James Rollins is the author of 9 books. According to catalog copy, which we in the industry rely on to clue us in to up and coming authors, his books sounded like macho-military/Clancy-ish stuff. We turned up our noses. Oh, how wrong we were!
The publicity machine of HarperCollins contacted us for a signing. Well, sure. We knew he was big, with several books under his belt, so OK. Then Penitent Liberal Lesbian (did you know she is my co-worker and we get to shoot the shit about books all day long?) read Judas Strain and I read Black Order.
PLL here: Ohmygod! You have NO idea! Such good stuff! *back to SeattleTammy*
Well. We are now contrite. Rollins, a veteranarian based in Northern California, wants us to have a better understanding of Science. Admirable, yes. And his thrillers succeed beyond your wildest dreams! Without dumbing down the message he imparts in each volume, he keeps you racing from one chapter to the next.
PLL here again: Incredibly intelligent! I know, not the sort of thing anyone in, oh, say the current Administration would read. But YOU should! Sorry for interrrupting. *Back to SeattleTammy*.
Black Order opens with Nazi scientists being secreted out of Germany, by any country strong enough to muscle in. They have been working on der Sonne, a "quantum" alternative to the West's embrace of Einstein and his "relativity" theories. One splinter has gone to Tibet, a frozen Shangri-la, the rest to an enormous Robber-Barron South African Game Preserve. Sigma Force is once again called in to save the planet, and lucky for us, they do. I hope that's not to much of a spoiler so as to prevent you from climbing on this roller-coaster of a read.
PLL breaking in again: And The Judas Strain is just as action packed, and filled with incredible science as well. A phosphorescent algae is threatening lives, just as it did during Marco Polo's time. If you're at all aware of your Polo history, you know that he left China with lots of boats and people, was missing for several years, came back with two boats and a scarcity of people, and refused to talk about what happened. Well, it's back.
And the scary thing, the really truly scary thing? The deadly algae is real. Rollins' science is accurate and good.
AND he's a kick-ass story teller! It's probably illegal to make learning that much fun!
democommie™™™™®© is still too hopped up on his legal drugs to be able to contribute so I have called upon the PLL to give us her testimony about Judas Strain, as I am only 117 pages into it and now that I mention it, I think I need to go off to the corner and read for a while.
Oh, and seeing's today's my birthday, y'all better leave me some pretty comments-K? a-and this week we both activated our myspace accounts, so if anyone wants to come over and be our friends, we'd love to have ya!
seattletammy
Penitent Liberal Lesbian
PLL here: Hey yeah, since it's SeattleTammy's birthday, you'd best be nice to her! Don't make me come after you with my Pink Glock!
If you give us a holler at Seattle Mystery Bookshop, we'll have Dr. Rollins sign a book to you personally! He'll be at our store on Thursday and we can't wait!
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We'll try dumping haloscan and see how it works.