Customer Reviews

The Doomsday Key: A Sigma Force Novel (Sigma Force Novels)

5 star:		(93)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Yes, I doubted, very briefly. I'm ashamed. It's not that The Doomsday Key doesn't start off in a readable and totally entertaining manner. It really does. Rollins has what he does down to a science by now. He quickly reintroduces the main players (a few of whom we haven't seen in a while: Rachel Verona and Seichan) and establishes their relationships with each other. In addition to the ladies above, all the main Sigma players make their appearance, but as usual not all of them are heavily featured on this adventure. Seichan fans rejoice, she has a major role and experiences tremendous character development in this novel.

After the characters are reestablished, (again, as you'd expect) the action starts. A motorcycle chase here, a shootout there, a dash of international travel. Now, I love James Rollins with all my heart, but these opening salvos--while very well-written--felt a little... generic. My moment of doubt.

Happily, it didn't last long. Once Rollins set the main plot in motion, all such thoughts vanished. Seriously, WHAT was I thinking? For me, things really kicked into high gear with the introduction of a new character, Professor Wallace Boyle, whose lecture on peat bogs thrilled me to my soul. I know, peat bogs, who'd a thunk it? But again, that's Rollins' gift. He must look at the world through curiosity-colored glasses; he can find the wonder in the most unlikely of places and subjects. And even more brilliantly, he manages to string together a laundry list of disparate fascinating topics into the plot of a tight, tense thriller. And he does it again and again.

I know I'm being very, very vague about the plot. It would be a shame to give too much away. The central plot revolves around a plague from the past and a plague of the future: hunger. As characters in the novel expound, there will soon be a tipping point where there are far too many people on this planet to feed. Who gets to choose who lives or who dies? If you had the power and resources to make the hard choices, what would you do "to save the world?" And would you be a hero or a villain?

It is the exploring of the above questions that entails ancient artifacts, hidden rooms, booby traps, prophecies come true, missing bumble bees, miracle-performing saints, love triangles, the final resting place of Merlin the wizard, polar bears, teddy bears, and the world's healthiest apple. And I didn't even give you a hint of the real shocker!

A lot of thrillers make the goal, save the world, whatever, and end abruptly. Not so here. There was a nice... cooling down period after the action ended. It's a chance to check in with all the major characters, and a chance for Rollins to leave us with another of his signature cliff-hangers. This one isn't as brutal as some he's written, but those invested in the series will be left with a question to keep them wondering for the coming year.

A final note: Is it wrong that the author's afterwards have become my very favorite part of these novels? This may be the longest one yet (And for God's sake, DON'T read it before you finish the book!), and I am staggered by how much true stuff was worked into the novel. I mean, pretty much every too-amazing-to-be-true fact was, in fact, true. James Rollins, you rock my world!

The reading of this series needs to be done in the correct order to fully understand the background of the main characters.

An experimental farm in Africa where there is a massacre of all the staff and refugees in the farm. A member of the staff was the son of a US senator and the Sigma Force was given the task of investigating what happened. Monk Kokkalis, member of the Sigma Force, was about to interview the colleague of the senator's son, when a group of assassins killed the colleague and blew up his laboratory.

In Italy, an archeologist was murdered in a church and a subsequent explosion injures a Vatican official he was supposed to meet there. Rachel, a niece of the Vatican official, finds an ancient artifact hidden by the archeologist before his death. Fearing that nothing will come out of the subsequent police investigation, Rachel sends a message to Cmdr. Grey Pierce, asking for help to uncover the truth.

Grey was on the way to Italy to shadow Seichan, a deadly woman who has tried to kill him as well as helped him in the past. A common link to thess events were genetically modified food crops and the Doomsday vault containing seeds that can be used to grow new crops in case of a world wide catastrophe.

Three storylines interwoven in a very interesting book but I still wish that I had read the previous books in this series to understand the truer picture.

This is my first James Rollins book, and I am really pleased with what I have read. I wanted an entertaining and suspenseful novel for my beach read, and this book delivered just that. Since I never read any of Rollins' works before, I was unfamiliar with any of the characters or the Sigma Force, but that did not hinder my understanding of the plot line. Most of the characters are somewhat generic, even in terms of their idiosyncrasies. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I can see how they might become tiresome after the readings of a few more of such novels.

This novel has a very strong "Da Vinci Code" feel to it - an ancient secret that has been hidden for millennia is being pursued by a secret organization that is bent on destroying the World, or at least our idea of the world. The conspiracy, of course, involves the Catholic Church and the Vatican, although to Rollins' credit he doesn't try to unnecessarily malign this institution. In fact, the novel has a mildly favorable take on the Catholic Church and some of her venerable saints. Rollins is also very forthright about which parts of the book are completely fictional and which ones are based on historic facts. A brief list of the sources of some of his ideas is given at the end, and I felt that the book actually had some good educational value.

