I have been reading and reviewing James Rollins‘ techno-thriller novels for several years. In addition to his stand-alone novels, he has his long-running Sigma Force novels and other works.
He also has written several short stories, and in Unrestricted Access, these are all collected, along with a new story.
The bulk of what is contained here are several tie-in short stories to his Sigma Force novels. In an intro to these, he notes that this trend arose a few years back, and several authors have done that. I’ve seen several Jack Reacher short stories, as well as a few from Matthew Reilly, but I’m not sure how widespread it it. All these stories are made available in ebook format, but not always in print form. I did like that with the Sigma Force tie-ins, they would be included in the paperback edition of the novels as a bonus. Some of the Reacher stories were, but not all. There is now a collection of those. But the Reilly ones haven’t been put out in print.
So this collection has five Sigma Force tie-ins, plus a story about Joe Kowalski and how he joined Sigma Force. This had previously been in another anthology. Then we have a team-up story that has Commander Gray Piece from Sigma Force joining with Steve Berry‘s Cotton Malone that the two co-wrote.
Another interesting series from Rollins, which he co-wrote with Rebecca Cantrell, is the Order of the Sanguines Trilogy, which has a different take on vampires tied to the Catholic Church. Two short stories were created for the trilogy and are included here.
Then we get two other short stories he wrote. One is about a dog being forced into a dog-fighting ring. The other is about street artists working to defend San Francisco from a demon.
Finally, we get an original story dealing with Tucker Wayne and his working dog. They were introduced in one of the Sigma Force tie-in stories and a novel, then got two spinoff novels. I hope we see more of them. In this one, they are in the Sonoran Desert and get involved with a kidnapping that also involves the mysteries of the area. As with many of his novels, we get a piece explaining the history & science behind the story.
Overall, this is a good collection. While I had read several of the works before, there were many I hadn’t. And the original story made it very much worth getting.
If you’re fan of his works, check it out. If Rollins is new to you, this could be a great introduction to his writing, as you’ll get selections from three of his series, as well as some stand-alone works.
