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The Codex (novel)
''The Codex'' is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and takes place in the Southwestern United States and Central America. The book was published on December 8, 2003, by Tor Books. Plot Maxwell Broadbent, an eccentric rich man with terminal cancer, has spent his entire life collecting valuable art and treasures from around the world. One day, he writes a letter to his three sons telling them to go to his New Mexico house. Upon their arrival, they find Maxwell and all of the valuables missing, with only a cryptic message left behind hinting at his location. The message explains that his final test for them is to find his tomb, promising that the son that finds his tomb will receive all his treasures—worth approximately $300 million. The three sons—Philip the eldest, Vernon the middle son, and Tom the youngest—each go their separate ways after figuring out that their father is somewhere in Central America. Philip recruits Marcus Hauser, a private investigator who briefly s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Preston
Douglas Jerome Preston (born May 31, 1956) is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child (including the ''Agent Pendergast'' series and ''Gideon Crew'' series), he has also written six solo novels, including the '' Wyman Ford'' series and a novel entitled ''Jennie'', which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for ''The New Yorker'', '' Smithsonian'', and other magazines. Life and early career Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts. A graduate of the Cambridge School of Weston in Weston, Massachusetts, and Pomona College in Claremont, California, Preston began his writing career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. From 1978 to 1985, Preston worked for the American Museum of Natural History as a writer, editor, and manager of publications. He served as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thriller (genre)
Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the mood (psychology), moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, Psychomotor agitation, excitement, Surprise (emotion), surprise, anticipation (emotion), anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are Alfred Hitchcock filmography, the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Thrillers generally keep the audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax (narrative), climax. The cover-up of important information is a common element. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is often a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. The most common genres that overlap with the thriller genre include crime fiction, crime, horror fiction, horror and detective fiction. Characteristics Writer Vla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tor Books
Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese science fiction novels in North America. History Tor was founded by Tom Doherty, Harriet McDougal, and Jim Baen in 1980 (Baen would found his own imprint three years later). They were soon joined by Barbara Doherty and Katherine Pendill, who then composed the original startup team. ''Tor'' is a word meaning a rocky pinnacle, as depicted in Tor's logo. Tor Books was sold to St. Martin's Press in 1987. Along with St. Martin's Press; Henry Holt; and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, it became part of the Holtzbrinck group, now part of Macmillan in the US. In June 2019, Tor and other Macmillan imprints moved from the Flatiron Building, to larger offices in the Equitable Building. Imprints Tor is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group. There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardcover
A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as case-bound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are often printed on acid-free paper, and they are much more durable than paperbacks, which have flexible, easily damaged paper covers. Hardcover books are marginally more costly to manufacture. Hardcovers are frequently protected by artistic dust jackets, but a "jacketless" alternative has increased in popularity: these "paper-over-board" or "jacketless" hardcover bindings forgo the dust jacket in favor of printing the cove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jennie (novel)
''Jennie'' is a novel by American author Douglas Preston. The book was published on October 1, 1994 by St. Martin's Press . Plot summary Jennie is a chimpanzee, living in the 1970s. Naturalist Dr. Hugo Archibald delivers Jennie from her dying mother in the Cameroons and brings her home to his American family. His young son, Sandy, becomes extremely attached to Jennie, but Archibald's daughter, Sarah, resents the chimp. Jennie, through her learning of ASL (American Sign Language), starts to converse and interact with the humans around her. Eventually, Jennie goes to a wildlife preserve where she cannot function. Reception —Review by ''Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...'' References 1994 American novels American adventure novels American sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyrannosaur Canyon
''Tyrannosaur Canyon'' is a novel by Douglas Preston published on August 11, 2005, by Forge Books. It is the first book in the Wyman Ford series. The story revolves around the search for a mysterious item buried in the New Mexico desert. Plot summary The novel opens with a lunar find by the Apollo 17 astronauts, which is suppressed. Tom Broadbent (who first appeared in Preston's novel '' The Codex'') is riding in the New Mexico desert when he hears gunshots coming from Tyrannosaur Canyon (a fictional canyon east of the Rio Chama Gorge, on Mesa Viejo, and north of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert). Following the sound, he comes upon an old prospector who has been shot by a sniper. He gives Tom a notebook just before he dies, and Tom rides off on his horse to find help. The murderer, Jimson Maddox, is furious that the notebook is gone by the time he reaches the body; he has been hired to retrieve it at any cost. He does, however, find an interesting rock sample. When Tom retur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. The largest cities by metropolitan area are Phoenix, Las Vegas, El Paso, Albuquerque, and Tucson. Prior to 1848, in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as well as parts of Alta California and Coahuila y Tejas, settlement was almost non-existent outside of Nuevo México's Pueblos and Spanish or Mexican municipalities. Much of the area had been a part of New Spain and Mexico until the United States acquired the area through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the smaller Gadsden Purchase in 1854. While the region's boundaries are not officially defined, there have been attempts to do so. One such definition is from the Mojave Desert in California in the west (117° west longitude) t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Central America consists of eight countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama. Within Central America is the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active geologic faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc, there is a high amount of seismic activity in the region, such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes which has resulted in death, injury, and property damage. In the pre-Columbian era, Central America was inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica to the north and west and the Isthmo-Colombian peoples to the south and east. Following the Spanish expedition of Christopher Columbus' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnopharmacology
Ethnomedicine is a study or comparison of the traditional medicine based on bioactive compounds in plants and animals and practiced by various ethnic groups, especially those with little access to western medicines, e.g., indigenous peoples. The word ''ethnomedicine'' is sometimes used as a synonym for ''traditional medicine''.Acharya, Deepak and Shrivastava Anshu: ''Indigenous Herbal Medicines: Tribal Formulations and Traditional Herbal Practices''. Aavishkar Publishers Distributor, Jaipur / India 2008, , p. 440. Ethnomedical research is interdisciplinary; in its study of traditional medicines, it applies the methods of ethnobotany and medical anthropology. Often, the medicine traditions it studies are preserved only by oral tradition. In addition to plants, some of these traditions constitute significant interactions with insects on the Indian Subcontinent, in Africa, or elsewhere around the globe. Scientific ethnomedical studies constitute either anthropological resear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. It is a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by the Connecticut Colony, the Collegiate School was established in 1701 by clergy to educate Congregational ministers before moving to New Haven in 1716. Originally restricted to theology and sacred languages, the curriculum began to incorporate humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded into graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew after 1890 with rapid expansion of the physical campus and scientific research. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa. Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya, before the Spanish Colonization in the sixteenth century. The Spanish introduced Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture. Honduras became independent in 1821 and has since been a republic, although it has consistently endured much social strife and political instability, and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1960, the northern part of what was the Mosquito Coast was transferred from Nicara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
