Waiting

I just finished this book, my first Frank Robinson novel and found it a classic page-turner that I have already highly recommended to others as a fun, fast, innovatively-premised, and suspenseful read. I can't wait to read another Robinson novel! "Waiting" is just a very good book that has a well-plotted story with a credible protagonist. This is not a science book nor should it be. It is just good science-fiction wrapped around a 'who done it' suspense novel that I found most entertaining.

Robinson has written the kind of intelligent thriller with "Waiting" that one loses sleep over: while reading "Waiting" I found myself at 3 am thinking that I really needed to get some sleep before my 9am philosophy class; never-the-less, his compelling, page-turning story convinced me to read "just one more chapter" before finally turning in. In addition to being a frightening and engaging story, Robinson's general environmental thesis will attract anyone with an interest in the current animal rights/environmental philosophy debate (especially anyone interested in the writing of Peter Singer, Tom Regan, J. Baird Callicot, Mary Midgley, and Mary Anne Warren).Waiting is a captivating thriller which also sustains a clear, though gloomy, intelligence in its thesis with regard to the negative consequences of the human species' tendency to devalue both non-human animals and the planet's ecosystem as the disposable "other.""Waiting" is keen entertainment. I highly recommend it!

Robinson is a veteran writer who has specialized for many years in exciting novels that take place in the real world, with just a touch of something frighteningly gone wrong. This has been true since his first novel ("The Power") through his collaborations with Tom Scortia ("The Glass Inferno," "The Gold Crew").The idea that "another human race" evolved alongside our ancestors drives Robinson's latest novel. These people were neither "us" nor the extinct Neanderthals, but someone else altogether. They're a lot like us, they are definitely human, but -- there is a difference.Robinson's anthropological research is flawless and his veteran craftsman's hand at developing believable characters and constructing a compelling plot never falters.Once you start reading this book, there's no way in the world that you'll be able to put it down, so you'd better set aside a nice block of hours for yourself.Incidentally, if you saw any episodes of last year's failed TV series "Prey," and you detect a suspicious similarity to "Waiting," you're right on target. Hollywood scuttlebutt has it that an advance copy of Robinson's manuscript made its rounds of the studios, and "Prey" was an unauthorized adaptation of the novel.But hey, the book is a thousand times better.