Stale Book Review #26: The Eye Of God

The Eye of God by James Rollins

Cost: $6.98US

Page Count: 401

It should come as surprise to no one that I am a huge sucker for James Rollins and his books.  In particular, the Sigma Force novels.  I'm not sure what the allure is, to be honest.  Maybe because a Rollins novel is like watching a really good action flick.  Plus, there is very little of the romance vibe that I normally hate in popular novels.  My thought is, if you want romance in a novel...read a fuckin' romance novel.

Anyway, The Eye of God is a recent installment in the James Rollins pantheon. Of course it revolves around the elite operations team of Sigma Force.  In this particular installment, Sigma Force is on the trail to recover a satellite that was thrust back to Earth after spending a little quality time within the tail of a comet.  Apparently, a little dark energy (dark matter) was detected and the science nerds want their hands on it to fully find out what happened.  The powerful folks want it back so that other powerful folks don't get it first.  One problem:  it crash landed in the remote regions of Mongolia.  

Luckily for Sigma Force, Commander Pierce and his lover/partner/assassin Seichan are in Southeast Asia attempting to hunt down Seichan's long-lost mother.  This is a whole story in and of itself.  But, this angle somehow weaves it's way back around and old mom makes her way into the satellite angle.  Interesting twist, but I won't give it away...as you know, I'm not really into spoilers.

The team converges upon Mongolia.  In addition to the normal Sigma Force players, you get some help from Vatican archivist Vigor, his granddaughter and Italian policewoman Rachel, and scientist Jada.  None of these newbies really add nor take away from the story.  They're just there.  But, that's ok.  There is a new Sigma operative named Duncan who has a pretty cool fetish that helps out the team in the end.  He's a cool character and I hope Rollins keeps him around.

The whole plot is centered upon found artifacts of the great Ghengis Khan...you know, the Mongolian badass?  Anyway, there is twists, turns, and threads that weave between the modern day and the ancient times of the great Khan.  Pretty cool and deftly done by the author.  

I won't give away the ending but the world does get saved.  But, you'll have to spend a few hours with the book in order to find out how.  

In the proverbial nutshell:  The Eye of God is a good read.  Fast-paced, fun, and has enough action to choke a Navy Seal.  Good stuff.

Also, check out James Rollins' website here.  It's actually not a bad site.  Kudos

Stale Book Review #6 - The Devil Colony

The Devil Colony by James Rollins

Cost: $5.95US

Page Count: 605 w/ Author's Notes

Now, who doesn't love a good ol' Sigma Force novel?  I do, normally.  Painter Crow and the rest of the Sigma crew are all likable characters and Rollins does a nice job of connecting each of his characters both personally and professionally.  All in all, James Rollins is a fairly decent storyteller.  However...not every novel is a gem.  The Devil Colony, while not a dud, was certainly not a gem, either.  Maybe The Devil Colony would be like a lump of carbon yet to be put to the test of time and pressure and heat to make it that beautiful diamond.  The Devil Colony is a lump of coal.  Or a fossilized dog turd.

My past history reading Rollins had me excited about this one.  Even the back of the book had me excited.  "The gruesome remains of hundreds of mummified bodies deep in the Rocky Mountains - along with strange artifacts inscribed with an unfathomable script - stirs controversy and foments unrest."  Hell yeah.  Foments unrest, motherfucker!  Yeah....ummm, no.  It kinda sucked.

Here's the nutshell version of the tale.  There's some native american problems that stem from the fact that our native brothers are trying to protect a cache of weird nanobot stuff (not sure...zoned out on this part) they have been hiding away for millennia.  Something about Native Americans being descendants of lost Jews or something.  Then someone stupid stumbles across the nanotechnology stuff, the government gets involved, so does Sigma Force, stuff happens, gunfights ensue and people die.  In the end, the demise of the entire world is averted.  Again.  This book was all over the map and Rollins definitely had trouble holding it all together.  

So, basically, this is a typical Rollins Sigma Force novel with elements that totally did not grab my attention thrown in for good measure.  I'm not completely sure where this ended up on the best seller list but I am sure that it was way too high.

Come on James.  You can do better, dude.  You have done better.  For shame.