Ancestor
Evo’s note: this is a relaunch to mark the print publication of Ancestor.
Much celebrated, much anticipated… and much blood, guts and gore. Ancestor, by Scott Sigler, is now available on Podiobooks.com!
Every five minutes, a transplant candidate dies while waiting for a heart, a liver, or a kidney. Imagine a technology that could provide those life saving organs for a nominal fee…..and imagine what a company would do to monopolize that technology.
On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, P.J. Colding leads a team of scientists who have discovered this holy grail of medicine. By reverse engineering the genomes of thousands of mammals, Colding’s team has dialed back the evolutionary clock to re-create their common ancestor. The method? Illegal. The result? A computer engineered living creature — an animal whose organs can be permanently transplanted into anyone with zero chance of rejection.
There’s just one problem: these ancestors turn out not to be the docile herd animals Colding’s team envisioned. Instead, Colding’s work has given birth to something big, something evil.
……AND IT’S VERY, VERY HUNGRY!
July 23rd, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I likely alottie!!
July 23rd, 2006 at 6:32 pm
Great cover… been waiting until the end of Infection to start this, but I don’t believe I can wait!
July 23rd, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I thought I was able to DL this from the authors website in its entirety… I know I’ve heard the ending – so if you want to hear the whole thing please look and see if you can find it. I do like the serialized versions though but sometimes I want to just blast through in a weekend.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
This is my favorite of Sigler’s works. Hang on to something — this one is quite the ride!
July 25th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Alien meets Jurassic Park. Gore, Science, Gore, Realism, Great Narration, Gore, Fresh Idea, Gore, Sick-F*** Sigler, did I mention the GORE?!!! GORE!!!! GORE!!!! GORE!!!! GORE!!!! GORE!!!! GORE!!!! GORE!!!! I like gore….
July 26th, 2006 at 12:07 am
I’m loving this PodioBook. I’ve only listened to three chapters but its already shaping up to be better than EarthCore (and I loved EarthCore).
July 26th, 2006 at 2:16 am
The best of Scott Sigler’s novels, the others being Earthcore and Infection.
July 26th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
This was the first of Sigler’s books that I listend to and I was hooked! I am sad that the Sci-Fi channel doesn’t want to make it inot a movie! But I loved Earthcore, love Ancestor, and love Infection! I can’t wait to hear more from him!!!!
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:24 am
I’ve listened to this already through Sigler’s site, but I’m subscribing here to get a complete set of “cleaned up” episodes (less talk and banter around the episodes).
I still liked Earth Core better, it’s a little more my taste I guess, but Ancestor is a tighter story and a bit more contemporary in style. It also has what I felt Infection was lacking, which is the large cast of characters and Crighton-like scientific elements.
I hope the SciFi channel comes to its senses, if they’re passing on stories like this it’s no wonder all of their made for TV movies stink. Personally, I think Ancestor would do better as a mini series so it would have enough time to cover everything properly, but anything would be better than nothing.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Can anyone else confirm this for me? I’m not sure if it is my podcatcher or what, but when I listened to Episode 17 (Magnus and Sara), the audio for it was episode 16 again.
August 9th, 2006 at 5:57 am
Exellent story, good characters, Magnus is perhaps a little OTT. You really feel for the people in this one. Scott is a good reader.
A couple of times the exposition ( is that spealt right? ) is a little distracting but not much as Michael Crighton ( is that spealt right ?) so thats a good thing too.
August 12th, 2006 at 12:33 am
What is up with this podcast? I have subscribed but can’t get any more that chapter 1. I’m using iTunes on a Mac. I have used the site for ages without a problem. I have released all the chapters. En Mass and one at a time. Nothing new appears in iTunes.
Earthcore was cool (pun intended) and I’ve heard the first two episodes of this as they appear in the Infection subscription, sounds great!
August 16th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
I started off listening to Infection (ROCKED!!!!)
Ancestor is great as well… except for the fact that ep. 17 is just a repeat of ep. 16. Anyone know how I can get a copy of the correct ep 17?
Starting EarthCore while I’m waiting for the corrected version of ep 17 in Ancestor
August 17th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
This Rocks! I really liked this book. A bit gory but truly imaginative!
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:33 pm
How can I get more than the first eposode? Only the first episode shows up in itunes.
I just got done Earthcore and Infection. I need my Scot Sigler fix NOW! Help me damnit. lol
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Rahl,
By default, all of the books on Podiobooks.com are set to deliver you a new chapter (or episode) each and every week. It looks like you are familiar with this process, as I see that you (assuming you are the same Lord Rahl again) managed to listen to all of the chapters of Burn by James Patrick Kelly.
