Book Thoughts--"The Judas Strain" by James Rollins

In my earlier book thoughts post I mentioned that my reading is often escapist in nature, looking for pure entertainment. For me, two authors really represent that ideal to me, John Grisham and James Rollins.

At first glance, Rollins' books might appear to be something like yet ANOTHER "Da Vinci Code" knock off. Let me tell you, nothing is further from the truth. Dan Brown looks like a high school hack compared to James Rollins, and while religious themes and imagery do sometimes play a part in Rollins' work, they are often either not the central aspect of the story or they lead you some place where you never thought you'd end up.

Let me digress here. I hate, no despise, no--is there a stronger word--loathe maybe--"The Da Vinci Code." For the life of me, I can't understand what people see in the literary vomit crammed in between the two covers of that book. And no, I don't hate it because I'm religious. Sure my wife and I go to mass and all, but I have no problem expressing my views on Christianity and I have no problem with other people expressing opinions either. The book just sucks. It's like Brown took the entire idea for the book from the non-fiction work "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" where many of Brown's theories are discussed in depth. His historical research is crap. Anytime a character is actually forced to go into detail about something (particularly Langdon) all they do is say "I don't have time for that right now," or "You wouldn't believe it if I told you." Thus Brown gets away with excusing more than half of his HORRIBLE plot by mere chance with no depth at all. Plus lets face it, the book was plain PREDICTABLE. Dude is living off the interest from the royalties for that suckfest, why do you think he hasn't written anything since? (Not that I can blame him for that.)

Anyhoodles....back to James Rollins (Who is GOD HIMSELF compared to Dan Brown.)

First off, Rollins is actually a veterinarian by trade so when he talks about things like SCIENCE he actually knows what the hell he's talking about, and folks, that certainly DOESN'T suck. He also has a knack for distilling something as complex as Quantum Mechanics, Organic Chemistry, and evolutionary theory down to the level of a basic reader. He is NOT afraid of the details.

Second, his plots are awesome and very unpredictable. Very satisfying, particularly in his later works (The Sigma Force Novels.) The Judas Strain is a great example of this. Our heroes have to not only decipher a hidden code left by Marco Polo, they have to find a cure for a deadly virus before a terror organization releases it en masse into the world's biosphere. If that's not enough, and trust me it is, there's angels, cannibals, cruise ships, killer crabs, and beautiful assassins. It's all packaged with a ton of little plot twists that I highly doubt you'll see coming.

Check this book out folks, it's a real "root for the heroes and hate the bad guys" kind of story with a truly satisfying ending.