Unearthed by Meagan Spooner, Amie Kaufman

Unearthed (Unearthed, #1)

by Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman

When Earth intercepts a message from a long-extinct alien race, it seems like the solution humanity has been waiting for. The Undying’s advanced technology has the potential to undo environmental damage and turn lives around, and their message leads to the planet Gaia, a treasure trove waiting to be explored.

For Jules Addison and his fellow scholars, the discovery of an ancient alien culture offers unprecedented opportunity for study… as long as scavengers like Amelia Radcliffe don’t loot everything first. Despite their opposing reasons for smuggling themselves onto the alien planet’s surface, they’re both desperate to uncover the riches hidden in the Undying temples. Beset by rival scavenger gangs, Jules and Mia form a fragile alliance… but both are keeping secrets that make trust nearly impossible.

As they race to decode the ancient messages, Jules and Mia must navigate the traps and trials within the Undying temples and stay one step ahead of the scavvers on their heels. They came to Gaia certain that they had far more to fear from their fellow humans than the ancient beings whose mysteries they’re trying to unravel. But the more they learn about the Undying, the more Jules and Mia start to feel like their presence in the temple is part of a grand design–one that could spell the end of the human race…

Reviewed by sa090 on

4 of 5 stars

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Wow, 3 very entertaining books in a row?!! Either it’s preparation for a disaster on the way or I’m getting better at choosing my reads... No idea lol but I’m hoping it’s the second one 😅

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I feel like it’s been a very long time since I enjoyed a sci-fi book this much, given that it’s also the first time I read any books for these co-authors, I’ll gladly be checking out other writings as well, they had an excerpt of “These Broken Stars” and tbh, it was a little too exciting for what I expected from the cover and I might check it out at some point this year if I can squeeze it in somewhere. Anyways the talk going on about a Lara Croft meets Indiana Jones made me super excited, Tomb Raider is one of my all time favourite games and concepts. So while I don’t really enjoy the idea of “aliens” all that much, that alone sold me on starting this duology. Was it worth it? Hell yeah! It was fast paced, dangerous, with interesting characters and an insanely interesting world that I just got sucked into it!

The whole thing with the Undying, Gaia, the message they sent, the temples and especially the puzzles made this world so interesting that I really wished that I could see it in full details. I’m confident in my imaginary world building skills but there are just some worlds out there where imagining it is simply not enough, if that makes any sense (best part? There’s apparently a film in the works for this!!). I think the fact that Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner included a somewhat long journey in this book is what made it interesting, for instance, without this journey I wouldn’t have actually seen what people living in that timeframe use for communication, for breathing, transportation, food, tech and of course pseudo learned more about the inner dynamics of the rules on the futuristic Earth they journeyed from.

Like I mentioned earlier, the characters were interesting. I really enjoyed the depth of their resolve if you will, since finding out what led each of them to actually take this journey was a nicely added bonus although it’s of course not groundbreaking, but it honestly doesn’t need to be for me. The growing friendship of Jules and Mia was a pleasant read overall but it had a few hiccups for me, first and foremost the insta-lovey situation of theirs wasn’t fun to read about. It made me feel like I’m reading about animals instead of actual human beings, I don’t know how to explain it without coming of as condescending (I apologize if Im offensive) but this is how it went to me “She’s a girl”, “He’s a boy”, “My hormones are getting in the way and I cant think straight”, a couple of days pass and then boom “We’re in love”. I didn’t enjoy it, I’m not a big fan of a focus on romance to begin with but since the characters do work with each other for once, I hoped for something slower that would actually make it meaningful in a way, maybe at the end of the journey and not in the first couple of days of it would’ve been great.

The second reason was the blame game going on, I’m not going to get into details, but there is no reason for it. Not to this extent anyway, which ultimately was just a result of the above point, therefore giving me a second reason why I didn’t enjoy reason one so much. Other than that and of course Jules’s usage of unnecessary vocabulary, I enjoyed their personalities a lot. The way they’re so different when compared to each other in both the way they grew up and what they brought into the story was fun to read about. The way their personalities clashed into each other without one of them being a brooding edgy teen for the entire book was refreshing and a joy to read about. The best thing about them is that neither was useless, no one hogged the spotlight, they had their strengths and the authors made a very good show of that in the book. One more added bonus here is how seamless the writing was, honestly didn’t feel like there was more than one author which I applaud once again.

While I’m reading the book and how the languages play into it, I started building my own explanations to how these Undying worked out their temples. The big reveal in the end was something I surprisingly actually had in one of my possible thoughts in a way because of the very cleverly hidden Easter egg which I will not be posting here for fear of spoiling anyone but I assure you, it’s oh so clever and I tip my hat to both for having it there IF it was intentional which it most likely was. Lastly, that ending was just awesome, I have no idea how they’re ending the story next time (Meagan Spooner is saying this is a duology so...) but I’m definitely interested to know way more about Gaia, the Undying and whatever else they would like to throw at me because I’m very ready to be impressed.

Final rating: 4/5

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 21 January, 2018: Finished reading
  • 21 January, 2018: Reviewed