What you may not realize is that you *do not* have to wait each week. As a registered member, you have the option to change the delivery schedule for one or all of your subscriptions. Take a look at the upper right-hand corner of our page and click on the My Subscriptions button.
From there, you can release the next episode early or even change your delivery frequency with a few simple clicks. Remember that if you do release a chapter, you’ll need to re-sync you podcatcher.
August 23rd, 2006 at 7:04 am
Thank you Evo, I got it figured out now.
August 27th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
I’m a big fan of Earthcore and Ancestor is great so far but I’m stuck at chapter ‘ since I cannot DL chapter 5. Anyone can help?
August 28th, 2006 at 8:25 am
The Podshow delivery network occasionally throws errors on downloads. I just checked a moment ago and the link is working fine for me. I’m assuming their problem was temporary and all is fine now.
August 28th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
I listened to this directly from Scott’s original feed. Great story! The plausibility of his stories combined with the convincing reading make truly memorable podiobooks. Am sure they are great to read as text . . . but listening to him read them is just too much fun to switch to the text versions!
Of the three podiobooks from Scott, Ancestor is my favorite…
September 30th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Better than Earthcore. Lots of gratuitious swearing and violence (take that any way you like). Scott is getting better as he goes along. Looking forward to hearing INFECTION, have to get it directly from Scott’s site though (Evo can’t be giving Scott a big enough cut of the donations).
October 12th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Plenty of swearing, aliens in human balls, violence, some audio-reader even calls Sigler’s wife bitch (which probably says a lot about mutual respect between author and so called fans), well what else… oh! ve-e-e-e-e-ery plain manuscript. Very far apart from such distinguished writers as Dan Brown, Dean Coontz, James Patterson, Robert Ludlum, Terry Pratchett or though I guess you can find bits and peaces of their styles in this …manuscript. I bet Sigler would give his balls to aliens too if he could write like authors above, unless…
October 12th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
In previous review was talking about “Infection” not about “Ancestor”, sorry about that. Well “Ancestor”, definitely better than “Infection” (I don’t understand why Sigler calls Infection his masterpiece, after I listened to it I am not sure I will be ever listening to his work again). Anyway back to Ancestor, no aliens there, just recombinant animals which carry in their genome combination of DNA from different recipients (caw is for some reason is particularly important to Sigler). A bit boring at times, but plausible. Well… Sigler has no idea about DNA recombination and he obviously never checked genome databases, but he’s not scientist so I would say it wasn’t too bad. Book a bit obvious, but as a free reading it will do. I think 3 stars are in order. Well to be absolutely honest I am grateful to all people who give their time to create podiobooks, even if this book isn’t particularly good I thank you.
December 10th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
Chapter 13 was actually the final chapter in my version, and I was apparently supposed to skip right to chapter 13.5 after 12 and listen to 13 after 18. This ruined the last third of the book for me, unfortunately. I haven’t seen any notes about this anywhere else.
Other than that, I thought this was a better story than Earthcore, once you get past the first couple chapters.
December 26th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
I didn’t listen to it at all because the file names were SO bad. I couldn’t find the beginning file on my mp3 player, and it started playing at chapter 7…
Too bad, the book sounded kind of good. Maybe I’ll try it again some day and sit here and rename all the files to something useful.
December 27th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Thanks for your comments, Bill. The episodes of book, like a handful of other titles, aren’t hosted on our media servers and are therefore out of our control. I agree with you that a solid naming convention is a crucial part of the enjoyment of the book.
I hope you decide to check out a few other titles where, I hope, you’ll not experience the same challenges.
February 18th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Simply amazing book! I would really want this in printed form to have on my bookshelf. I’ll definitely make a donation, so you can publish another great audio novel.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:43 am
Great book. I stumbled across Earthcore (one of Scott’s earlier works) and was hooked. The high speed roller coaster ride of emotions mixed with the subtle subtext of social commentary felt like comfort food very exciting comfort food to me. I couldn’t wait to “read” more Scott Sigler Ancestor does not disappoint. It is the exact recipe of Wit, action, drama, terror and suspense that make this work even better than Earthcore (did i mention that I REALLY liked earthcore)
I definitely plan to purchase a print copy of Ancestor From Amazon when it releases on April 1st. I encourage all Scott Sigler Fans to do the same. Lets make Ancestor number 1 on the Amazon.com Top Sales list. This will go a long way to legitimizing Pod Casts, Guerrilla Marketing, and Independent creators all in one stroke / Click
April 21st, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Hey, Scott, I really did listen to it all – did anybody mention that Ancestor is rather gory?
Looking back on it, my favorite parts were when the process of getting a viable embryo were discussed.
After I finished, it occurred to me that the black and white spotted cowhide would make the ancestors even more monstrous. There wasn’t time while the story was underway. (You know, ravening beasts camouflaged as placid herbivores.)
