jbronderbookreviews

Vostok (Loch – 2) by Steve Alten

4 stars

(Excerpt from Goodreads) East Antarctica: The coldest, most desolate location on Earth. Two-and-a-half miles below the ice cap is Vostok, a six thousand square mile liquid lake, over a thousand feet deep, left untouched for more than 15 million years. Now, marine biologist Zachary Wallace and two other scientists aboard a submersible tethered to a laser will journey 13,000 feet beneath the ice into this unexplored realm to discover Mesozoic life forms long believed extinct and an object of immense power responsible for the evolution of modern man.

Zachary Wallace is on the down hill slide from his fame at killing the Loch Ness monster. Tourism has ended and many are starving. Things are not any better at home either. Brandy, Zach’s wife, is trying to get him to go along with his fathers plan to start a rumor about another monster. She also wants Zach to go along with his father’s idea of starting a rumor about another monster. This leads to things getting tense between the two. Then Dr. Liao has an offer that he can’t refuse.

Ming Liao works on Antarctica and they have just discovered a Mesozoic crocodile. Since Zach is a marine biologist they recruit them to go under the ice to Lake Vostok to figure out what is going on, if these creatures are alive or if they were just frozen. But when they get there they realize that this is just a cover. There is something causing a mysterious magnetic interference. Zach is told to help figure out what is causing it. But there are some powerful people that want this technology and will go to any length to keep it secret.

The story starts with Zach trying to keep everything from going off the deep end but it just seems he is not going to be able to change the path. When Dr. Liao offers him the job he tried to do the right thing but gets sucked in with the help of his father. Once there he forgets about everything outside of Antarctica. I loved the descriptions and I couldn’t put the book down for long. I just wanted to know what happened next.

Then the book goes into part two. I have to say that I didn’t catch on to the change of scenery right away and was very confused. I also was not that impressed by the initial jump. It does work its way around to the point and purpose of this diversion but I almost put the book up. I cheated and looked at other reviews and saw that someone said that then ending is great and to keep reading. I will agree with that.

Vostok started out great, didn’t impress me, and then finished well. I haven’t read Loch or other books by Steve Alten and now I want to after reading Vostok.

I received this book for free from Laura at iRead Book Tours for review.

For more information on Vostok or to purchase it be sure to check out Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, and Steve Alten’s website.