Book Review – James Rollins’s “Excavation”
If adventure had a name . . . it would be James Rollins.
In Excavation, adventure novelist James Rollins takes us on a thrilling journey involving ancient an ancient Incan temple, a massive treasure of gold, a trek through underground caves, a secret society within the Catholic Church, and just for the fun of it, hideous beasts that easily kill human beings.
Excavation beings in Peru in the Andean Mountains.
The year is 1538 and Dominican friar Francisco de Almagro is on the run for his life. He knows that he’s a dead man. The Incan Indian tribe had already started the execution procedure when he made a daring escape. What Francisco is trying to do is send out a word of warning to future friars from the church.
Francisco de Almagro successfully reaches a sacred spot for the Incan tribe. He then uses a dagger to kill himself, spilling his blood on the sacred area. Since he was killed in this location, the Incans perform a mummification ritual for his remains, something that would not have otherwise happened. The question is, what was so terrifying that the friar of years past had to resort to killing himself to send a message for future explorers?
Fast forward to today (the book was published in 2000).
Archaeology professor Henry Conklin has a team of graduate students working at a Peruvian dig site in the Andes Mountains. They’ve uncovered a lost Incan city nicknamed Sun Plaza. While the graduate students are continuing with their research, Dr. Conklin has flown back to the U.S. to further examine a mummy that the team discovered in the city.
One of the first surprising discoveries concerning the mummy is that it was not the body of an Incan Indian. The body belonged to that of a religious person, most likely a Spaniard spreading the message of Christianity. But when the scientists try to perform a CT scan, they’re in for the shock of a lifetime as the mummy’s skull explodes. The room is covered in a gold-like substance.
Down in Peru, the team of graduate students is led by Sam Conklin, the nephew of Dr. Henry Conklin. While he’s technically not the senior grad student (that honor belongs to Philip Stykes, a person that the fellow students greatly detest), Sam’s leadership has helped him take charge of his fellow students.
Other graduate students include Maggie O’Donnel, a girl originally from Ireland, and Ralph Isaacson, a former football player who used his brainpower to excel his way into graduate school. Also at the dig site are Norman Fields, a freelance journalist from National Geographic, and Denal, a thirteen-year-old Quechan Indian boy who acts as the group’s translator.
The graduate students get a thrill when deep inside of a buried Incan pyramid, Maggie uncovers a sealed door. Around the door is a bunch of Latin that, when translated, seems to act as a warning against opening the next chamber. It’s getting late and the group retreats back to their camp to report their finding to Dr. Conklin. While on a video conference with the professor, Dr. Conklin reveals his evidence that the Incan pyramid may actually be sitting on top of a Moche pyramid, and the structure itself may be far older than originally believed.
That night, a small group of thieves led by Guillermo Sala sneak their way into the pyramid. They know about the students’ progress, and they are there on a mission. The thieves descend into the pyramid and reach the sealed door. When they break into the next chamber, the three thieves are shocked by the lush amount of gold and silver in the room. Just a handful of the precious metals would make any one of the men rich beyond their wildest imagination. Standing at the far side of the room is a golden statue of an Incan king.
As the men cross the middle of the room, a deadly trap is set in motion. Hidden gears move behind the walls as, one by one, the men accidentally set off horrific traps designed to kill any intruders. Two of the thieves are killed in the room, but Guillermo manages to escape.
The moving gears shake the ground and awaken the graduate students. All except for Philip rush into the temple to see what’s happening. Guillermo is able to get past the students while inside of the pyramid, and he detonates a hand grenade when he flees. The explosion crumbles part of the ceiling and traps Sam, Maggie, Ralph and Norman within the underground pyramid. They later discover that Denal is also trapped with them. It turns out that the boy spotted Guillermo and the thieves enter the pyramid, and he sneaked behind them and watched them set off the traps.
The problem for the people trapped underground is that the gears in the secret chamber are still in motion, and slowly they’re triggering the complete destruction of the pyramid itself. Like clockwork, the upper levels come crashing down onto the lower ones, forcing the trapped people to the lowest level of the pyramid. Sam has a walkie-talkie, and he keeps Philip updated of their condition. The communications slowly break down as they descend deeper underground.
Their only escape is by going through the secret chamber with its death traps.
As the people are trapped inside of the underground pyramid, Guillermo returns to his employer, a friar named Otera. Guillermo reports his discovery inside of the pyramid, but he has failed in delivering the prized gold. Friar Otera uses daggers hidden inside of his sleeves to easily kill Guillermo. He then makes a phone call to his superior and reports the discovery in the Andean Mountains.
Inside of the secret chamber, Sam and Maggie figure out that the intricate pattern on the floor correlates with old stories passed down through the Quechan Indians (and originally the Incans). They defeat the traps and discover a secret passage behind the golden statue. The group escapes into a natural tunnel system before the rest of the trap destroys the secret chamber.
The perceived safety of the natural tunnels quickly changes to horror as a massive swarm of underground spiders chases the people. To make matters worse, the next chamber is home to bats — thousands of them. The incredible piles of bat excrement give off a powerful ammonia smell, and nobody can safely walk through that chamber. With the spiders closing in on them and the bat room trapping further progress, the group is forced to up into a freezing cold underground river and swim to safety. It works and nobody dies from drowning or hypothermia.