This is not my kind of book, but there was never any question about getting to the end, it was inevitable!
April 26th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Absolutely love this book!
May 12th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Awesome story. Really great.
But dude. You have _got_ to get someone who can do women’s voices do the pods. Or get a woman friend to work with you. I think Violet’s “voice” is the funniest one you did.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
This is a clever idea for a story, but the writing needs some tightening up. The language doesn’t sound like adults. The characters all swear like they’re trying to impress themselves and each other.
Some editing would help as well. Early in the audio book Magnus rubs his left forearm with his left hand. Later Sarah places a pale hand on Sara’s arm.
I like a good story, and this is one, but to return to an author, I need some good writing as well. This ain’t it. (On the other hand, I have neither written nor published any novels. I have scores of newspaper articles and dozens of magazine articles published, all of which were improved by editing.)
I am going to try Earthcore next, but if the language keeps getting in the way of the story, I don’t know if I’ll finish it.
(I paid for the podio book and I got my money’s worth. I hope Earthcore is worth it.)
July 26th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
This was an amazing thrill-ride. Listen to Ancestor and you’ll find yourself breaking out in a cold sweat for no reason at all, suddenly feeling an unexplainable sense of dread, or sitting there staring at nothing with your jaw in your lap. Scott Sigler knows how to capture a reader in that first episode and have them lying awake at night praying for the next episode to make your palms sweat a little bit more and to make the adrenaline rush a little bit stronger. Job well done!
January 9th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Sigler is a great writer. Love his writing talent. BUT, I agree with Jon Diggs: No more funny voices!
This is a good book, but PLEASE don’t do funny voices or accents! What is the deal? It completely ruins the serious feel to the work. All I can think about it Sigler doing a squeaky woman’s voice, or a deep tough guy’s voice, or a strange old guy’s voice, or a funny nervoous little guy’s voice…. ARGH! Just read the story. Please.
Thanks.
January 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
(I finished this book a week ago so I apologize if I get some details wrong)
I agree about the voices, especially Sarah’s. It sounded very much like a man mocking a woman. Funny at first, but then…odd.
Ok, so I liked the premise of the story overall. Lots of opportunity for action and conflict, and all of them executed well. I had some big problems with the story, though. I hope my comments are constructive.
First, the most irritating, obnoxious, hateable character in the entire story was Andy, hands down. I know this genre well, and I looked forward to Andy getting what he deserved. But he didn’t!!! I can’t believe you killed Andy off with a creature! He should have been done in by our hero or himself in one way or another. But he just got killed by some unexpected monsters and that was that. Argh!
Secondly, the love relationship between our hero and Sarah was terribly contrived. I didn’t believe it for one second, and her voice didn’t help.
“Hi, I’m Sarah and will you be my boyfriend?”
“I dunno, I lost my wife a couple years ago.”
“That’s ok, now you’re my boyfriend, let’s do it!”
“I love you now.”
“Love you too.”
Third, what in the world happened to the CIA? You introduced a character in the first chapter who we never heard from again. That whole episode was rendered pointless as all of the facts it exposed were retold during the story. You brought up the CIA enough times that I, as the reader, assumed that they’d get there eventually, and probably get munched.
Anyhow, you had me up to the middle of the story. After that, I don’t feel like anything was resolved in a satisfying manner. The heroes won mostly because of sheer luck, and a couple of the bad guys didn’t “learn their lesson”.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Well, he is not Jim Dale. Story is very good though.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I sincerely enjoyed this book and looked forward to each chapter.
However, the author did one thing that I hate. The monster didn’t show up until almost the end of the book! When I read (listen) to a monster story, I want a monster, throughout the book. Not just at the end.
November 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Reviews =/= spoilers! Don’t tell who dies and by what means in your review, please! Some of us like the surprises.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
One person said that Scott is no Jim Dale. She is quite right, Jim Dale cannot hold a candle to Scott Sigler. No one can, in fact. One of the best story I have ever heard
February 6th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Really enjoying this, thanks Scott. One thing though, please don’t do female voices any more.
July 5th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Not to be too course, but, unless you are an idiot, you need to subscribe to this book. His remade book is even better than the original. This is one of his best works so far. And for the record, Scott, I love your female voices.
July 5th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
One more thing to all the haters. Since all you do is pick apart the story, do you want you money back?…..oh wait, YOU DIDN’T PAY A CENT. Thank Scott for a wonderful story and move along and write you own, submit it uselessly for 9 years, and let leeches like you pick it apart when you put it out for free. Do you realize that this time around the story is tightened up and polished? Last time he posted it as he wrote it. When you do that you can’t go back and hit delete. Scott, thanks for having the balls to submit the original story as you wrote it. You have true fans that appreciate your dedication.
