Cameron Reinhardt is an idiot!
Yes, he had a PhD from Standford. Yes, he was widely acknowledged as a brilliant geneticist. Yes, Director Swain called him the field’s brightest rising star, the institute’s greatest asset, and a fabulous hiring coup. But this wasn’t the first time Lacey McHenry wondered how the man managed to get up in the morning and make it to his office fully clothed. . . .Apparently Dr. Reinhardt had come in sometime that afternoon and forgotten to close not only the lid but the door, as well. She pictured him collecting his subjects and hurrying off to his wet lab at the halls’ end, heedless as a teenaged boy. . .Surely he was living proof that a man could be a genius and a moron at the same time.
Another scene where we see him as a geek:
He scooped up his folders, grabbing Swain’s fork through the napkin, stepped back quickly, and turned to walk away. To his horror the table cloth came with him—glasses tumbled in fountains of water and leftover orange juice; plates and flatware slid away: coffee sloshed across the white linen and onto several of his tablemates. . . .Embarrassment blazed in his face as he headed for the door and snickering arose in his wake.
And then the ending scene where it’s Cam against the monsters and I picture him loaded like Rambo:
Resting the barrel of his rifle on top of the wall, he took aim at his target, lining up the crosshair’s on the third eye growing in the younger creature’s forehead. . . .drawing a deep breath, he chambered another round, adjusted his aim, then squeezed the trigger again. This time the creature fell straight over backwards.
Cam rolls, runs, hides, and faces the two remaining creatures with his brawn and a handgun.
I love it!
We read that he’s kept up with his target practice and though it’s been many years, his military training comes back to him in the nick of time. Swain hired Reinhardt because he counted on his flash backs to eventually expose how to unleash the ancient creatures from the pods encasing them. I think the flash backs play a big roll, too, in releasing the hero inside Reinhardt from the science geek pod in which he’s chosen to hide safely away from the horrors he’d witnessed all those years ago. An intentional parallel here?
Something else to note, as my friend Shannon brought up in her comment to my first post, we see a similar transformation in the hero of the Guardian King series. In the beginning, he appears to be a weak character in a religious order but over time he transforms into an alpha hero and revered king of the land.
I love all the hidden intricacies of this novel and wish we had a study guide to go with it. Tomorrow, I hope to post more. Visit if you can. Don’t forget to visit other participants. you can scroll down to yesterday’s post to see their links.