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Creature from the Black Lagoon: Time's Black Lagoon (2006)
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Fiction Review by The Gravedigger
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11.24.06
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Author: Paul Di Filippo
This new novel continues the story of The Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy, taking place in the year 2015. A scientist, concerned with humanity surviving the global warming and a flooded planet Earth, is able to go back in time to the Devonian Period of the planet (350 million years ago) to locate one of the 'Gillmen', whose DNA may hold the key to mankind's future evolution. It is this scientist's theory that mankind must become an amphibious creature.
The scientist goes back in time with is girlfriend and they quickly find the Gillmen, who are considerably different, both mentally and physically, than their crude descendents. They are highly intelligent and possess special abilities such as telepathy and telekinesis. Some can even control the minds of fish (like Aquaman and The SubMariner!). But what the humans ultimately discover about the origins of the Gillmen is surprising and then events take an unexpected turn.
Although the book is entertaining, the one thing that irritated me is that the scientist has a difficult time reconciling how these ancient Gillmen have 'de-evolved' into the coarse brutes that survived into the 1950's. Well, there's a 350 Million-year time span - the dinosaurs lived and died 200-60 million years ago, so I think there was plenty of time for their form to change and adapt over the subsequent millenia. Remember, the Devonian was a time I which the first creatures (mostly scorpions) and plants were adapting to life on land. Yet, their change in form and behavior is given a different reason entirely (which works into the plot at the end of the novel).
This plot point also reminded me of Enoch and the Sleestak from the old Sid & Marty Kroft show, LAND OF THE LOST.
TIMES'S BLACK LAGOON did capture the spirit of the first movies and, as time travel novels go, there is a good 'twist'. There's also plenty of marauding, death-dealing primitive Gillmen rampaging through the present day (well, 2015). If you're a fan of the Universal Classic Monsters you'll enjoy this new DH Press novel.
Available from www.dhpressbooks.com
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Rating: nan out of 10.0 - votes cast total
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