Shadow of the Jaguar

Primeval #5

by Steven Savile

sees evolutionary zoologist Nick Cutter make the terrifying discovery that prehistoric creatures are alive and well in the twenty-first century. The natural world is turned on its head and humanity faces extinction as unexplained anomalies rip holes in the fabric of time and allow creatures from the earliest stages of Earth's development to roam the modern world.

Set in the rainforests of Peru in this brand new adventure Cutter, Stephen, Abbie and Connor face a bigger challenge than they could have possibly imagined…

A heady mixture of action and adventure, Cutter and his team are forced to confront terrifying creatures from the past and the future with gripping consequences.

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Fiction, Dinosaurs, Novels, Doctor Who, Media Tie In

256 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2008

About the author

Steven Savile (born October 12, 1969, in Newcastle, England) is a British fantasy, horror and thriller writer, and editor living in Sala, Sweden.

Under the Ronan Frost penname (inspired by the hero of his bestselling novel, Silver) he has also written the action thriller White Peak, and as Matt Langley was a finalist for the People's Book Prize.

Reviews

[Sara Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5

[Jim C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating is 3.5 stars.

This is a book based on the television series and takes place during the second season. The team believes that an anomaly has opened in the jungles of Peru and they have no idea what has come thru. They head to an environment that is new to them to investigate.

It has been awhile since I have ventured into this particular universe. Within the opening pages I was back in this universe with no problem. I had no problem with any of the characters and who doesn't like getting one more look of Abby and Connor. If you are a fan of the television show, you know what you are going to get from this book. An extinct or future creature is terrorizing an area and the crew come to the rescue. This book delivers this with aplomb and this could have easily been an episode of the television series. The only change they would have had to make would be to tone down the goriness as there was a little more bloodshed in this book than there is in the show.

I am a fan of media tie-in novels if they are done right. I want the characters to remain true to their respective shows. This book accomplished this and it was a delight to read. Too bad there is a very limited amount of books based on this show as I would have no problem reading more of this universe.

[Molly Hopper · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf'ed with 50 pages to go but for my trouble i'm marking it as read <3 but the quote "like women, some cars were made for speed with no consideration for comfort. but they were hellishly good fun to drive hard." really was my breaking point.

also everyone was SO out of character, especially nick, and this dude is overly fond of using the word proverbial. please never write a book again

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoy the show, so when I saw it had associated novels, I figured why not. Unfortunately, this book read like a bad fanfiction with poor characterization, implausible plots, and unrealistic critters. The characters were shells of what they are on the show for the most part, and many were underutilized (like Abby and Connor). Characters original to the novel were quite stereotypical and shallow. The plot had some bizarre political aspects and was stretched thin as it tried to connect discrete events. The creatures from the past were reasonable, but the creatures from the future were completely unrealistic in both their form and their behavior (worm tongues? "pheromone" control? really?). Overall, this book kept me entertained well enough when I was on the treadmill, but I've read better Primeval stories on FFN.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of the story is simple - the team are sent to investigate a possible anomaly site in another country, one filled with corruption and violence. And despite this, I think the one thing that I wasn't prepared for in this book is the heavy focus on the violence, and the graphic description of blood and death. I also think the book was far too slow paced, with the majority of action happening in the last seventy pages or so. Though it did what it should do, and read as an episode would have done. The characterisation of Cutter, Lester, Jenny and Connor I thought were particularly good, and I think it gave an interesting insight on the other characters. All in all, I'd recommend it, but only to people with a strong stomach.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first of the tie-in's to the British Sci-Fi/Drama "Primeval". The plot bears a little similarity to another episodes already in the series, and the plot takes a little while to take off. So minus a few points to that. However, what the writer does to is capture the characters perfectly. Conner and Abby are very well drawn in their interactions together, as is Cutter, Jenny, and Stephen.

The idea of anomalies opening in other countries is one I wish we'd see on the show more. Though this book writes more like it NEEDS to be an episode of the series, rather than an individual read. After all - they never seem to leave England in the show!

