Scott Sigler's Ancestor: A Review

I have known about Scott Sigler's books but had never gotten around to reading the first two before Ancestor came out. Ancestor is a horrifically riveting story of science running amok. The first chapter portrays a lead scientist of a biotech firm dying from supervirus while government officials watch from a security camera.

Shortly after these officials give the order to blow up the firm with its lethal bodies, the story shifts to Liu Jian Dan, a brilliant but insane scientist who suffers vicious hallucinations. Jian works for Genada, a biotech firm that is striving create a proto-mammal similar to the prehistoric creature that supposedly all mammalian life evolved from. This proto-mammal is supposed to save lives by producing transplantable organs that the human body will not reject.

This is all well and good until we meet the scientists behind the project, as well as the owners of the company. The first half of the book deals with scientists warring with each other to the point where two people die, forcing the company to move their secret lab to another secret island in Lake Superior before the government catches up with them and shuts them down.

Everyone is too wrapped up in themselves to pay much attention to Jian, who has secretly altered the proto-mammal's genome during one of her bipolar episodes. Nobody realizes what she's done until the creature eats its way out of its host's (an innocent cow) womb.

Magnus Paglione, one of Genada's owners, decides to dispose of the project once he learns that Jian has ratted them out to the government. His plan fails, and 43 impregnated cows escape to give birth to their monstrosities.

The surviving scientists are trapped on the island with these creatures, who grow larger and more ravenous with every feeding. Not only do they have to outwit and outrun the creatures, but they have to outwit and outrun Magnus and his sniper crew.

Ancestor reminded me very much of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, only with more treachery and bloodbaths. His descriptions of the creatures' feedings were quite detailed but concise. I enjoyed the premise of the book, its pace and the characters that carried the plot forward. He left the reader hanging at the end with the Epilogue, which suggests that there might be a sequel.