouldn't get attached to. That treasure might be pirate gold ("Riptide"), a rare meteorite ("Ice Limit"), or the strange creature in "Terminal Freeze", but it's always gone by the end of the book. I often feel a bit bad for their heroes, who go through hell and never seem to have much to show for it.
And Child is also very fond of using obsession as a plot device. Good luck finding a Child/Preston book that doesn't have at least one character who is obsessed to the point of insanity with SOMETHING. Naturally, that obsession is guaranteed to cause all sorts of hijinks as it's gradually revealed over the course of the book. In "Terminal Freeze", it's a sign of how formulaic Child's work has become that I picked out one particular character as the book's requisite obsessed nutjob the moment he was introduced. And I was right.
The rest of the formula involves a group of people (usually a mix of scientists and military/police types, often depicted in very stereotypical ways) trapped in an isolated place (museum basement, arctic base, aboard a doomed ship, island, etc) with a mysterious and deadly creature/force. Storms are frequently added to heighten the isolation and/or level of desperation. References to the unheeded wisdom of native peoples is possible ("The Relic", "Terminal Freeze", "Wheel of Darkness"), and since it IS the 21st century maybe we should be moving beyond using them as a plot device like that? By the end of the book, most of the stereotypes (and the obsessive loony) will be dead, and the hero figures out enough of the mystery to prevail.
Does this formula appeal to you? If it does, "Terminal Freeze" is the book for you. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Child's work; if I wasn't, I wouldn't care enough to take the time to write this review. It is a fun read, and Child's imagination produces genuinely creepy monsters. He (and Preston) are good writers, but I hope they shake things up a bit and introduce some new elements to their future books.
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