[Kyra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really well done, it exceeded my expectations. The characterization of the men were on point and were even more entertaining than the personalities on the screen. I did get the feeling that the author would have had Abby and Jenny stay behind at the ARC if he could and have the men pine after them from afar.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting take on the Primeval series: had some intriguing looks into the psyches of the characters, though I don't think they touched on all the characters fully. Did not mention Rex, either, but liked looking into Lester's mind.

Set early-to-mid second season.

[Cutter100 · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a big primeval fan (hence the name), I loved this book and thought it portrayed the characters well. It also gave a ton of information about Peru, which I loved, though after reading it I don't think I'll be going there anytime soon.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

quite slow at the begining but once you get about 1/2 of the way through you get to the exciting parts:) a great book! it was the first primeval book i read. a must-read book for primeval lovers!

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

Let's face it. I want to read this because I love Nick Cutter. The more Nick, the better. :)

[Graham Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story that rushed to the ending leaving major gasps in the scenario!

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a lot of film & TV tie-in spin off novels and I thought Shadow of the Jaguar, the first of the adult Primeval novels was definitely at the higher end.

It's set in the show's second season (after episode 2.3) and It gets the characters and story beats right - Everyone here acts like you'd expect them to. Cutter's confusion over Jenny resembling Claudia, his having to work with Stephen who had an affair with his wife. Abbey being caring, Connor making quips and Lester being long suffering. The original supporting cast aren't bad either - I really liked Jack Stark and his John Wick lone gunman infiltration of the poachers stronghold to rescue Jenny - he'd have been a great addition to the TV series.

The plot was solid and fit the characters. I particularly liked the two pronged hook for getting them to Peru - Lester being hassled by a government man to get his sons back on the QT and Cutter being approached by an ex-student about unusual finds.

The 'monsters' we interesting - I've always been a huge fan of the Thylacosmilus - so having them was cool, but I also loved the idea that they were being controlled by pheromones sent out by the future worm-tongued bird resembling the Inca god Pacha Kamaq - The idea that they sent it back into the past so it actually becomes the Inca god - nicely done.

Question. Where did it come from? If the anomaly leads to the past then where did future bird come from? Best guess is there's a future anomaly in the past (this would possibly explain where it got the Thylacosmilus pack to control) but there's a whole story here - How did it learn pheromones work? why was it controlling them? Is there just one of them? Lots to explore here.

Also in terms of the Primeval universe - anomalies happening outside of London - opens up a whole new sandbox to play with. (And I'm excluding the dreadful Primeval New World here - with its anomalies in Canada - because if they've been opening up elsewhere in the world since Primeval Season 2, or before, then there should be something global in place to monitor and deal with them, not the grass roots New World set up - rant over)

The story itself is quite exciting - it adds Poachers and soldiers into the mix giving our team a decent Jungle adventure. It doesn't really expand the characters or give anything new there. Also some of the cast don't really do much - Stephen is particularly superfluous - he gets a sky diving solo adventure that adds nothing, but at least gives him something to do because his role is completely overshadowed by Stark and the military personnel. I'd also have liked to see more Connor & Abbey but that may have lightened the tone too much - this one's quite a dark story with a high death toll as the Thylacosmilus go on the rampage.

This one gets a solid 3.5 from me. It's not nearly as fun as the show, but it adds to the overall universe, doesn't mess up the characters, has some cool creatures and has a reasonably exciting story. There are far worse TV tie ins out there.

[Luke Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The son of a senior British diplomat goes missing while backpacking in the Peruvian rainforest. Days later, he reappears, claiming to have survived an attack by a monstrous black cat that killed his brother & an entire village. Professor Nick Cutter gets an email from an old student working in the same region, claiming to have found fresh bones & footprints belonging to animals that went extinct 3 million years ago. Cutter doesn't believe in coincidence: an anomaly has opened outside the British Isles, leaving them no choice but to contain what's come through without starting a diplomatic nightmare..."

