{"id":3762,"date":"2015-02-18T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T15:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=3762"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T14:21:11","slug":"techno-thrillers-of-james-rollins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2015\/02\/18\/techno-thrillers-of-james-rollins\/","title":{"rendered":"Techno-thrillers of James Rollins"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3790\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3790\" style=\"width: 75px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3790\" src=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2015\/03\/james-rollins.jpg\" alt=\"James Rollins\" width=\"75\" height=\"125\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3790\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Rollins<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/jamesrollins.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Rollins<\/a><\/strong> (pen name of veterinarian <strong>Jim Czajkowski<\/strong>) is an author I got into while reading <strong>Clive Cussler<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>He was first dismissed as a sort of &#8220;grade B&#8221; Cussler. I had to agree as I felt his earlier works were a little rough, but think he has gotten better. His first works were all stand-alone and made use of cutting-edge (or maybe bleeding-edge) science concepts. Later on, he created an interesting group, called <strong>Sigma Force<\/strong>, though he still does an occasional stand-alone work and has a new series with another author, the <strong>Order of the Sanguines<\/strong> series which I have not gotten into.<\/p>\n<p>Rollins has also tied a couple of his stand-alone novels to Sigma Force by having some characters in them reappear in that series, and has created a new spin-off series from it as well.<\/p>\n<p>In his more recent works, he has been adding a section at the end of the works that give the real science behind some of the ideas in his books. He has admitted to reading <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/the-links\/docsavage\/\">Doc Savage<\/a><\/strong> stories, and that they inspired him.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->His stand-alone works include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Subterranean&#8221; (1999)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Excavation&#8221; (2000)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Deep Fathom&#8221; (2001)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Amazonia&#8221; (2002)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Ice Hunt&#8221; (2003)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Altar of Eden&#8221; (2010)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Subterranean&#8221; is set in an underground world of life forms that could spell doom for the world. &#8220;Excavation&#8221; is set in Peru and deals with ancient, and perhaps extraterrestrial, nanotech. A bit different, &#8220;Deep Fathom&#8221; is a sort of time-travel\/alternate Earth story as the main hero tries to fix the world, with a crazed ex-brother-in-law out for blood. &#8220;Amazonia&#8221; deals with bizarre life forms in the deep Amazon jungles. &#8220;Ice Hunt&#8221; is set in a lost Russian ice-base in the Arctic and the dangerous life forms there. &#8220;Altar of Eden&#8221; deals with genetic engineering of life forms, as well as tying in with some current work in this area.<\/p>\n<p>His Sigma Force works include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Sandstorm&#8221; (2004)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Map of Bones&#8221; (2005)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Black Order&#8221; (2006)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Judas Strain&#8221; (2007)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Last Oracle&#8221; (2008)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Doomsday Key&#8221; (2009)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Devil Colony&#8221; (2011) (plus &#8220;The Skeleton Key&#8221; (2011) in paperback edition)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Bloodline&#8221; (2012) (plus &#8220;Tracker&#8221; (2012) in paperback edition)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Eye of God&#8221; (2013)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Sixth Extinction&#8221; (2014)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;The Bone Labyrinth&#8221; (TBP 2015)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-3791\" src=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2015\/03\/sandstorm.jpg\" alt=\"Sandstorm\" width=\"200\" height=\"321\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2015\/03\/sandstorm.jpg 200w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2015\/03\/sandstorm-187x300.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>Sigma Force is a secret (and fictional) division of DARPA, a special team of soldier-scientists which investigates matters that threaten the U.S. In most of the series, their main foe is a group called<strong> The Guild<\/strong>, which is later found to be a part of an ancient and world-wide conspiracy. \u00a0They first appeared to be a kind of THRUSH-like group, but as the series progressed, Sigma &#8220;peeled back the onion&#8221; of the group, finally revealing the real leaders behind it.<\/p>\n<p>The main Sigma Force team is led by <strong>Commander Painter Crow<\/strong>, who soon becomes the head of Sigma Force when its director is killed. \u00a0 His role is taken up by <strong>Gray Pierce<\/strong>. \u00a0In the fourth novel, a character from &#8220;Ice Hunt&#8221; joins the team, and in a later book the main character from &#8220;Deep Fathom&#8221; appears. \u00a0Another interesting character is assassin <strong>Seichen<\/strong>, who starts out as a foe of Sigma and overtime becomes an ally in their fight against The Guild\u00a0 (as well as a love interest for one of the characters). \u00a0She is actually the star of the short story &#8220;The Skeleton Key&#8221; and the first post-Guild novel, &#8220;The Eye of God&#8221; she plays a major part.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Bloodline&#8221; closes out the Guild storyline, as the real leaders of the conspiracy are revealed and eliminated. &#8220;Bloodline&#8221; also introduced two new characters, <strong>Tucker Wayne<\/strong> and his military working dog <strong>Kane<\/strong>, who now have their own spin-off series. \u00a0 They were the stars of the short story, &#8220;Tracker&#8221;. \u00a0I&#8217;ll cover them in a future posting.<\/p>\n<p>I have really enjoyed the Sigma Force series. I look forward to the new, post-Guild stories. I&#8217;ve read &#8220;The Eye of God&#8221; and enjoyed it. Will be interesting to see how Rollins handles things without a continuing villain in the background, plus how Seichen will be handled.<\/p>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t read the first <strong>Tucker Wayne<\/strong> novel yet, but look forward to it, as well his other new series.<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoyed Clive Cussler&#8217;s works, but are maybe looking for something with a bit wilder science, check out Rollins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Rollins (pen name of veterinarian Jim Czajkowski) is an author I got into while reading Clive Cussler. He was first dismissed as a sort of &#8220;grade B&#8221; Cussler. I had to agree as I felt his earlier works were a little rough, but think he has gotten better. His first works were all stand-alone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at the techno-thrillers of James Rollins. #newpulp http:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-YG","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[7,14,5],"tags":[240,333,334],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-3762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-pulp","category-review","category-techno-thriller","tag-james-rollins","tag-sigma-force","tag-tucker-wayne"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-YG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3762"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23016,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3762\/revisions\/23016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3762"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=3762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}