Let me tell you about: James Rollins's The Doomsday Key

For a yarn that often polarises old and obscure wisdom upon the height of scientific discoveries of modern age, James Rollins’s SIGMA Force series has never lost its momentum. From the first book to the sixth, action and history never looked so good together. His latest offering, The Doomsday Key, is no exception.

Slightly breaking away from his norm, the story began in the spring of 1086, in England. Men were travelling on lands that were devastated by a deadly pestilence.  They noted down everything they saw in a book named Domesday Book, written for William the Conqueror who wanted to know everything that he owned and how much it all was worth. (Trivia: the Domesday Book was slowly known as the Doomsday Book because what the book contains is final and unchangeable.) The pestilence is then updated to the modern century as it became clear throughout the novel that someone is pulling at the strings so that the world leaders, meeting at a summit in Norway, would inevitably arrive at a single terrible decision.  And throughout the novel, too, Sigma Force will find ways and means to avert that finality, even if it means pulling down stars from the sky, among other things.

I am always fascinated by the depth of details Mr Rollins manage to squeeze in his novels. All the fancy-schmancy science talk is rendered simple and tight. The action sequences are written out in such a manner that I could clearly see them in front of my eyes, especially that last bit where things started to fall out of the sky. (No spoilers here, don’t worry.)

This time, Mr Rollins’s subject is as diverse as life itself. Genome manipulation and its negative side effects, Black Madonna, ancient repopulation, overpopulation, and depopulation, world famine – the problems in the book reads like everyday headlines mixed with religious scholar paper. What if humanity has really come to a saturation point? How would we face it? Would we turn in and destroy ourselves, or would we rise above our current stagnation?

That aside, I finally got my secret wish – seeing the two women of Agent Pierce Gray’s life in action, and in the same page. The two could not be more different and yet, similar. Maybe the women are a reflection of the man himself. And Monk Kokkalis (thank you for resurrecting him!) returns in grand form. With a baby and a wife, he finally relearns who he is (after his resurrection in The Last Oracle). Seichan is also taking up most of the scene (book?) time, as she struggles between the two sides that have her.

All in all, it’s a wonderful romp through several continents, science, ancient history and modern calamities. Just remember to love the bees, because they are very important (hint hint).

4 out of 5 stars.