I first read Shadow of the Jaguar back in college when Primeval (a daft British sci-fi show where wormholes called anomalies were opening, disgorging dinosaurs & other prehistoric creatures into the present day: the format was a bit of an inspiration for my Argent Blade novels) was in its heyday: I picked up a copy for 50p to try & recapture some boyhood nostalgia... A book lets Steven Savile do more with the characters & setting than the show's budget ever could, taking the ARC team outside the UK: he captures the characters quite well & does two things in the story I always enjoyed about Primeval: one, using lesser known prehistoric creatures as the threat (in SOTJ, that's Thylacosmilus, a marsupial apex predator unique to South America), & two, including Primeval's willingness to speculate about possible future evolutions of the animal kingdom, as shown in the lethal Pacha Kamaq...

All in all, a fun bit of escapism that reminded me why I miss shows like that...

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here is the thing about these books.
I never watched the show.
I gathered that it was a show about portals opening
and nasty things, that want to hunt/eat/kill us,
emerge. From our past or alternative pasts.
I sat down to read how the characters were going to
stop this from happening.
Two things, the books mention in passing things and
people that are a mystery to me. So I read through a few pages
of no doubt informative character development and exposition.
NOTE I chose the stand alone stories that were never episodes.
Second, no one mentioned all of the, how shall I put it, espionage stuff.
How do they manage to cover up mutant dinosaurs trashing downtown London?
And why do so many people want to kill them/leave them for dead to cover up
more of these things?
Not sure and have trouble caring that much.
It's like covering up a hurricane. No one made it happen (or did they?)
and lots of things/people are very very destroyed now

If you liked the show and know who these people are, enjoy.

[Kevin Findley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid read, but it was much more of a "men's adventure" story rather than a time travel tale. That said, it tied in very well with the characters I remembered from the TV show when my family and I were stationed in England. The author provided just enough background to understand the set-up without dragging down the story flow. Not an easy task!

Our cast of characters find themselves traveling to an opening in the time stream (anomaly) which has allowed creatures from the pleiostene era (sp) to arrive and wreak havoc.

Mild spoilers ahead:

Worse, something else has arrived with them that makes the whole situation far worse. This particular plotline is left hanging at the end of the book but should make for another tale. I enjoyed this twist, and hope it is dealt with.

End spoilers:

This is a good read for any science fiction or adventure story fan. Probably a must read for fans of the BBC show.

Find it. Buy it. Read it!

[Colin Moran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book is ok. Very slow start, maybe its cause its been awhile since I've seen the show, but the pacing just feels off. Things really pick up by the last 3rd of the book but then just abruptly ends with no mention of certain events that the book dedicated a lot of time to. Feels like the author wasn't quite sure what to do. As others have mentioned the gore is really turned up from the show, personally didn't bother me but be warned.

If you like the show give it a read, if you've never seen the show go watch the show. If you have no intention of ever watching the show I'd honestly say just skip this one.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this. If you’re a Primeval fan then definitely pick it up.

Steven Savile is able to completely immerse you in the world of Primeval. This book reads like you’re watching an episode, especially from around halfway through to the end, which wraps up rather abruptly, much like an episode does. The characters feel the same as they are in the show, and the book references previous events, which solidifies the continuity. My only issue is a few comments made about women which were unnecessary.

The book is set between episodes 3 and 4 of season 2.

[John Peel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The team is off to Peru, where an anomaly has led to far too many deaths. The adventure is underway, as our heroes try to combat smugglers of rare animals who have their sights set on exploiting creatures from the anomaly. Sometimes a bit bloated with information, this is still a fun story.

My only problem with it is that either the author or editor (or both, of course) doesn't know the difference between a lama and a llama...

[Rob Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

A serviceable adventure for the Primeval team.
The pace slows during the second third and features a handful of chapters near the end where a guest character goes on a mission to rescue main character Jenny - surely another main character would have been better placed to complete the rescue?
The book ends rather quickly. Just like this review.

[Corinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was slow. Very, very slow. Also contained way too much of Cutter’s internal dialogue. It just plodded along and then rush quickly to the finish in the last couple chapters.

There was no sense of urgency. People dying left and right and it was like, “oh, we’ll get to it.”

[Chance · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was a great treat after watch the T.V series with this book we got a whoule new adventure to explore. Do the lack of pictures or drawn for the future predator annoyed me.

[Kathryn Houghton · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5

[Herenya Wilkey · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part I was able to read it all with the characters’ voices in my head.

