FRAGMENT by Warren Fahy, 2009.
I just finished this last night. A fast moving adventure suspense thriller similar to the novels of Michael Crichton. Paper thin characters, but lots of action and violence. Plot concerns an unexplored island in the South Pacific where the ecological system has developed completely and evolved undisturbed for millions of years. The island is remote and only has one way in--and of course, humans eventually discover it. First up is the cast and crew of a TV reality show called "SeaLife", with horrendously bloody results. Next in are the U.S. government and navy, with boatloads of scientists and state of the art equipment. What they find are nightmarish creatures and "plants" that exist in an "everything is food" environment, where all have evolved into animals with many and very startling characteristics and parts--multiple limbs and eyes and brains, abilities to mate in the womb and give birth continuously, are always in motion, and everything eats everything--including each other. When it is realized that these creatures have no natural enemies and no introduced predators can control them and the risk of their escape is too great, it is decided that the island must be destroyed. Meanwhile, it is discovered that salt water repels the attacks of the animals, earthquakes begin, fissures open, and the island is thrown into more chaos. Then, a benign, intelligent life form is found, and it becomes a race against time by a small group of people to save this creature at all costs before the island habitat is totally destroyed. Read this for the excitement and creativeness, I enjoyed the whole environment in chaos thing with weird animals and plants, good page turner with plenty of suspense, but a bit of a letdown toward the end. A really fast read, though.