I’ve posted previously on the techno-thrillers of James Rollins (pen name of former veterinarian James Paul Czajkowski).
He started out doing a series of stand-alone techno-thrillers. I got into them when I was looking for stuff in the vein of Clive Cussler.
While the ideas and writing were good, something seemed missing, and so I kind of felt he was a “grade B Cussler.” Then he started a series with a group of scientist-soldiers called “Sigma Force,” which is part of the real DARPA. Through the first eight stories, they went up against an ancient secret society. This I covered in the first posting, and they ended that group in the eighth novel, Bloodline. (Interestingly, he tied in a few characters from his stand-alone novels into the Sigma Force series along the way.)
Now, we have the post-Guild Sigma Force novels. No longer going up against the same foes, I think Rollins has been able to keep the series going.
The Eye of God ties in Attila the Hun (strangely, another techno-thriller author also used Attila in his book around the same time), the Vatican, and a potential armageddon. Can Sigma figure out what’s going on and stop it in time?
Sixth Extinction has the team go up against a brilliant, but twisted geneticist who plans some radical changes to humanity and the world in an effort to save it.
Bone Labyrinth is planned for later this year.
Tucker Wayne
Former soldier Tucker Wayne, and his military dog, Kane, is now the star of their own spin-off series from Sigma Force. They were first introduced in a short story, “Tracker” (included in the paperback edition of The Devil Colony). While not a formal part of Sigma Force, they are sometimes given assignments from them.
Their first “solo” novel is The Kill Switch. In Russia to protect a rich industrialist from possible assassination, they are soon asked by Sigma Force to get a Russian scientist out. He has made a dangerous discovery that ties in with early life on Earth. They are pursued by a mad Russian general who hopes to use this discovery to destroy America. They quest takes them to South Africa and a discovery made during the Boer War.
This is an interesting series. Tucker is not your expected hard-ass soldier. He has suffered from his experiences in the Iraq War. He can be very deadly, but would like to avoid doing so. I am not aware of any other action hero using a military dog, and Rollins uses his experiences as a veterinarian to make Kane come alive. I look forward to their next story, The War Hawk.
This is another series that Rollins is co-writing with another, this one with Grant Blackwood. He’s co-authored or ghost written (not always clear which) several other works, including the first three of Cussler’s Fargo series. Its sometimes unclear with some of these co-authored series to what extent the main author has contributed to the series.
Regardless, another set of interesting reading.
