Summary
Through sheer luck, Sonny McGuiness learns about an unclaimed silver spring in the mountains of Utah. The sample he takes in for testing proves to be platinum, the find of a lifetime. The mining conglomerate EarthCore wants in on the action and will pay anything to get control of the mine. But the find turns out to be much more than they or the top specialists had expected. There’s much more down there than platinum, and the other things they find down there might just kill all of them. The Earthcore employees, their scientists, the two professors who have negotiated their way onto the site, and even the former NSA agent who’s spying on them might not find their way to daylight again.
That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from scottsigler.com
Deep below a desolate Utah mountain lies the largest platinum deposit ever discovered. A billion-dollar find, it waits for any company that can drill a world’s record, three-mile-deep mine shaft. EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company’s driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure.
But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting … and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out firsthand why this treasure has never been unearthed.
Context
Oh, crap there’s something dangerous hiding underneath Utah! Like Sigler’s other works, I could see all this mess in Earthcore really happening. These are real places, and son of a gun, I’m never going to Utah now because I’m afraid of what’s up there. Nah, not really, but it’s a good ride. Considering the advancements of technology in mining, it’s not a stretch of the imagination at all that this could happen. And, what was a little surprising to me was that, according to the Q&A episode of the podcast (yes, I listened this is in audio format) Sigler mentions that he actually finished writing Earthcore in 1999. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the things he came up with have actually been created if they weren’t already. Seriously, this is some cutting-edge stuff. Sigler admitted that some of his gadgets and stuff (like the Koolsuits, for example) had to be modified to work in media rather than be 100% factual. I noticed a few things myself that wouldn’t be REALLY possible to work the way he said, but I really didn’t care. I was more than happy to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the story.
Style
Believe it or not, Earthcore actually lacked a lot of the shock and creepiness factor I’m used to getting with Sigler. Oh, it had its moments, but this novel seemed to me more about survival than about death, if that makes sense at all. People did get hurt, and they got hurt bad, but I think there was just some of the more detailed gruesome descriptions that were missing here that could have made Earthcore more potent. It’s not disappointing in the least. In fact, some of what’s left to the imagination is highly satisfying. Perhaps the problem was just that my own brain wasn’t as gruesome filling in the holes.
My Thoughts
I wasn’t entirely sure where Earthcore was going to end up. I mean, other than underground of course, but I was wondering exactly what it was we were going to find in the mine after the teasing prologue. I had my guesses, and one of them turned out to be sort of right, but it wasn’t the guess I had banked on. I’m not going to spoil it here, but there’s something down there that both surprised me and made me go, “Yeah, I guessed that right,” at the same time. Make your guesses, and you’ll probably have something right. Just not all of it. I liked that about Earthcore.
True to Sigler’s style, there’s language and violence in this book, but this wasn’t quite as much as some of the other books I’ve listened to of his. Don’t get me wrong—there’s blood, and lots of it—but it didn’t seem quite as graphic as I’m used to from him. I don’t know if that’s because Earthcore is an earlier work and he just was whetting his appetite for blood or if Sigler just wasn’t quite as versed in splashing the red stuff around yet, but it didn’t bother me.
Would I Recommend This Book? Well, considering this is Scott Sigler month on the blog, and I have yet to not like something of his, I’m going to go with YES. This one actually struck me as more tame than the others, but it is still a very good, very intriguing read. I give Earthcore a solid, shining 3.5 of 5 stars.
For more information on the author, visit scottsigler.com
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