The Doomsday Key by James Rollins

I didn’t like The Doomsday Key as well as some of Rollins‘ other Sigma Force books.  I don’t know if I’m getting burned out on this genre or if this book was more depressing or its plot less complex than the others.  It’s still a good read–just not as good.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

I think Dan Brown’s best novel is Angels & Demons followed by The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol, in that order.  His first two rank far behind the others.  I don’t want to spoil things for people who haven’t read The Lost Symbol yet, but I was disappointed.  I’m probably spoiled after recently reading so many novels by James Rollins and Steve Berry.

I wonder why it takes Brown so much longer to finish a novel than it does Rollins or Berry, when their plots are more complicated and require a research on more subjects.

The Last Oracle by James Rollins

James Rollins intertwines the Oracle of Delphi, the Punjab region of India, Gypsies, Chernobyl, intuition, and autism in The Last Oracle (New York:  Harper Collins-WilliamMorrow, 2008).  I’m amazed at how he ties these disparate threads together in an entertaining and exciting yarn.

In the “Author’s Note to Readers:  Truth or Fiction,” Rollins lists some of his sources that might be worth reading (431-34):

• Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures
• Daniel Tammet, Born on a Blue Monday *

The only book in the Sigma Series that I haven’t read is The Doomsday Key.  It came out in June of this year, and I’m number 32 of 34 holds at the library.

* The real title appears to be Born on a Blue Day.

More Suspense Novels To Read

The last few months, I’ve been reading, and enjoying, suspense novels by Steve Berry and James Rollins.  Unfortunately, I’ve read all of Berry’s novels except The Paris Vendetta, which will be available in about a month, so I’ve been looking for other authors who write the same type of books, which remind me of The Da Vince Code and Indiana Jones–maybe with cutting-edge science and technology thrown in.

I’ve found the following authors, who seem to write in this genre, and requested the indicated books from my county library:

• Will Adams, The Alexander Cipher
• Tom Harper (pseudonym used by Edwin Thomas), The Lost Temple
• Paul Christopher (pseudonym used by Christopher Hyde), The Sword of the Templars
• David Gibbins, Atlantis

The Judas Strain by James Rollins

In The Judas Strain (New York:  Harper Collins-WilliamMorrow, 2007), James Rollins ties together Marco Polo, angelic script, the plague, and modern discoveries about bacteria and viruses.  I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and would love to know where he gets his ideas.

The next book in the Sigma Series is The Last Oracle.

Black Order by James Rollins

In Black Order (New York:  Harper Collins-WilliamMorrow, 2006), the second Sigma Force novel (not counting the prequel), James Rollins only goes back a few decades in history, to the Nazis, rather than centuries as he has in the other novels that I’ve read.  The Black Order was Heinrich Himmler’s SS.  It’s interesting how Rollins ties the Nazi’s search for the ideal Aryan to quantum mechanics and evolution.  In his “Author’s Note: Truth or Fiction,” Rollins mentions a couple of books that sound interesting:

• The Hunt for Zero Point by Nick Cook
• Quantum Evolution by Johnjoe McFadden

As I mentioned when I wrote about Steve Berry’s The Venetian Betrayal, which was published in 2007, in that novel Berry made “a passing reference to Painter Crowe from James Rollins‘ Sigma Series.”  That may have been in response to Rollins’ mention in Black Order of a book store in Copenhagen owned by “an ex-lawyer from Georgia” (43), who must be Berry’s protagonist Cotton Malone.

The next book in the Sigma Series is The Judas Strain.

Relationship between Steve Berry and James Rollins

As I mentioned in a previous post, in Steve Berry made a reference to James Rollins‘ Sigma Series in The Venetian Betrayal.  I was curious about their relationship, so I did a search.  I found this video in which Berry explains how they met:

Map of Bones by James Rollins

Map of Bones is the first book in  James Rollins‘ Sigma Series.  I didn’t like it as much as I did Sandstorm, the prequel to the series, probably because the violence was more “up close and personal.”  Map of Bones was exciting and a great mix of ancient history/archeology and modern technology/science.  I’ll definitely read the next book in the series, Black Order.

Sandstorm by James Rollins

Like Excavation, James Rollins‘ first Sigma Force novel and prequel to the Sigma Series, Sandstorm (New York:  William Morrow-HarperCollins, 2004), is “reminiscent of Indiana Jones”–particularly since one of the main characters, Dr. Omaha Dunn, is a Jonesesque archaeologist who is often called “Indiana Jones” by another character.  There’s as much action and archaeology as the Indiana Jones movies but even more science, making the library’s science fiction label, which I didn’t notice until I was well into the book, quite appropriate.

I’d never heard of Ubar, but I’m interested in learning more about it.

I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend Sandstorm and am looking forward to reading Rollins’ next book in the Sigma Series, Map of Bones.