November 20th, 2010 at 8:07 am
I listened to Ancestor “back in the day” and I’m starting over now it has been released again. It was amazing to hear Scott read a few paragraphs – in another podcast – because I could tell the difference between old and new, just in the way he used a few words. (Those particular words were some I had emailed about The Correct Way to Refer to Cows, so I noticed.)
I haven’t got beyond the first episode this time through, but I’m looking forward to the ride. I have so much enjoyed watching Scott succeed.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:54 am
I love the story, but I find calling a 45-year-old woman an old woman in poor taste and totally ridiculous. It would be one thing if Dr. Hohl was only referred to that way once but it was constant. Not good, dude.
November 24th, 2010 at 8:14 am
Caught up now. Man, what a transformation! It’s the same story, but now all the parts link with all the other parts, and the logic is relentless. I love it!
Kim, we are just not the target demographic! And let’s hope nobody asks Temple Grandin for her opinion of the story. Ouch!
December 20th, 2010 at 8:30 am
This is why I can’t start a book that is not finished. It is soooooo good and all I get is just enough of a fix to keep me coming back for more like a trashed out coke fiend!!! DAMN YOU EDO, DAMN YOU!!!!!
December 30th, 2010 at 2:25 am
The prologue giving some backstory feels unnecessary and pasted-on. Trying to link this work to Sigler’s “Infected”/”Contagious” storyline feels unnecessary and incestuous. Having some of the same characters doesn’t require explicating everything.
And David Slate, yeah, so I am not fawning over everything the Siggie does. He is still a great storyteller and an amazing performer. That doesn’t mean he is perfect and beyond all and any criticism. Sigler can have every cent he has earned — you, son, you owe me for the pain and distress your comment gave me.
January 27th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
David Slate’s comment about paying (or not paying for works released here) is quite frankly ridiculous. If an author chooses to put their work on a free site that is their choice. It is irrelevant whether the site solicits donations. It cannot then be deemed outside the bounds of criticiscm because it is offered for free. Should the authour then choose to charge for the same work, it or release it on paper, does it then become eligable for scrutiny? If your work is released into the public domain, you should be prepared for criticism; if not, don’t release your work. Send it to friends a family.
It isn’t even that David Slate is saying work offered for free ‘may’ not have the some of the pre-release benefits of professional book industry (or something to that effect) or, offer your criticisms mindful that some of the authors are not professionals – which I could understand. The fact that you place them under an umbrella of exemption because their work is offered for free is questionable.
For the most part I don’t believe people realise how difficult it is to write a story, and often comments can be tinged with a blase harshness that hinges on cruelty, but that doesn’t mean opinion isn’t genuinely given. To call them haters is probably a exaggeration, and to suppose that freeness precludes scrutiny is derisory.
It makes no difference if someone pays for their work or not, they are free to criticise, especially on the same free site that not only offers the said work, but gives them them the mechanism to offer criticism.
Besides, I don’t think Scott Sigler needs you defending his work. It stands quite proudly on its own merit.
March 8th, 2011 at 10:17 am
I’ve got three chapters left to listen to, but I just have to say this is FANTASTIC!
April 13th, 2011 at 8:14 am
Ancestor: another reason to look forward to my commute. A lot of fun with this story. Loved the irony of how a usually placid herd animal becomes the one herding us. As usual with Sigler, great production, narration, and character voices. As with The Rookie, the epilog seemed unnecessary (and a bit confusing–an ancestor is trapping squirrels? I had the impression their voracious appetites were necessary to support their rapid growth rate. Squirrels aren’t very big. . . but always delicious). Also, references to the president, the government, and their involvement in shutting down the project led nowhere (I was waiting for Fischer to land on the island). Otherwise, quality stuff. I raise my dorsal fin!
February 1st, 2012 at 5:22 pm
A good solid science fiction horror story with some great characters. Starts slow but the build up is worth it.
Keep in mind the first couple episodes are prequel chapters. I kept expecting more of Paul Fischer but he is not one of the main characters in the book, despite what you might think from the first few episodes. I’m ultimately glad these were included. Also, we have a real heroic protagonist in the form of Clayton Detweiler. I know I’m spelling it wrong but I think anyone who finished this book would agree- Clayton is the true hero of Ancestor.
Come for the violence but stay for the huge cast of more developed than I expected characters.
November 6th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Great companion novel to the INFECTED trilogy. Look for PANDEMIC in April!
March 12th, 2013 at 10:17 pm
Nothing better to say?! Having to hear the Pu$%^^&&** cuss word at the beginning of every chapter…meant I was annoyed right from the start of every chapter…why do that? why? good writer…great story…crappy opus to every chapterrrrrrrrrrrr! Disharmony