Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Tomb Raider #2

by Dave Stern

When Lara Croft stumbles upon a deadly weapon, a plague brought to Earth in ancient times in the legendary Pandora's Box, while exploring the long-lost Temple of Luna, she must join forces with Terry Sheridan in a deadly race against time to stop a group of terrorists from exploiting the weapon. Original. (A Paramount Pictures film, written by Dead Georgaris, releasing July 2003, starring Angelina Jolie) (Science Fiction & Fantasy)

Genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Action, Science Fiction, Fiction, Games, Thriller

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 24, 2003

About the author

Dave Stern has written/edited/collaborated on multiple previous works of fiction/non-fiction, including the New York Times-bestselling biography Crosley, the epistolary novel Shadows In The Asylum, and an unauthorized Adam Sandler biography composed with the help of the good people in the Smith College Library. His most recent work is Codename: Blackjack, the second thriller in the Sagas of the Cincinnati series.

His author photo is woefully out of date.

Reviews

[K.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomb Raider read like the movie which I admit I have watched several times over the years. It is definitely action driven, not character driven so characterization is vague at best. However, if action and adventure are what you enjoy, then you will track well with this book.

There were a couple of errors (indentations) but that seems common in Kindle books. Not enough that it would make any difference in its quality.

Tomb Raider is an easy read and can be finished within a couple hours. If you are bored and just want a bit of excitement, I recommend Tomb Raider to get your blood racing. K.D. McNiven

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me just say that I've already watched the actual movie this is based on several times and that I would only really rate that one a 2. Maybe a 3 at most. How's about we compromise it to 2.5? That sounds good. It's not a horrible film or storyline by any means, it just isn't one of the better movies made and the story could've definitely been better. Its good, but I feel like it really lacks something important. When I figure out what, I'll let you know.

So lets skim through a few characters really quick:
Lara Croft- Tomb Raider/Photographer; main character (obviously, her name is part of the title)
Bryce- Lara's techie, one of her closer friends
Hillary- Another of Lara's friends, works at Croft Manor to keep things ship shape
Kosa- An African of the Mombasa tribe, friend to Lara who has been on some travels with her in the past
All of the characters mentioned above, I'm totally okay with.

Now let's pick a couple more:
Terry Sheridan- Has history with Lara, which is more explained than in the movie (thankfully), but who I still can't quite figure out. I definitely don't like him and I would've liked to know a bit more about why he's the way he is.
Dr. Jonathan Reiss- the villain guy! The one we need to hate, and yes I don't much like him. There are parts where he's completely understandable, but then others where I'm just shaking my head thinking: "What are you even thinking? What are you doing? Are you really all that smart?"
I think that'll do it.

Moving on.

Here's the basic story: Dr. Jonathan Reiss is a well known and respected guy who won a Nobel Prize. He is also, secretly, the biggest bioweapons dealer known. He sells to everybody who is willing to pay his price. Lara Croft finds the Luna Temple (Alexander the Great's hidden temple, the location of which was never recorded and the contents of which are not specific). Lara finds an orb inside and ends up meeting up with some goons. After much talking and research, we finally discover what the whole movie is about. To make it short, Reiss wants Pandora's box. That scary old myth about the box unleashing bad stuff? Yeah, that one. The orb is the key to finding out where Pandora is (The Cradle of Life). Reiss and Croft are in a race against time to find the box before the other, one wants to keep it safe and the other wants to use it to wipe out the weaker members of the human race with an intense disease type deal.

It's not a bad story at all. It seems pretty intriguing actually. The execution though. Lara has to team up with Sheridan, who turns out to be kind of an opportunist. Their relationship is never too developed in my opinion. The book, unlike the novelization for the first Tomb Raider movie, doesn't do too much extra. It doesn't provide a lot of background insight, or at least not as much. It does have a little, but not as much as it could've used to be a really good story.

Going in, I knew that Cradle of Life wouldn't be as good as the first Tomb Raider was (stereotypical sequel), but I was really expecting more than I got. Its nice that we got to know more about Reiss and his habits, his thoughts on some things, but then other moments just....didn't deliver. I'd also like to add in that the shark segment just felt like total bogus. I've read about sharks and the shark could've easily been left out, as it didn't add a whole lot. Just give her a way to fix one of the underwater vehicles instead. Much more impressive in the long run.

Overall, Cradle of Life is a satisfactory book that is a pretty good time, but its not going to be one of the greatest movie novelizations ever. Come for a good time, but one read through will be enough.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d forgotten how dull the second Lara Croft movie is, with Angelina and Gerard Butler (remind me again why he’s an actor?) when I rewatched it recently. It drags, but I was hoping the novelization would be better or at least better than the first. It wasn’t.

I see a lot of movie novelization series go through a change of authors quite frequently, but unfortunately for me, the same author writes both novelizations in this series. What a mistake that was. Had this been offered to someone like Max Allan Collins, for example, he would have injected a bit of urgency into it, and perhaps adapted the screenplay that he was working from, to just make it a little more exciting.

But if you thought the film had long periods of nothingness, with quick bursts of action, this is exactly the same, but even slower. I had to force myself to read this, as if not, numerous things would distract me, and I would never get it finished.

Dave Stern isn’t an author who can inspire excitement, a sense of urgency, anything to make you want to keep turning pages. He gets bogged down in the little details and can’t write an action scene. Once again, the bad guys are cardboard cut outs, and their individual chapters (particularly near the beginning), detract from the main storyline.

Are there any positives about this book? It’s shorter than the first novelization. It has some colour photos inside, with a lot of shots of Angelina looking smashing. There are not that many changes/additions to what is shown on the screen.

So despite my better judgement, I’m rounding this up to three stars, as it’s actually around the 2.5 star mark for me. Same as the first one. If you love movie novelizations, don’t pick up these two. You will find more interesting things to do than pick this up - pull off a hangnail, stub your toe, or catch some tender parts in a zipper. They would at least be more interesting that what happens in this.

[David Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great expansion of the universe set up in the first film novelization. Over all it was well written, I would have liked a little more descriptions of environments though. The plot pretty well followed the movie and provided a little more backstory than the film, but not a whole lot. I'd still recommend it for old school Tomb Raider fans. It was cool to see how the author tried to tie it into the games continuity. (This novel takes place after AOD)

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fav book & fav story

2nd continue love it so much.

Oh it´s a pity that trilogy wasn´t completed after II. episode

But love always return to this book & movie, too.

Great reading.
Perfect story.

Thanks Dave

[Adeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Už jako malá jsem Laru zbožňovala - ať to byly hry nebo filmy. Takže já vlastně ani pořádně nemůžu napsat recenzi, kde bych pořádně něco vytýkala.

[Helena Grguric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although somehow predictable, the book was easy to read and better than expected!

[constantine]

Druhé filmové zpracování Lary. Je znát, že se snažili do děje nacpat co nejvíce lokací a zemí, které Lara navštíví. Děj není nejhorší a některé akční pasáže jsou zajímavé, ale plnohodnotný Tomb Raider to pro mne nikdy nebude...

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent movie adaptation. The characters are deeper and more developed. As a book about a video game character it is far superior to many including the ones in the series that came out around the time of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness.

[Stephanie Rinkel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the novelization of the movie. I have to admit I saw the movie when it came out. And I have never rewatched it. But reading the novelization made it clear that I remembered far more about the movie then I thought.

[Shawn Zegular · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love tomb raider