Rating: 
Summary: Ya...Right???
Review: One word describes this book:ri·dic·u·lous- Deserving or inspiring ridicule; absurd, preposterous, or silly. In all fairness to the author this is the first book of his that I have read and perhaps I should have investigated more into his writing style. This book reads like a silly Hollywood movie. Most disappointing is that the story line and conceptuality of this book was very good but Rollins wears the reader down with absurd coincidences, unlimited resources and unbelievable creatures. Had he been more realistic in these areas this would have been an absorbing read.
Rating: 
Summary: Rollins does it again!
Review: Buckle up and prepare for a great time reading "Amazonia". James Rollins, author of other great action novels such as, "Subterranean" and "Excavation", has done it again with "Amazonia". This novel grabs you right from the start and before you know it, you're 50 pages into it. The plot revolves around the search for a hidden Amazon tribe that may hold the secret to cellular regeneration. Numerous sub-plots also exist in this novel. A son looks for his father who disappeared years before while searching for the secret tribe. Evil representatives of a pharmaceutical firm attempt to find the secret tribe and their herbal medicines for their own profitable gain - and will stop at nothing to succeed. And the secret to healing a devastating plaque that is sweeping the U.S. is somewhere in the Amazon jungle. Rollins does a great job keeping all of the "potboilers" simmering throughout the book. The action is fierce and frenetic throughout. You should also prepare yourself for your squeamish moments as Rollins describes some grisly situations involving the search for the tribe. The Army Rangers sent to protect the expedition seem to get killed out faster than the crew men in the red shirts from the old Star Trek program. Behind these gory demises are some fantastic creatures, notably man-eating frogs, mutated piranhas, giant locusts, and hundred-foot caiman. OK, so you have to suspend your powers of disbelief a little! Some memorable characters abound in this novel. Nathan Rand, the sympathetic son who still hopes to find his father. Manny and his pet jaguar, Tor-Tor, who aid in the search for the tribe and Professor Kouwe, a spiritualist, linguist, and healer who provides guidance to the group and young Nathan. If you're a fan of any of the Preston/Child or Matthew Reilly novels, then "Amazonia" is for you. It's an extremely quick-reading book that's hard to put down!
Rating:
Summary: Runs out of steam big time
Review: I have liked other Rollins' novels and this one was enjoyable for the first couple of hundred pages but it just went on way too long with too much plot repetitions. Not a worthwhile read and it may be time for me to give up on Rollins.
Rating: 
Summary: Popcorn novel with slightly tangy flavor
Review: This book was not exactly one that I'd recommend for everyone. It is definitely of the Crichton school of writing- take scientific issue, explore it, have people meet grisly demises, rinse, repeat - and unfortunately, not past the seventh grade in this particular school. Rollins does an excellent job with the setup and puts his heroes into big trees and throws plenty of rocks at them. However, when you surround your heroes with lots of expendable Special Units forces, I'm going to be able to pick who lives and who gets eaten by piranha frogs fairly quickly.
Take a look if it is on paperback and you need a good book to get you through that plane ride.
Rating: 
Summary: My first by Rollins
Review: "Amazonia" was my first read by Rollins, but he will be another auto-buy author for me. I won't summarize the plot again, as other reviewers have, but this book clips along at amazing speed. I was never bored with the team's adventure. The heroes are likable, the villains perfectly evil. I was recommended this book due to my love for Preston/Child. Any fan of theirs would be happy reading "Amazonia".
Rating: 
Summary: Implausible Waters
Review: Any successful fiction - especially science fiction (or in the case of "Amazonia" "bioscience-fiction) - must have a kernel of fact around which the story is spun. Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park", "Prey", and "Timeline" are good examples of plausible, if improbable, science effectively used as the basis for high-adrenalin entertainment. In a slightly different venue, Dan Brown ("The Da Vinci Code", "Angels and Demons") is a master of taking historical fact and wrapping compelling fiction around it. Unfortunately, James Rollins' "Amazonia" shares none of these characteristics. In a needlessly long and overdramatic epic the hero, Nathan Rand, glumly plods through an totally unrealistic Amazon/jungle in search of his father lost four years before. The search is revived after a member of Rand's father's party, former CIA-agent Gerald Clark, emerges from the jungle barely alive and horribly diseased. It turns out that whatever Clark contracted in the jungle is highly contagious, and a dangerous plague is rapidly spreading across the Americas. So the race is on, not only to find clues to the senior Rand's disappearance, but also to find the magical cure for the dreaded plague. This is the Amazon/ of Hollywood in which Anaconda's are 40-feet long and Piranhas frantically eat all in their paths. It is a jungle of flora and fauna impossibly dangerous where chances for survival are distantly remote. Worst, Rollins succumbs to the popular politically correct convention wisdom: the source of all evil is drug companies and the military while the secrets to life and happiness are all merely waiting for discovery in the dense Amazonian forests - assuming of course the evil capitalists don't destroy it first. Rollins characters are as thin as the plot; the dialogue painfully melodramatic and clichéd. ("Nathan Rand's gaze was as hard as the Rangers', but there was a glint of something more. A vein of icy determination.") Bottom line: with an unbelievable plot, bland and stereotyped characters, non-descriptive prose, and a tidy and predictable Hollywood ending, this one is better left off that list for this summer's relaxed beach reading.
