Review #36: The Judas Strain

The fourth entry in James Rollins's Sigma Force series is The Judas Strain. The book follows our regular heroes (Gray Pierce, Monk Kokkalis, Kat Bryant, Painter Crowe, Lisa Cummings) as they try to once again thwart the Guild and the Imperial Dragon Court. This time, the very existence of life on Earth is at stake.

The book begins with Marco Polo, who carried a dark secret with him to the grave. It is up to the heroes of Sigma Force to track down the clues he left behind and save the day.

Meanwhile, on a hospital ship in the south Pacific, Monk and Lisa are battling an unknown disease, which they learn is a Judas Strain, is virus or disease capable of causing mass extinction. The Guild is seeking to master the Judas Strain as a weapon.

The hospital ship is commandeered and taken deep into the Indonesian archipelago. Monk and Lisa unite a divided crew to escape and reclaim the ship, which is eventually sunk.

Gray and the others follow Marco Polo's clues to the Angkor Wat temple complex, where they find a room covered in "angelic script" or proto-Hebrew. Gray and the crew learn that Marco Polo had found a "vaccination" for the Judas Strain, and that one of the passengers on the doomed hospital ship carries the ability to negate the strain.

She is rushed to the temple complex, where she works her magic and saves the world. Unfortunately, Monk Kokkalis is lost. The only thing they find of him is his prosthetic hand (he lost his hand in Map of Bones). After the danger is quelled, Gray Pierce and the rest of Sigma Force meet for a funeral, where the plan to bury the hand, as it is all that is left of Monk. As Gray is leaving, one finger on the hand taps out S-O-S.

Rollins is quickly becoming the master of the spy-thriller-scifi genre. The Sigma Force series confirms such diagnosis.

Final Grade: A-
Re-readability: 8.9

Review #35: Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

When last we left the Dark Tower series, Roland of Gilead had ended his long palaver with Walter, the Man in Black, and he'd reached the Western Sea. The second book in the series, The Drawing of the Three, starts a mere eight hours later, as Roland is viciously attacked by "lobstrosities," a type of giant lobster-like sea monster. The creatures bite off Roland's middle and index finger on his right hand, as well as part of his big toe. He survives the ordeal, but begins to get sick from infection.

As he makes his way along the beach, Roland encounters three doors. He remembers what Walter said to him, that he would draw three to him. The first door (The PRISONER) leads Roland to Eddie Dean, a heroin junkie from New York in 1987. Eddie is smuggling heroin into the US, and Roland helps him get the stuff through customs, because he can't afford to lose Eddie. Eventually the two make it to Enrico Balazar, who is waiting for Eddie to bring him the heroin. Roland comes through into New York, a shoot-out occurs, and Roland and Eddie escape.

The second door (the LADY OF SHADOWS) leads Roland to Odetta Holmes, who is a mild-mannered civil rights activist in New York in 1964. She lost her legs below the knees after she was pushed in front of a subway train. Also, as a small child, she was hit in the head by a brick thrown from a high building. Both instances of violence against Odetta were perpetrated by Jack Mort. Odetta though, has a sadistic alternate personality, Detta Walker. Odetta is unaware of Detta's existence. Roland pulls her through to Mid-World.

The third door (The PUSHER) forces Roland to confront Jack Mort, who not only is responsible for Odetta/Detta, but is also the man who pushed Jake Chambers in front of a car in 1977. Roland eventually leads the man through a few misadventures before depositing him in front of the same subway train that he pushed Odetta under.

These events force Odetta and Detta, the split personalities, to fuse into one being (later to be called Susannah). Roland slowly recovers from the "lobstrosity" attack, thanks to astin (aspirin that Eddie brings him from our world). Invisotext

This second book in King's Dark Tower series is possibly one of the weaker outings, especially in my mind, but as we get further into the reviews I think it will become evident why.

Final Grade: B
Re-readability: 8.8

Review #34: Black Order

James Rollins continues the amazingly fun Sigma Force series with Black Order, a book that traces clues out of the Darwin Family Bible as Sigma Force and a former Nazi face off against each other, seeking the answer to the origin of life on Earth. The book focuses heavily on the mystic nature of some Nazi beliefs, as well as a desire to control evolution.

Using Darwin's Bible, and other clues, the Sigma team traipses all over the globe, through the Himalayas, through Denmark, through Europe as a whole, all the way to South Africa.

Along the way they realize the implications of an old Nazi experiment called the Bell, which delivered results on a quantum level. I discussed this once in a post over on the Right Wing, as it was almost a scientific admittance that prayer does in some way work. The quantum theory that Rollins uses claims that observation of something effects the outcomes that the thing produces. It's all very science-like and I really don't want to discuss something that I've already posted.

The usual characters are back, Gray Pierce, Monk Kokkalis, Kat Bryant (now married to Monk), Director Painter Crowe, Sean McKinght, and some new characters appear, like Lisa Cummings. The enemies, a group of former Nazis and scientists, control the Bell, seeking to control evolution and create the "master race," although early attempts leave them with "leperkoenig" or leper king, which one of their creations is called, because he is immensely strong physically, yet lacking in many other areas.