My biggest problem with the story are the several themes and secondary plot developments that seemed unmotivated and gratuitous. Some of these might be relevant from the point of view of the larger Sigma Force series, but others seemed to be put there just because Rollins thought they were cool and would have added to the thrill factor of the book. These things are a minor objection though, and as long as you don't try to overanalyze what you read you will probably not be too bothered by them. Overall this was a fun and interesting thriller, with some educational value to boot.

Early in his career, James Rollins wrote some fine stand-alone novels that pretty much got lost in the shuffle of the many similar books being written in the post-"Jurassic Park", post'"DaVinci Code" world.

However, when he created the series featuring the Sigma Group and leaders, Gray Pierce and Painter Crowe, Rollins finally stepped towards the front of the pack in this genre. "The Doomsday Key" is another well-researched story with the title coming from the Domesday Book of King William of England in the 11th Century. Tied into this legend is the 12th Century publications by Saint Malachy of Ireland whereby he predicted every Pope in history - ending with number 112 (FYI - our current Pope Benedict is number 111).

An all-powerful, international cartel known only as The Guild is up to no good. Their plans involve, among other things, creation of genetically mutated food that would give them the power to control the world's food supply. The Guild is in need of the mythical Doomsday Key, an item prophecised in King William's book - but an object of unknown origin.

Action shifts between Gray Pierce's group and Crowe Painter's, as they travel to several different points on the globe trying to stay ahead of the Guild and figure out the puzzle of the strange Celtic imagery that may or may not be leading them to the Doomsday Key itself. I particularly enjoyed the continued "shout-outs" that Rollins, Brad Thor and Steve Berry continue to give each other as characters from each of their recurring series are mentioned in each others novels (look for a few Scott Horvath references in this one!).

A fast-paced read just in time for the summer - but one that is left open-ended, leaving the reader wanting to know more of the epic battle to come between the Guild and those (like Sigma Force) that oppose them. Well done!

This is a great installment in the Sigma Force series featuring Painter Crowe and Gray Pierce. In this novel, Gray sets out to investigate three murders on three continents, in which all three victims are marked by a Druidic pagan cross burned into their flesh. The plot was well structured, quick-moving and full of action. It advanced some of the continuing plotlines concerning the personal lives of the main characters, including Gray and Monk Kokkalis, as well as the plot concerning Sigma's growing adversity to the shadowy organization known as "the Guild". At the same time, the plot completely stood on its own so that this book was not just a bookmark in a larger story.

James Rollins has penned a number of excellent escapist novels. I would recommend Ice Hunt, Subterranean, Amazonia and Sandstorm to anyone who enjoys adventuring science/techno-thrillers. I would be more reluctant to do so with this installment of his Sigma series though.

This is yet another thoroughly researched, keep-surviving-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth adventure. Less pronounced in this book yet still present is Rollins' tendency to move from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, with small breathers in between. It is a book to enjoy during a flight or a rainy weekend - and it will keep you turning pages for hours. However, for a number of reasons this would had been a much better book had it not been yet another Sigma sequel.

Sigma simply does not work that good for me. I cannot buy the small number of people undertaking such critical tasks. In fact, Sigma is so understaffed that not only has to rely on certified idiots (sorry Kowalski, but you know it is true...) but even the director himself has to go into the field. They operate all over the world under thin pretexts, they do not even seem to be official sanctioned. And to add insult to injury, most new recruits seem to suffer the Star Trek's away-party odd crew-member fate...

On top of that, Sigma seems to deal with one crisis after another while under attack from both a shadow power group and other government secret services. For a writer who takes great pride in the accuracy of his facts interweaved with his fiction, this requires a continuous leap of faith.

I can understand how having a book franchise can work for both the writer and his publisher. The first has a set framework of characters to weave his new plot with whereas the later has a more or less loyal fun-base to fall back to. However, they should both keep in mind that this does not always work for the reader.

This is a 3.5 stars novel but I rounded it up because Rollins has given a number of techno-thrillers I greatly enjoyed in the past.

As a die-hard Rollins fan, I eagerly grabbed this book within weeks of it's release. The plotline revisited some of my favorite characters, including the mysterious Seichan. I was hoping for a resolution of the Grey/Seichan romance, but I will warn any potential readers that the resolution is a bit of a grey area (drum riff).

The plotline of this entry focuses on an influential owner of a bioengineering company who has plans to "save" the world through controversial means as well as following along with Grey & company as they try to find a long lost "Doomsday Key" that is very much desired by Sigma's rival group the Guild. Grey has more than one thing on his mind as he has to figure out the clues as well as figure out his relationship dynamics with his previous lover Rachel as well as the enigmatic Seichan. (Well, first he has to figure out whether or not he can TRUST Seichan.)