[Evan K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a major fan of Primeval, but I didn't enjoy this. It took a lot longer to finish than it should have. It was good to the see the characters again, but the bad dialogue, slow story, and logically questionable storyline drag it down.

A more in-depth breakdown:

It's more of a spy or action story, which will disappoint a lot of readers if they are expecting a similar tone/genre to the TV show. And most readers will be coming from the show.

The book starts off strong, with a serviceable set up and a great characterization of James Lester. I thought the author captured his TV equivalent well, but had less success with the others. He kept Stephen pretty quiet, which is on theme for him, so I suppose that's a success, if only by luck. Connor and Abby, for the little lines dedicated to them, were represented poorly. It felt nothing like them. While reading I could picture the TV characters in the situations described, but not those two. Nick Cutter, the protagonist of the show and this book, was the most important to get right. He felt a bit like a grumpy action hero cliché at times, but overall he was good, though never exactly right. Never as nuanced. Jenny's book equivalent wasn't great. Poor dialogue made her feel one-dimensional. Poor dialogue hurt all the characters to an extent. She also goes off on tangents about Occam's Razor and Aristotle's theory of the soul, which both felt absurd for her character.

The writing style is quite verbose. There's too much time wasted describing hotel check-ins, climbing in and out of taxis, luggage packing, etc. The book gets especially bogged down describing the logistics of travelling to Peru. No need. I noted 140 pages in that Cutter had only then reached the jungle where the anomaly was, yet we know the titles of all the CD albums that were in the glovebox of the third or fourth SUV he was travelling in... Talk about priorities. I've heard others say the plot is slow for most of the book then has a rushed ending, but that downplays it. They encounter the anomaly they sought for the whole story on page 237 out of 246, 96% into the book.

I've never said this about a book before, but I reckon you could read the first two chapters, then skip straight to chapter 14, and it would be a more enjoyable read.

The dialogue was clumsy. Arguments between two characters would go back and forth several times, with them literally saying, "As I said, the..." and repeating the same stance. Agonizing to read sometimes. On multiple occasions the author wrote, "He said, needlessly" or "He said, unnecessarily". That might be a sign you need to give your characters something better to say.

Military/espionage seems to be the author's strong suit, which is probably why he pushed the story in the direction or a spy/action adventure. But it is so grandly out of place for the characters we know. They feel forced into the plot and I found myself questioning it often. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if the politics, assassins, corrupt governments and black markets were left alone. Maybe others would enjoy this, but as someone who signed up for a Primeval experience, a huge chunk was not to my taste or expectations.

But even if we look past that, the characters make puzzling choices in their own fields of expertise. Towards the end Cutter and the crew travel across a rope bridge into a temple filled with deadly creatures, with no backup and quite frankly, no real reason to go. They technically only had to rescue Cam, that was it. The characters logically should have turned back at that point, but the story needed an excuse for action.

There were a handful of moments that impressed me throughout the book, lines quite well written. But for the casual Primeval fan, there's not enough to justify reading this. It did scratch that nostalgic itch though, so you can read it for that.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

ACTUAL RATING 4.5 STARS

For those who do not know, Primeval is a British tv series. The basic synopsis is that holes are opening up in time, known as anomalies. These anomalies lead both into the past and the future, and it is up to the team from the Anomaly Research Centre (ARC) to find both them and the creatures that enter our modern day world through them, and deal with getting them back. And by creatures, I mean both dinosaurs and future evolved animals. This book is a standalone story featuring the characters from series 2. I would recommend one to watch the show before reading the book, as it does seem to assume the reader knows about the premise of the series.

The story outline (without spoilers) for this book is: A pair of men on a field trip to the Peruvian rainforest are attacked by a creature they have never seen before. Only one survives this attack, and claims to have seen "diamonds floating in the sky" - a sure sign of an anomaly. At the same time, a research student studying the rainforest life contacts Proffesor Nick Cutter and explains that he has found tracks that he does not recognise. Cutter and his team from the ARC are sent to find out whether there is an anomaly, and to find the creature(s) causing the destruction.