The novel, much like the others in the series, contains a conclusion that leaves open the possibility for further adventures on the topic.

Final Grade: A-
Re-readability: 8.7

Why Do We Write What We Write?

Say that title three times fast. Okay. Now, say it three times slow. Which one messed you up worse?

Anyway, that's not the point at all. Why? Why do we write the things we write? What influences style?

I've been thinking about that lately, and I decided that some self-examination was in order, especially considering my latest story involves a dystopic future world where a talking mouse in leading a man beside a river that flows uphill. So you see, self examination was rightly in order.

What exactly has brought me to this point? I think most writers will tell you that they are influenced by their surroundings, their situations, and their life in general. I'm poor, therefore most of my characters are poor. Darby O'Hanlon drove a piece of crap car. I'm slightly crazy, and so most of my characters are slightly crazy. Poor old Darby thought the world was going to end, and technically he's still right, he was just off on the timing. I'm single, and I usually create characters that are single. It avoids clutter... I have a talking mouse in Historia, and I talk to animals all the time, although I know that no spoken response will come, it's the whole affection of the animal thing.

But is that all? What part does my religion play in my writing? Darby dealt with this in a very roundabout way. In one version of the story he's confronted by a homeless man who tells him about religions. Clifford, in the expanded version I'm currently working on, deals in some minor ways with religion, and there's a new character, the Right Reverend Squire.

What about music? I almost always write to music, and I'm writing to music as I type this. Ludovico Einaudi has become one of my favorites. But I also go back to the old days, and dig up some good old fashioned rock. But classical is my wheelhouse, especially on Historia. In fact, if you go an look at the soundtrack I posted in January, you'll see a lot of classical on there. There's also Avantasia, a project from Edguy leadman Tobias Sammet, which is a rock opera that I highly suggest. Powerful stuff.

So that's it. I think. Not really. I never really self examined, I more self explained. Maybe that's why they call it introspection. I need to rethink my purpose for this blog entry...

Review #33: Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

Stephen King's sweeping Dark Tower series begins with The Gunslinger. First published in increments starting in 1978, the actual first book came out in 1982 (the year I was born, I'm telling you, this series means a lot to me). King himself refers to this series as his magnum opus, and one can hardly blame him.

The Gunslinger (subtitled RESUMPTION, more on that later) follows Roland as he crosses the Mohaine Desert, as he calls it, the apotheosis of all deserts, chasing the Man in Black. The book features one of the simplest, yet greatest, opening lines in literary history:

The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.

Roland Deschain is a Gunslinger, a sort of knight-errant from the lost barony of Gilead. His quest is for the Dark Tower, the nexus of all time and space. Along the way in this book he meet Jake Chambers at a waystation. Jake had lived in New York in 1977 but had been pushed into the path of a car and killed. He awoke in the waystation where Roland found him, and he went with Roland afterward.

Roland takes a path through the mountain, but loses Jake along the way. (Jake's last words are "Go then, there are other worlds than these" and he falls.) Roland eventually catches the man in black, who reveals that he will draw three unto him, the PRISONER, the LADY OF SHADOWS, and DEATH (But not for you, Gunslinger.)

King's entry into the Dark Tower was revised in 2003 to streamline the original book, and thereby make it better fit the series. He removed certain aspects, and changed names, all to make the reader more comfortable. Having read both, I must say that the original was very good, but in terms of fitting the story, the revised copy makes more sense.

Final Grade: A
Re-readability: 9.0

Review #32: Map of Bones

James Rollins is one of my favorite authors. His Sigma Force series is outstanding. Map of Bones, the second book in the series, could stand by itself and be good, but within the series it goes to the next level.

The story follows the bones of the Magi, the wisemen who visited the infant Christ. Their bones are stored in cathedrals in Europe, but it turns out they aren't bones at all, but a white gold powder amalgam with deadly electro-magnetic properties.

The book rages through the Vatican, various cathedral, the lighthouse at Alexandria (where our adventurers find the tomb of Alexander the Great, and even to France, where the exiled Papacy sat for years before returning to the Vatican.

Sigma Force, an elite branch of "killer scientists" founded under the American group DARPA, does battle with the Guild and the Imperial Dragon Court, trying to master the properties of the amalgam and create a new world order.

The characters, Grayson Pierce, Monk Kokkalis, Kat Bryant, and many others, are easily likeable. For me, these characters reach the same status as Stephen King's characters in the Dark Tower series. Rollins mixes science with adventure, and has been called the modern day Indiana Jones of writing.

Final Grade: A
Re-readability: 9.1

Note: Hopefully these book reviews will be making a bit of a comeback here on Novel Idea. I want to get around to the other books of the Sigma Force series ( 1. Sandstorm, 3. Black Order, 4. The Judas Strain, 5. The Last Oracle, and 6. The Doomsday Key (due out Summer 2009)) and the Dark Tower series (The Gunslinger, Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, The Dark Tower). Hopefully.