The Dig - Matt Turner #1 by Michael Siemsen

 

From the Back Cover

A mysterious woven metal artifact is found at a paleontological dig in Africa. Mystified experts, confounded by the impossible timeline they get from traditional dating methods, call upon a stubborn young man with a unique talent. Matthew Turner's gift is also his curse: When he touches any object, his awareness is flooded with the thoughts and feelings of those who touched it before him. It is a talent that many covet, some fear, and almost no one understands. Despite being exploited as a child and tormented by the unpleasant experiences imprinted on him from the various items he has "read," Matthew agrees to travel from New York to the forests of Kenya. There, threatened by unknown enemies and helped by a beautiful but prickly ally who begins to understand his strange ability, he journeys back in geological time to make a discovery so shocking that it forces us to rewrite all human history.

The Dig - Matt Turner #1

Siemsen's book conjures up an imaginative and intriguing premise which serves as a perfect hook for the book.

Our protagonist has an unusual problem, or curse, depends on the point of view. He has the ability to read the contact history of an object through touch. Sounds complicated!

He is basically able to see the history of the object based the literal changing of hands, i.e. every single person who has touched that object starting from the forger till the last owner. His ability to visualize these scenes has no time limit which means a massive gift for archaeology. On the face of it this sounds great and a power that any person would like to possess. There is a flip side to this power. Anything he touches takes him down memory lane, which means a 24x7x365 sensory overload. Another flip is being misused or abused for the power.

These points are the star turn for this intriguing novel.

Matt Turner has had a difficult time with his powers in his family with his father a detective having exploited his powers in violent cases, which kept the young Matt awake and screaming at night. This background along with the horrors that we can imagine imprinting and re-living the history of murderous weapons and situations would turn anyone mad or depressed. In this case Matt turns out to be obnoxious and it is not his hunger for money which is his right, selling his consultancy at the highest possible price and setting his own terms but his behavior towards everyone. It's normal to be embarrassed, afraid or reticent because he does not socialize or meet too many people but taking up an assignment and not willing to make the social call associated with it is impudence. He is shown as thawing in the latter pages of the book but his antics in between somehow takes the sheen of what could have been a fabulous novel.

There are better instances in popular reading of characters with powers/mutations like Rogue from X-Men with a similar but more deadly power which prevents her from any physical contact. Yes they are from graphic novels, comics, movies but still have some characterizations.

The officials in Africa are shown as corrupt and sleazy an image conjured up by colonists over the years.

The other camp staff who are featured in this book are characters who have their limited interactions in the book and most do not merit a second glance, more often than not thin veneered characters. The central antagonist in the book has his usual issues and hankers after money in league with others who expect him to reach his goldmine.

The story around these characters are of two different arcs from two timelines - the current and one that is millions of years in the past from the age of the dinosaurs that the object of interest is a part of and why Matt is roped in, to visualize its history and provenance.

The story of a fantastically advanced race from the time of the dinosaurs has been peddled many a time including some fabulous time travel stories and alien interventions but what made this story here a special read was the way the older story set in a difficult time for herd creatures and about the exodus of a group of humanoids and what befalls them through the story of a piece off dress made of a hitherto unknown metal. The ancient story that is visualized and articulated by Matt through the process of contact with the foreign object are both intriguing and well knit. Matt's process for the imprint and the explanation of severing contact has its loop holes but in the context of the overall story can be overlooked.

The story of the ancient tribe and their tribulations includes a Cain moment. Though not a part of the narrative or speculated anywhere in the book or elsewhere, I found many inspirations from the Testament stories in this book.

The story of the tribe told over several sessions is the most interesting part of this book and triumphs over the happenings in the current time which seem mundane in comparison. The dream that the ancient sees about a holocaust drives him to lead the tribe to fresh pastures. This is where Siemsen is most at ease and builds a nice visual era.

What kept me from giving this book higher points was that the premise was not exploited properly and several of the characters in the current timeline do not have depths and this leads to a failure for the reader to properly engage with them. This lack of engagement leads to the book losing steam and move forward in start and stops. The story especially the last quarter or so seems hurried and not because the story drives to a frenzy but rather like the story succumbed to its hunger and started proceeding in shambles.

Also the erraticness of Matt contributes significantly to this process. For me it would have been better if Siemsen could have panned out his character a little more and written more about his interactions and reactions based on his dark childhood which would have made his character much more solid and maybe a hint melancholic. Here in this book he comes across as wavering from a teenager with superpowers to a blundering person without social skills to a obnoxious brute to a money loving power hungry self serving person.

But he is not any of these, and my reading would be that he is rather a sad individual with no family, relations, relationships, a child man who is exploited by everyone around him, a young man who hits out at everyone to keep his sanity, who acts like a modern day pirate tracing products history and going after lost galleons and treasure and as a defensive mechanism and finally one with an oedipus complex when he meets his liaison.

So much for the psychobabble burst, the book is a decent read and one with more potential. Being a first book, I would try the follow up book before pronouncing any negative judgement on the author.

This is a book that I can recommend as a story that is novel from the usual stories.

3 stars for the book.

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