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 Sword of the Templars by Paul Christopher

I didn’t like Paul Christopher‘s The Sword of the Templars as much as I have James Rollins‘ and Steve Berry‘s novels, but it was worth reading.  I’ll probably read more of his work, including the sequels to The Sword of the Templars:  The Templary Cross and The Templar Throne.  Both are scheduled to be released next year.

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 Charlemagne Pursuit by Steve Berry

In The Charlemagne Pursuit (New York:  Ballantine Books-Random House, 2008), as in The Alexandria Link, Steve Berry included a lot of politics, which I didn’t enjoy very much.  It was fascinating, though, how he tied together a first civilization, Charlemagne, the Nazis, submarines, and Antarctica.

In his “Writer’s Note” (505-09), Berry lists some books that might be interesting:

• Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchill, The Voynich Manuscript
• Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, Civilization One

Berry’s latest book, The Paris Vendetta, is due out December 1.  I’m number 19 of 35 people who have requested it from the Jefferson County Public Library.

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.

The Wait Is Two Thirds Over

Back in June I wrote that I could “hardly wait” for Dan Brown‘s The Lost Symbol and Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory‘s The Phoenix Transformed to come out so I could read them.  Both books were published last month.  I broke down and bought a copy of The Lost Symbol at the grocery store last week, and a copy of The Phoenix Transformed is waiting for me at the library.  I plan to pick it up tomorrow and read it first.

Apparently Dragongirl won’t be out until some time next year.

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.

The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry

I liked The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry better than The Alexandria Link but not as well as some of his other books that I’ve read.  Berry brought back Colin Michener from The Third Secret.   However, what I found most interesting was a passing reference to Painter Crowe from James Rollins‘ Sigma Series.  I learned a lot about Alexander the Great from reading this novel, and I appreciate Berry’s “Writer’s Note” where he “[separates] face from fiction” (470).