All of the characters were written really well, exactly as they are on screen. They all interact well, and plots from the series are mentioned too (again, one would need to have watched the series to understand some of these references). Not only that, but the author clearly did a lot of research into Peru and the rainforests; the detail was amazing! I could really feel the humidity of the rainforest, see the flora and fauna on the jungle floor, and clearly view the temple ruins of Machu Pichu in my mind.

The first half of the book was build up, the second half was action packed and had me turning the pages quicker than I could read them!

Only criticism is I think it ended too quickly. In chapter 27 the final battle has yet to begin, yet in 28 everything is over and the story ends. I reckon another 2-3 chapters should have been included in order to sort out missing details such as how did Stark and Jenny get back to the UK? Did they meet the rest of the team beforehand? What about Chaplin and the trade in exotic animals? There was no closure.

Overall however I thoroughly enjoyed this, much more so than I thought I would! Definitely looking forward to reading the next books in the series.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, this book could never be an episode. Too much happens.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Sir Charles Bairstow calls up Lester in the middle of the night. He wants Lester to go to Peru to search for his sons, who went missing days go. Lester says no. Meanwhile, Cutter recieves an email from a past student asking for his help identifying the cause behind some strange migration patterns in the Peruvian forest. Long story short, shit happens and they are forced to go to Peru to get Sir Bairstow's sons.

This book includes such a lot of information. I loved Connor. Every step of the way, Connor made everything better. The story switched POVs often to show you different parts of the story. I loved Connor's and Stephen's and SAS member Stark's. Cutter's parts, a lot of the book, were just as I would've imagined the inside of Cutter's head to be: scientific, comparing Jenny to Claudia, kind of angsty, in the past - both recent and far gone, etc.

The story follows their trip to Peru, the political debacle surrounding Sir Charles Bairstow's sons, illegal poaching, deforestation, foreign anomaly issues, vacation time, the strain of the elements, each character's developing story and personality, lies and truth both among the team and without it, death, and life.

This book has a lot of death in it. Lots of people die. Be forewarned. If that sort of thing gets to you, you may not enjoy it.

In general I liked the story. It made me giggle and smile and frown. I got excited, worried, happy, and scared along with the characters - even the ones only created for this book. Of all the new characters just for this book, Stark was my absolute favorite. He seemed sort of like a Becker-esque guy, but he cracked jokes and we got more into his head. The end of the book was like the end of an episode: a quick wrap up of what their actions have caused without going into too great of details with it. It was a bit of a let down after all the detail in the rest of the book, but not too much.

It takes place at a point where Connor is beginning to think about creating the Anomaly Closer. I love the parallels with the show. I also adored all the random references to other franchises and fandoms that were included - mostly from Connor. And Connor's lame jokes were fantastic. :D

I couldn't put it down. Worth a read.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the books based on the excellent television series. In this case, though, the anomaly that is found is not in England, but in Peru. Cutter and group have to travel there to find the anomaly, find a creature that has attacked and killed people, rescue the son of an important and influential British man, and do all of this without causing an international incident, without getting killed, and without allowing people to find out about what is really going on.

The book also presents a rather dismal image of Peru as being a land of horrible heat and humidity, various thugs, and spies everywhere.

In the end, Cutter and company not only have to handle all of then and get the creatures back to where they belong, but they have to deal with whoever or whatever is controlling the creatures, driving them into frenzies of killing.

A very good book.

[T.M. Carper · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story that takes place in the middle of series 2 (after Jenny's been with the team a while) and forshadows a bit of series 3 events. There's a lot of witty lines and it does some POV switching so it's not just from Cutter's POV and so on.



Basically the team learns that the anomalies aren't contained to just Britain when they are sent to Peru to retrieve the son of Lester's sort-of boss.



It's a great way to get a little more Primeval as you wait for series 4 to start. First of four novels so far.

[Katherine Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, is it bad that every time I look at the cover of this book, I think "There can be only one"? More than anything else, the cover reminds me of the movie series "Highlander".

The novel itself reads quite well, and it feels like an episode in the series. The Peruvian rainforest is far from my area of expertise, but it seems to be well researched. The noncanon characters are well fleshed out and, for the most part, do not overpower the canon characters. As a setup to the rest of the "Primeval" novels, it definitely does its job quite well.