Rating:
Summary: What happened to the ending?
Review: I really give this one 3.5 stars. The story builds in action and complexity throughout the book and punches are not held. But as I finished the book I felt a little cheated. With fewer than ten pages left, our characters are deep in the heart of the Amazon basin and a virulent plague is spreading across the United States. Suddenly, it is eight months later and everything is hunky dory. What happened? So much of the book is grounded in real science and theory that the "rabbit out of the hat" ending was just too cheap. My advice is to read the book and avoid the epilog; just make up your own ending. The book centers around a race for what could be one of the greatest medical discoveries of all time; a method to stimulate regeneration of limbs. A team of scientists and Army Rangers is hot on the trail but they are followed by mercenaries in the pay of a French pharmaceutical company. To make matters worse, the initial discovery, a soldier whose arm regenerated while he was missing in the jungle, has caused the spread of a terrible plague, one with a %100 kill rate. Now the first team has to find their objectives and find a cure for the plague. All this while having to survive mercenaries, local Indians, giant crocodiles, killer life forms and the jungle itself. A real page turner until you turn the page and see "Eight months later".
Rating:
Summary: Great adventure fare!
Review: I haven't read James Rollins's work, however, after reading Amazonia, I am a new fan. I love the adventure/scientific/apocolyptic genre of novel, and this one fit the bill. The plot was coherent and well written. The characters, though slightly stereotypical, were believable. Nate and Kelly were a good romantic duo, and Tor-Tor was the coolest cat/main character I've seen in a while. I loved the description of the jungle and of the animals. I also appreciated the obvious research that Rollins did to write about the Amazon. Though I felt the end was kind of weak and hastily thrown together, it did not dull my enjoyment of the total work. This one would have been great at the beach!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic first book by new author.
Review: I picked up this book by chance and let me tell you guys from the first page I was hooked I read this book from cover to cover in just one day. Action from the first page and it did not let up. I will not go into detail because it would take to long,but I felt for every character that had been killed or injured and I was so glad that Tor-Tor the black Jaguar hooked up with the leader of the black female Jaguar, and at the end when she planted the new seed I felt that a whole new chapter was going to start in this new Amazon forest. Read this book if you like non-stop kick action with also a little romance on the side you will be glad that you did.
Rating:
Summary: Oustanding adventure novel from start to finish
Review: James Rollins' fourth book, Amazonia, is the best of his first four published novels. Like his previous three novels (Subterranean, Excavation, and Deep Fathom), all are robust, action-filled adventure stories centering around a major discovery. Unlike Subterranean and Deep Fathom, Amazonia has a great finish after a big buildup. Excavation is on par with Amazonia in this respect as both had fast starts, great buildup, and a great conclusion. Amazonia centers around the discovery of something in the Amazon with regenerative capabilities. A Special Forces agent stumbles into a small village at the beginning and the mystery surrounding the regeneration of his missing arm intrigues the US Government and Nathan Rand. Rand's father was part of the original mission into the Amazon with Agent Clark as part of the US military support. A new team of US Rangers is formed, aided by Rand and a few friends and scientists. Their discoveries of strange new creatures and plantlife make for an interesting tale and one full of action and intrigue. Although some of the action sequences are a bit farfetched, they are still entertaining. The action is never as unbelievable as that of Matthew Reilly's books where the hero always seems to have what he/she needs at just the right moment, but it does stretch the imagination a bit. The fast-paced novel is a quick read that will entertain fans of Matthew Reilly, Steve Alten and other adventure writers. The conclusion fits well within the story and wraps up the story neatly. Fortunately, this ending is much better than that of Deep Fathom where the author seemed to not know how to end the story, which resulted in him basically "hitting the reset button" to conclude the story. If you are a first time reader of Rollins, read Amazonia first followed by Excavation.
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