The underground river takes the group to a new section of the cave system. Even though they’re trapped deep underground, this new section looks like it was once inhabited by people. It’s an underground city complete with buildings and homes. The only catch is that instead of living occupants, this city is filled with thousands of dead bodies. It’s a necropolis, a city of the dead.
While the group is resting and warming by a fire (a fire that uses dead bodies as its fuel source), they quickly discover that they aren’t the only living creatures in the necropolis. Slowly surrounding them are hundreds of humanlike creatures that have adapted to permanently living underground. They’re scared away by lit torches, flashlights, and gunfire, but that looses its effectiveness as the creatures get bolder and bolder and try to attack the graduate students.
The people scramble as the flee the monsters, and Ralph and Norman become separated from the group. Ralph is eventually killed by the monsters as he helps an injured Norman try to reach safety. Sam later comes back, and he and Norman are able to outrun the monsters and reach the safety of a gigantic golden statue of an Incan Indian. Oddly enough, the stature appears to be that of the same Incan that they saw in the secret chamber. This statue is hollow, and once the group is inside of it, secret gears unlock a mechanism that lifts the group of people to the top of the statue and out of the underground network of caves.
Now the group of survivors is inside of a lush jungle contained within the steamy caldera of a volcano. Sam is able to radio Philip and update him on their condition. He’s thrilled when he learns that his uncle Henry has also been contacted, and he’ll be enroute with a rescue team. The group is then captured by what appear to be local Indians. But when they see the village that they are taken to, the graduate students realize that this is no modern tribe of Indians. They’re smack in the middle of an actual Incan village, something that should not exist in today’s time.
Back in the U.S., Dr. Conklin uses the help of Dr. Joan Engel, an old colleague, to research the mummy along with the mysterious gold substance that was in its head. To make matters more interesting, the mummy was clutching a gold crucifix that contained writing too detailed for that time period and area of the world. The gold itself doesn’t register when its analyzed by computers, and they name it Substance Z.
Dr. Conklin initially calls upon Archbishop Kearney to help him identify the mystery man mummified by the Incas. The archbishop recognizes the mummified man’s jewelry as that of a Spanish Inquisitor from the 1500s. It’s later discovered that the man’s name is Francisco de Almagro.
As Henry Conklin investigates Substance Z with Joan Engel, the two of them grow closer together. One night they have dinner together and realize just how much they’ve missed each other from past years. When they return to Joan’s hotel room, they’re ambushed by gunman led by a man known simply as Carlos. He’s after the golden crucifix that was found with the mummified friar. When he’s given a replica of the crucifix made from Substance Z, Carlos watches in amazement as the crucifix itself is able to change shapes. He then tranqualizes Henry and Joan, and they’re taken to his secret compound in the Abbey of Santo Domingo located in Cusco, Peru. Carlos is really Abbot Carlos Ruiz, the leader of a secret organization of Dominican friars still operating in Peru.
After Friar Otera reported to Abbot Ruiz about Guillermo’s discovery of gold at the Incan dig site, Ruiz sent Otera to the dig site to personally keep an eye on the operations there. Otera and his fellow men disguised themselves as helpers and assisted with the recovery operation to help the people trapped underground. When Philip received contact from Sam Conklin, Otera learned of the safety of the people and the secret exit in a nearby volcano. He repeated this information to Abbot Ruiz, and Ruiz quickly gathered a well-armed “rescue” mission and brought along Henry Conklin. Joan was held hostage back at the abbey by the other friars.
But that’s just part of the action in Excavation.
The last third of the book details the survivors’ encounter with the Incan villagers. The village is an exact copy of the underground necropolis that housed the dead along with those hideous monsters. Somewhere above them in a secret location is a third mirror city, and like the underground one, this one is also forbidden and it contains more of the bloodthirsty monsters.
But the Incan village holds a much bigger secret that dates back to the dawn of the Incan society. It goes along with the mysterious Substance Z and a fantastic machine that is simply too powerful for the rest of society.
Is Excavation by James Rollins a good book?
When it comes to ancient cities, underground action, and lots of action, Excavation is an exciting and thrilling book. Although some of the underground parts may seem similar if you’re read Subterranean, don’t worry as this is a smaller part of Excavation‘s story.
Part of Excavation‘s best moments deal with archaeology and the ancient Incan Indians. Add in a dark secret within the Catholic Church (a common theme in some of Rollins’ books), killers who strike with deadly accuracy, monsters who chase and attack people with brutal methods, and even a little bit of science fiction, and there you go. This is an outstanding book that will satisfy most fans of adventure.
Excavation‘s only downfall was the final third of the book dealing with the events at the Incan village. I would have preferred to have seen more action dealing with the third city along with the temple and mysterious machine itself. It feels like a LOT of details and key plot elements were thrown into the story, and the story itself could have easily been extended for another hundred or so pages.
To me, it also felt that Abbot Ruiz was more of a renegade and lone wolf versus being part of the greater conspiracy and secret organization with the Dominican friars. It would have helped the book be even more sinister if there was a deeper plot with his organization.
One needs to remember that Excavation was one of James Rollins earlier novels. These minor flaws and shortcomings would be generally erased by the time that he wrote his incredibly popular SIGMA Force series of books.
Don’t get me wrong. Excavation is still outstanding and on par with some of the best works of fiction that you’ll find today. This is a smart book and hopefully you’ll learn a thing or two along the way. It happened to me.
A word of warning: Be sure to set aside plenty of free time to read Excavation. Once you’re hooked after reading the first few pages, you won’t want to stop reading until the very end.
