Overview
The good news: the bugs are all dead.
The bad news: we're next.
The change begins silently, imperceptibly, inexorably. One natural effect topples into the next, like an array of dominoes that stretches to every corner of the globe. Before anyone can realize it, the earth's ecology has utterly transformed itself. And the days of the old world are finished.
In an idyllic Long Island community, paleobiologist Richard Sinclair is one of the first to suspect that the environment has begun to wage bloody, terrifying war on humanity. What initially appear to be random, unrelated events are, in actuality, violent eruptions in a worldwide biological chain reaction. Along with a brave group of survivors, Sinclair must learn to understand the catastrophe while it roils around them, slowly crumbling a panicked world and energizing a reactionary fringe that welcomes the apocalypse. The survival of humankind depends on finding an answer immediately - or all else is dust.
Charles Pellegrino, whose dinosaur cloning theory informed Michael Crichton's bestselling Jurassic Park, has fashioned a heart-stopping thriller which uses scientific speculation as the basis for a masterful exercise in edge-of-the-seat suspense. Brilliantly inventive, frighteningly authentic, Dust is a literary ride that will leave listeners gasping for breath as its heroes confront the final destiny of their species.
Synopsis
Get all your chores done. Unplug the phone. Turn off the TV and the computer. Clear the decks completely—because you wont want any interruptions once you settle into the most pulse-pounding reading experience of the year.
The change begins silently, imperceptibly, inexorably. One natural effect topples into the next, like an array of dominoes that stretches to every corner of the globe. Before anyone realizes it, the earths ecology has utterly transformed itself. And the days of the old world are finished.
In an idyllic Long Island community, paleobiologist Richard Sinclair is one of the first to suspect that the environment has begun to wage bloody, terrifying war on humanity. What initially appear to be random, unrelated events are, in actuality, violent eruptions in a worldwide biological chain reaction. Along with a brave group of survivors, Sinclair must learn to understand the catastrophe while it rolls around them, slowly crumbling a panicked world and energizing a reactionary fringe that welcomes the apocalypse. The survival of humankind depends on finding an answer immediately—for all else is dust.
Publishers Weekly
"They're dead, I tell you! All the fungus gnats are dead!" screams a famous entomologist just before his protective suit is ripped apart and he's devoured by millions of vicious mites in this biothriller debut from self-described "scientific gadfly" Pellegrino. According to the publisher, it was Pellegrino's theory of dinosaur cloning that jump-started Jurassic Park; and his first novel does share with Crichton's novel a certain X-Files-meets-Scientific American appeal. What it doesn't have is the mighty Crichton narrative engine to carry it over the rougher patches of weird science. Pellegrino gets off to a good start: paleobiologist Richard Sinclair's Long Island neighborhood has been attacked by a deadly horde of mitesthe first indication that something has gone horribly wrong with the world's ecosystem. After the bugs kill his wife, Sinclair and his nine-year-old daughter escape to the relative safety of a nearby research facility, and Sinclair begins an investigation of the widespread insect extinctions that have brought on a host of other, world-threatening disasters. Meanwhile, a crooked former talk-show host with messianic pretensions whips up a frenzy among the hungry, frightened populace. Despite the promising ingredients, most readers will probably be so bogged down by overheated pseudo-jargon ("everything that was happening today was but the final blossoming of a stupendous explosion that had begun as a small flaremuch like... Richard's crystallization event") that they'll be rooting for the mites. (Mar).