Danger and Discovery in the Jungle

Douglas Preston's tale of the discovery of the remains of a lost civilization in the Mosquitia region of Honduras, and his first person account of his experiences accompanying the investigative team, make for riveting listening. The region is dangerous and notoriously difficult to access and the team encounter real dangers in their quest, just as they make real discoveries. There's mystery, adventure, colorful characters and the book even takes a rather unexpected turn (which I don't wish to spoil). Having read (and listened to) Christopher S. Stewart's book, Jungleland a few years ago, which is also about the search for La Ciudad Blanca (ie: the Lost City of the Monkey God) in Honduras, some of the historical background covered in this book was familiar to me but no less interesting. In fact, in some ways, The Lost City of the Monkey God felt like it picked up where Stewart's book left off.

Bill Mumy does a great job on the narration. Highly recommended.

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60 people found this helpful

Uneventful

Sadly Uneventful. The last 3rd of the book is about diseases. Would not recommend this book

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14 people found this helpful

I find the narrator difficult to listen to

Would you try another book from Douglas Preston and/or Bill Mumy?

I would try another book by Douglas Preston. I am finding this book hard to follow due to so many facts, names, locations, people, etc.

Would you be willing to try another one of Bill Mumy’s performances?

Probably not. His way of speaking doesn't match the story. I'm still listening to the book, but finding it very difficult to continue. He pauses in between sentences in unusual places and accentuates words and syllables in a way that is distracting.

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9 people found this helpful

Interesting, exciting true-life adventure

The book begins with a detailed history of those who have tried to find or have claimed to try to find the Lost City of the Monkey God. Lots of charlatans out there in history!
Next, it covers the author's experience actually searching for and finding the City, mostly thanks to LIDAR. The detailed descriptions of living in the jungle made me positive beyond any doubt that I NEVER want to go to a tropical jungle!
The last part of the book, I don't want to spoil it, but it deals with the after-effects of the expedition experience and then, the ending, which I did not like and kind of spoiled the book for me, whether appropriate or not, was about the effects of global warming on the possibility of pandemics that could decimate much of the world's population.
That being said, if you like books about unusual people and adventures in tropical jungles, and if you like a little bit of history and science, then you will like this book. I would have given it five stars all the way around except for that downer ending.
The ending was probably appropriate, but I would've preferred to have been left with a sense of wonder rather than with a dose of harsh reality.

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5 people found this helpful

Wow

I enjoyed this amazing adventure and the authors coverage of the details with meticulous respect. I couldn't stop listening!

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2 people found this helpful

Good story, badly-chosen narrator.

It's a well-told and interesting story of both the search and study of the "lost city" and the leishmaniasis that many of the team contracted. But you have to deal with an overly 'swashbuckling' initial approach (hiring a very dubious expedition "fixer"), and over-deference of both the expedition team and the author to the legally dubious government of Juan Orlando Hernandez. Worst of all, why on earth couldn't they have used a narrator (otherwise good) who could manage not to (inconsistently) mangle Spanish pronunciation? That was painfully difficult to ignore!

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1 person found this helpful

interesting story, but could have been shorter

the archeological story is very interesting - would lend itself more to being read (maps and photos would have been great). but my complaints were two: it could have been a lot shorter, and the author seems to think pretty ugly people are somehow romantic. He glorifies archeological thieves, seeming to think we'll find them charming but more important, he doesn't give at all a fair telling of a brutal military coup and the subsequent violence against the Honduran people which is the backdrop for this story. Granted the political situation isn't the focus of this book, but when he does talk about it, he seems to me to be on the very wrong side of history, and that made it hard for me to enjoy the archeological story.

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1 person found this helpful

Expecting Something Different

Seems like the book needs some visuals and I don't know how to access the map or other documents that supposedly are part of the audio purchase. The reader sounds like he's whispering a surprise the entire time, almost out of breath. His mispronunciations of Spanish are obvious and annoying, especially the word Jaguar. Once the section about the horrendous disease started I was afraid it was going last for the remaining three hours. Thankfully no, but TMI nonetheless. I've read other books by this author which were quite enjoyable, this one needs more substance.

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1 person found this helpful

Honduras’ past and Archeology’s Future

Stories of lost cities, lost civilizations or lost explorers fascinate me. (Maybe I just get lost a lot so can sympathise). After reading the Lost City of Z and several Arctic Adventures, the Lost City of the Monkey God was an obvious next listen. What I immediately appreciated from this book was the fact it is modern; the book details the search for a lost city in the Honduran jungle that took place within the last decade. In particular, the author enters into explanation of the new science of discovery: using Lidar to map inaccessible or hostil environments. While delving into Honduras’ past, we are also seeing a glimpse of archeology's future. Unfortunately, the author abandons talk of the jungle about three-forths of the way through the book and enters into a drawn-out description of a parasite a number of the members of the exploration picked up. Although related, this creates a huge contrast and feels as though you are reading an entirely different book. Nevertheless, it does provide some interesting musings on the infections that swept across Latin America shortly after the arrival of Spanish explorers and, indeed, a warning about what diseases might again threaten humanity.

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1 person found this helpful

Worth reading!

Starts out as an Indiana Jones the adventure, and then takes a different turn into the word of microbiology & epidemiology. We all think we are immune, but this just might be the undoing of our civilization as we k now it today. The author, Douglas Preston, uses words likes an artist uses paints on a canvas to create a picture of what is happening in the moment, and leaves one pondering about the force to come in the future.

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1 person found this helpful