EarthCore

EarthCore was originally one of Scott Sigler's podcast novels. My trade paperback size copy was printed in 2005 and has 319 pages. After reading Sigler's Infected, I wanted to read some of the print versions of his earlier podcast novels, but after looking around, I didn't think this was going to happen. Imagine the shock and awe I felt when I found this copy at a local used book store in the clearance section .... for $1. (And now check out the used prices at Amazon or Barnes&Noble. The used bookstore didn't know what they had their hands on.) EarthCore is a science fiction/action adventure thriller. No, it probably isn't fine literature ( and it has a few typos in the text), but its a very satisfying read. I enjoyed it immensely and highly recommend it with a rating of 4.5.

EARTHCORE SYNOPSIS:

Deep below a desolate Utah mountain lies the largest platinum deposit ever discovered. A billion-dollar find, it waits for any company that can drill a world's record, three-mile-deep mine shaft.

EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company's driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure.

But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting ... and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out firsthand why this treasure has never been unearthed.

Quotes:

"Fueled by sheer terror, he scrambled up the narrow tunnel, attacking the incline like an animal dashing away from a predator. If he could just make it back to the opening, back to the camp, out of the narrow tunnel and into the sunlight, maybe he could escape. Maybe this thing couldn't leave the cave." pg. 13

"Today police declared three Brigham Young graduate students missing. The three geology students were doing fieldwork in the Wah Wah Mountains in western Utah." pg. 13

"No one goes out there. No reason to go there in the first place. Nothing there but dirt and rock. I went out there to see for myself, to test the legends, you might say, but I only went once. The devil lives on that mountain. You can feel him, man." pg. 15

"Nowadays you made much more money finding the stuff and then selling the location to big companies. Let some mining corporation suck the minerals from the ground." pg. 20

"She knew from experience that Connell's business instincts bordered on the uncanny; if he smelled a profit, that was good enough for her." pg. 27

"With the deal, he'd placed himself in a situation he'd sought to avoid. He had to return to that mountain, the dead mountain where animals had the good sense not to tread." pg. 43

"Dust billowed up as if the Land Rover were a bi-wing crop duster, swooping in low over the ground to drop clouds of noxious pesticide. The view out the front wasn't much better - an endless vista of brown and yellow, dotted every now and then with scrub and other vegetation so tough it looked as if it would flourish on the surface of the moon." pg. 73