Overall I enjoyed the book but I will admit that there were one or two points that seemed to be a bit of a lull. Mostly the "in between" scenes that were necessary to move the plot to the next part. I enjoyed learning more about Seichan but I found the whole Grey/Rachel/Seichan dynamics to be a little wearing at times & I didn't really feel any romantic sparks between Grey & Rachel in this book. (Then again, that may have been the author's intent for the relationship to be more of a desperation thing than a romance thing.) I did particularly enjoy Kowalski in this book. He's a meathead & a grunt, but he's great comic relief. It was a relief to have some plot movement with the Guild plot arc since that's something that has been dragged out for a while now. There is a bit of an ambiguous ending of sorts, but it's entertaining to think of the possibilities that could open up in the future. In the end though, this just wasn't Rollins' strongest novel in the Sigma series. He's written far better than this. It's not enough to put me off the series, but it's enough to make me admit that this will disappoint some readers.

Now I do have to put a disclaimer down. If you have never read any of the Sigma novels in the past, this is not the book to start with. While the bigger part of the plot is somewhat self contained, the overlying plot arcs & character dynamics will more than likely befuddle anyone who has no knowledge of anything that's happened before. The book calls on a lot of previous story arcs in this book.

In my opinion, The Doomsday Key, is one of the best of the series. Once again, the evil criminal network that has caused so much trouble for Sigma Force has hacked a new scheme--one that could wipe out a large number of the world's population. Sigma Force, struggling to redeem itself in the eyes of its own government, must take steps to stop the coming disaster.

As always with James Rollins Sigma Force novels, he has two stories involving different team members, which eventually converges. Grayson Pierce must trust an old enemy, who may or may not be an ally. Painter Crowe, who has been inches for field work through several books finally gets his chance. Investigating several murders across three continents, Crowe attempts to interview a corporation head, who has openly suggested he would like to institute methods of controlling the world's population. Several attempts are made of Crowe's life.

James Rollins did a fantastic job with The Doomsday Key. If you're a fan of fast-pace action and history then this book is for you.

The Friday House
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I'm not sure why I waited so long to read this book. Normally when a new Rollins is released I'm at the store the same day. Perhaps it was because I was afraid the goodness couldn't last forever, but I should have had better faith in Mr. Rollins. The Doomsday Key was fabulous. It contains all the necessary ingredients for a successful smörgåsbord of action-adventure-thriller-suspense entertainment. There are certain criteria you need for an endeavor like this: the good guys, the bad guys, comedic relief (oh, Kowalski), conspiracy rooted in historical truth (popes and prophecies), gunfights and explosions, caves, caves that cave in, a deadly disease, a finger in a leather bag with ancient symbols burned on the outside, a good dosing of betrayal, some stone circles and smelly peat bogs, oh and a few cliffhangers thrown in for good measure. It's all here!

This time around, Sigma is back to work with a shadowy double agent operative named Seichan who also works with the Guild (see: bad guys). We still don't know if Seichan is true to us (and by us I mean Sigma, of course) or if she's just out for her own benefit. Either way, if Commander Gray Pierce doesn't work with her, the whole world could be taken over by a nasty spore; a fungus that grows mushrooms inside of you.

Yeah, gross.

Doomsday is the sixth Sigma novel, and it could be my favorite. Sometimes after the first few books in a series an author teeters out, the books become formulaic and predictable, but Doomsday is none of these. This one is more mature than its predecessors; I even got teary at one point toward the end. Not to mention there was so much information related to true historical facts that my head was spinning, and I came out the other side smarter for it. Google Saint Malachy and his prophecies, or the legend of the Black Madonna, or colony collapse disorder, and you'll see what I mean; but you won't understand how they all go together until you read this book. It really makes you think... if the facts and details used to make a plot are real, what if Rollins' theories as put down in fiction are actually true? And that, that right there, is why I love his books. I suggest you run your person out to the closest book store and start with Sandstorm (Sigma prequel) and work your way up from there.

5 stars. His next book is not Sigma, but I love his individual adventures too, so I can't wait for the Altar of Eden on December 29.

Rollins has written another great novel in The Doomsday Key. This novel takes the reader on a journey to some remote areas of our world in search of the secret behind a mystery several hundred years in the making. Sigma is at it again searching for the truth while also dealing with the obstacles that are put in their pathways. From my view point this storyline takes a little longer to develop then some of Rollins other Sigma books but the storyline is still very much intriguing, just a bit more difficult to comprehend without the additional detail. While I enjoyed this book I will say that it has not been my favorite of the series, I was entertained while reading but the pace at which the action unraveled was a bit slow for my taste.

An interesting twist to this book is that Rollins really begins to bring the storyline of The Guild to light. We learn more (if only a little) about The Guild in this book then we have in any of the other novels. This makes the book very much well worth the read as you can tell that the next book is going to be a great read. This book is worth a read if you are a fan of the series.