#prestonchild

[mydearaloysius]

[bethnalgreen]

The Preston and Child Books

Welcome to my corner of Tumblr, and my first-ever post. Sorry about the length!

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

I can't even remember when I first read "Relic," the first novel in what became the Pendergast series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was probably sometime in the 1990s. I do have specific memories of reading "The Cabinet of Curiosities" in the summer of 2002. My sister and I had just moved to New York City, and I was working at Barnes & Noble. You could borrow any hardcover book from B&N to read as long as you put a protective book cover on it. I spent several late nights reading it in our sublet, scared half to death and definitely entertained.

For the next six years, I was a passionate fan of these books. I even managed to snag an audiobook version of "The Book of the Dead" before its official release date (not from B&N) because I was going to be on a plane that day and wanted desperately to read it ASAP.

It's hard to believe that's been almost 15 years ago. I'm still reading the P/C books, and looking forward to them, but I've found myself increasingly disappointed in them.

I don't want to just dump on them. I write for fun but have never finished a story, and I truly applaud the imagination and dedication evident in even the books I truly dislike. (And there have been a few. I give every P/C book a second chance, but it doesn't always make me like it more. The novels I love have been read at least half a dozen times.)

The sticking point for me in the last half-dozen books or so has been the character of Constance Greene (she's so special she can't just be a Green, she has to be a Greene.) She's like a female version of Agent Pendergast, minus the empathy, charm, and any other personality trait that makes him tolerable.

Pendergast can be a pill, that's for sure. But I always manage to root for him, because he does occasionally show signs that he's human. Constance may as well be a robot ... actually, that could explain a lot. Pendergast's outrageous intellectual and physical feats can be explained to some degree by his wealth, his education, his experience in special forces, and his FBI training.

Constance, on the other hand, was picked up off the street at age six by a sociopath. He molded her into exactly what he wanted in a companion. She had more than a century to practice the harpsichord, study languages (Gaelic, really? How convenient), and read hundreds of books on esoteric subjects. She apparently never left the house during that time, which is why her physical feats really beggar belief.

As much as I like "The Book of the Dead," this crap with Constance started then. She'd been a long-term shut-in, but she somehow was able to track Diogenes all around the world, get the better of him in Florence despite his meticulous planning, and outthink him on the slopes of Stromboli.

From there, it's only gotten worse. She's become an "all-knowing ninja," to quote someone on Reddit. She can fire a machine gun after watching (with ill-concealed boredom, no doubt) a man show off the weapon for a few minutes. She can swim, even though she couldn't just a few weeks earlier. She becomes an adept at Chongg Ran after a few lessons (of course she does!).

And what makes it all worse is this gross quasi-romance that's taken up too much time in the series. Constance has convinced herself that she's in love with Pendergast, and she won't take no for an answer. (He's told her "no," with words and body language, more than once.)

If Pendergast has to have a romantic partner, doesn't he deserve better than a short-tempered, monomaniacal sociopath? This woman threatened to kill him in "Blue Labyrinth" for reminding her about her dalliance with Diogenes, then planned her own suicide as he lay dying in the hospital. She saves his life because she's obsessed with him and is dependent on him.

I haven't yet read "The Cabinet of Dr. Leng" -- given how Constance-centric it sounds, I've decided to get it from the library instead of spending my hard-earned money on it -- but I'm hoping the trilogy is a way to gracefully get rid of her. Have her fall for a man back in the 1880s and stay there. Hell, have Diogenes pilot a spaceship from Area 51 back into the 1880s and whisk her off to Mars!

She's taken up enough space in this series. Please, guys, just ditch her already ...

Favorite P/C Novels

Relic, Thunderhead, The Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life with Crows, The Book of the Dead, Fever Dream, White Fire

Least Favorite P/C Novels

Brimstone, Cemetery Dance, Crimson Shore, Obsidian Chamber, City of Endless Night, Crooked River, Bloodless

[mydearaloysius]

Just one more… ? Didn’t want to get explicit with the date night theme, but I may in the future????

[mydearaloysius]

Let's try this one more time!

First image is last artwork of 2023. Second image is first artwork of 2024!

[mydearaloysius]

Phew, that took way longer than it should have! I’ve had a busy week designing infographics for a new garden center. ANYWAY Here’s Vinnie and Pendergast taking a selfie. Vinnie wanted to show off his new suit that P helped him pick out, lol.

[mydearaloysius]

Aw, twu wuv…

[mydearaloysius]

Laaadiiiies…

[mydearaloysius]