Indiana Jones and the Genesis Deluge

An interesting novel, this one. After the first three stories, taking Indy from a still boy-ish student to a prototype adventurer who even gets married to a woman previously unheard of in the canon before, Genesis Deluge comes out of the gate promising a big adventure involving Noah’s Ark… and then does all it can to stop the action reaching Noah’s Ark until a few dozen pages before the end of the novel.

Prior to this, I was quite enjoying myself. The novel kicks off with Indy being punted from London University for not being the academic he should be (and setting him up for the more adventurous life we know he will have), then going home to the US and trying to work out what’s next in his life once he arrives there. It felt quite realistic for this stage of Indy’s life and a nice bridging story between the man here in his late 20s and what we know of the character – from the films – in his mid-30s. Good stuff.

Once Indy’s picked up to accompany a party going in search of Noah’s Ark, you can almost hear the Raiders March in your head as all the pieces fall into place for a big adventure. But that’s where the story goes off on some tangents and spends a lot of time on side quests that aren’t as interesting.

In some ways you could say this is, “subverting expectations” and indeed, all the action set in Chicago early in the story (where the organised crime roots of Indy’s friend, Jack Shannon, finally come home to roost in a major way), and then a lot of action set in Turkey, has its moments. But at least I was left wondering the whole time, “When are we going to get to the meat and potatoes of this adventure?”

That would probably be my main criticism of this story; that it takes so long to get to the point. As mentioned, the action throughout the novel is solid. The supporting characters, such as the Russian Dr Zobolotsky, and his daughter Katrina, are solidly drawn. Jack Shannon’s conversion to Christianity – present from the start of the story – feels slightly odd, but no less believable for how these things come about in people’s lives. In many ways I feel the author, Rob MacGregor, is hitting some good ideas, but just not getting to the denouement soon enough – or really having much of a point when he does.

This is also yet another of these MacGregor novels where Indy has some sort of near-death experience near the end of the story which includes a form of mystical encounter. This didn’t feel right the first time MacGregor tried it, and it feels no different in this story. “Here we go again…” I thought to myself as Indy, the ultimate non-believer in anything mystical, has yet another of these scenes foisted on him.

Unlike earlier reviews, at this point in the process I feel I can start making comparisons between what’s come before – especially as MacGregor is keen to make his novels fit together – and I think we’re sitting equal pegging with Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi and Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants with a 7/10 sort of effort, which is good from the point of view of there being some sort of consistency. Meanwhile, Indiana Jones and the Seven Veils remains out in front of the rest – just – on 7.5/10.

With a more trimmed-down section in Chicago, and potentially some trims in the Turkey scenes, the novel could have done more with the topic of Noah’s Ark, rather than giving it a, “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey” treatment which is how I presume we’re meant to take the story. It just doesn’t work. Even in a story like Raiders of the Lost Ark, which takes a long time to get to the Ark of the Covenant, we have the mystery of finding the Ark, we have the excitement of the chase for the Ark, then we have the final apocalyptic scenes with the Ark. That’s far more than we get with the Ark in this story. So all told, a frustrating time. Interesting ideas and characters, but not a whole lot to say about its subject matter.