The Prometheus Project

by R. Karl Largent

Buried deep beneath the Caribbean was the final product of Nazi science - steel canisters containing a substance more deadly than anything ever created by man or nature.
For almost 50 years they had lain dormant on the sandy floor of the sea, waiting...Then one of them ruptured and spewed forth its lethal contents, and suddenly whole islands were transformed from living paradises to dead rocks.
That's when they called in Wages. Master diver and professional survivor, he was charged with the salvage operation. But the closer he got to the mysterious canisters the more worried he became. For inside the steel containers something moved-something far worse than a doomsday device-something that shocked him to his very soul.

343 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1993

About the author

R. Karl Largent, a.k.a. Robin Karl or Simon Lawrence, is an author, lecturer, and columnist who teaches writing at Tri-State University. Before launching his writing career, he spent 30 years in industry, the last 17 as VP of Marketing for a Fortune 500 multinational. A former horse show judge and trainer of youth horses, he competed in SCCA road racing events, flew as a weather observer in the USAF, completed a tour of duty in the Arctic and served with the U.S. Weather Bureau.

R. Karl Largent is the author of over 600 columns. He has also authored nearly two dozen novels including the bestselling "Red" series. He has also written six non-fiction books as well as numerous articles for magazines, newspapers and other publications.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun thriller marred somewhat by having an insufferable protagonist, one Elliott Grant Wages. Wages, who might be Largent's alter ego, teaches at a college in the Midwest somewhere and writes novels; he also goes on various 'adventures' which then become the subject of his novels. In any case, the novel starts with Wages being summoned to Florida by an uberrich guy to lead a mission called the Prometheus Project (hence the title). It seems toward the end of WWII, some Nazi scientist discovered something akin to suspended animation, e.g., some sort of cryonic process, and supposedly smuggled old Adolf and Eva out of Germany in a frozen state on a freighter, but unfortunately, the freighter sunk off the coast of Jamaica. Now, the uberrich guy, who is dying, put together the Prometheus Project to retrieve the cylinders containing the Nazis. Maybe it will be a breakthrough technology! In any case, Wages leads a team of some other hand-picked folks (scientists and such) and off they go to Jamaica to do the deed. Of course, things do not go a planned!

The book itself is supposed to be based on Wage's diary/account of the adventure, so you know he is going to make it. Wages is just about as hard boiled as they come, although it is a tossup whether he loves his scotch or ogling beautiful women more. Of course there are several attractive 'packages' populating the pages, included two on the Project itself, so be ready for detailed descriptions of long legs and such. Hard to imagine one guy taking such a pounding as Wages did over the course of the novel, but so it goes. The Prometheus Project does have a rather sinister edge to it, as it turns out that at least a few of the cylinders loaded on the freighter were filled with some extremely toxic gas that kills every living thing when it gets out. The pacing is decent, but as I mentioned at the beginning, Wages is quite insufferable; if you can get by that, this makes for a decent thriller. Several of the secondary characters were actually quite good! Lastly this also features some rather tropey 'ubervillains' straight out of a Fleming novel, who love to have a nice chat before executing the demise of their captives. 3 stars, although I might have gone for 4 if not for Wages.

[Fred Rayworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've got to call it like I see it. This is great icky bug. After reading The Lake, I started looking for all of Mr. Largent's books and this was the second one I found, which was in the early to mid nineties. It kept me engrossed from page one and has plenty of creepy horror and a great icky bug. If you like the good old style horror with a monster (icky bug) and a high body count, this book is for you. Highly recommended.

[Blake Hiatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely three stars.

A rag tag team goes after the fountain of youth with a bunch of terrible predicaments and predictable escapes.

The misdirection from the actual bad guy is so ham handed it made me roll my eyes.

Sort of a Sam Spade meets Travis McGee adventure story. Not great, but not terrible.

[Robert Saget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun story with little payoff. Was engaged through entire read though.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story, that was better than Pagoda. The ending of the story was a little disappointing, though. I enjoy stories of shipwrecks with a mystery and looked forward to this book. I grew increasingly disappointed by the character of Elliot Grant Wages throughout the book. The secondary characters were more interesting.