Tides of Fire by James Rollins

Published by William Morrow on August 15, 2023

Readers know what they’re getting in a Sigma Force thriller:  action, undersea adventure, above-sea adventure, fights, explosions, and more action. Sigma Force is a “clandestine organization operating at the periphery of military structure.” Military operatives have been “re-trained in various scientific disciplines.” In other words, soldiers have been made into scientists. Wouldn’t it be easier to make scientists into soldiers? I mean, it takes longer to master a science than to master the art of fighting. Doesn’t matter. Readers are best served by not thinking too deeply about Sigma Force novels.

Much of the action takes place off the coast of Australia in the Coral Sea, home of the Titan Project. The Titan X, a “thousand-foot-long gigayacht,” houses a couple dozen research laboratories. The yacht supports Titan Station, a research facility that consists of a floating platform (Titan Station Up) and an inverted pyramid consisting of five tiers that rests two miles below the ocean surface (Titan Station Down). Submersibles ferry researchers from Up to Down and back.

In the early years of the nineteenth century, Sir Thomas Raffles was investigating the relationship between volcanic eruptions in Southeast Asia and people who turn to stone. Rather than turning his findings into a report that would benefit humanity, he divided his research papers and hid them in separate places to make it as difficult as possible for researchers to find them when they will be most needed. That makes no sense, but hiding secrets that will save the planet from disaster is a common thriller theme. What fun would it be if the hero could just pick up a book and find the solution?

Back in the present, marine biologist Phoebe Reed is studying deep-sea coral for the Titan Project. She wonders if coral exists in the deep trenches that extend below the seabed. While she’s puzzling over that question, she discovers that a new form of coral has a nasty stinger. Yes, the stinger turns people to stone, or into something that resembles stone.

Reed also discovers a Chinese submarine that crashed through the coral on the seabed. It turns out that the submarine was armed with nuclear weapons and the Chinese military doesn’t want anyone snooping around it. Of equal importance, the coral doesn’t like being disturbed by radioactive submarines.

James Rollins fills his books with characters. This one includes nineteenth century sailors and explorers, members of a Chinese triad, Grayson Pierce and his Sigma Force operatives, officers of the PLA, employees of a couple different museums, and a Russian assassin who sets up the next novel in the series. None of the characters have much personality. They exist to drive the action unless they are standing to the side and explaining the plot. Readers probably don’t pick up a Rollins novel expecting a character-driven story. There’s no risk of finding one here.

The plot is a bit eye-rolling. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions threaten to destroy all life on the planet. One school of thought blames the Chinese. Another school of thought holds that the natural disasters are caused by cheesed-off undersea dragons. Thankfully, indigenous people in Raffles' day knew how to appease the dragons. Sigma Force and Chinese soldiers battle to uncover the secret to appeasement that Raffles carefully concealed. Meanwhile, the heroes of the Titan Project are dodging Chinese torpedoes and various undersea menaces.

Rollins includes an abundance of sciency-sounding explanations in an attempt to make the plot seem plausible. Still, the story doesn’t make much sense. I haven’t mentioned the ancient planetoid that split apart, crashing into both the Earth and the moon. Parts of the planetoid on the Earth and moon are talking to each other. Certain Chinese villains think they can weaponize the planetoid. The scientists suspect that some of the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters were unwittingly caused by Chinese astronauts poking around on the moon, so don’t blame the sea dragons. They just want to be left alone but they turn out to be helpful if they hear the right music.

So yeah, the plot often devolves into silliness, but rationality (like characterization and graceful prose) isn’t a central feature of action-adventure thrillers. The point is action and adventure. Rollins regularly destroys parts of the world. In Tides of Fire, earthquakes and volcanos threaten an extinction event. I’ve never been a big Rollins fan and this novel didn’t convert me, but I give Rollins credit for putting in an enormous amount of work to make the story go. Tides of Fire delivers a fast-moving action/adventure story and that’s all it’s meant to do.

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"Calypso's Guest" by Andrew Sean Greer

Published by Amazon Original Stories on August 22, 2023

The narrator of “Calypso’s Guest” betrayed the other humans on his planet by doing a deal with the godlike Others. The deal included the promise of immortality. Having discovered the betrayal, the narrator’s people banished him to the unoccupied colony world of Calypso, where he lives as a prisoner. Robots serve the narrator’s needs but they will not build a ship to help him escape. Even if he had a ship, the robots would not let him leave.

After the narrator was banished, the humans on his planet were killed by the Others. No other colonists joined the narrator on his new world.

One day a spaceship crashes and the narrator is joined by its surviving occupant. The narrator believes his guest was sent to him as part of the bargain he made with the Others. The guest gets along with the narrator, even joining him in his hut on some nights, but the guest is disappointed that there is no way to leave the planet.

The guest has stories to tell — the sort of stories that Odysseus told, complete with one-eyed monsters. The guest is adventurous — like Odysseus — while the narrator is more of a homebody. The guest wants to build a ship to explore their world. He seems to have little interest in having the narrator accompany him on that journey.

Homer wrote that Calypso held Odysseus on the island of Ogygia for seven years. The guest has been on Calypso for seven years when the narrator discovers a newly arrived spaceship. Its occupant is dead but the ship is intact. The story’s moral dilemma involves the narrator’s possession of that secret. Should he share it with his guest? If he does, will the man he loves leave the narrator alone on the prison planet?

I suppose every serious writer needs to write a story that is inspired by the Odyssey. This one is almost moving. It certainly tries to be moving. Perhaps it tries too desperately. The sentiment seems forced, too obvious to be genuine. Still, a short story can be entertaining without being substantial. I’m not sure I would spend money to purchase a short story that will likely appear in an anthology at some point — I like to get more words for my buck — but “Calypso’s Guest” is a better story than most that appear in annual anthologies.

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Lion & Lamb by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski

Published by ‎ Little, Brown and Company on August 14, 2023

Lion & Lamb. Isn’t that a little too cute? More troublesome is that it’s a little too obvious. The title, like the novel itself, doesn’t reflect an abundance of effort.

The novel is a murder mystery. The victim, Archie Hughes, is an NFL quarterback. Someone with the stature of a Tom Brady, including the hot celebrity wife (although Brady’s is now an ex-wife). I doubt the novel intends to invite other comparisons, as the novel’s quarterback is more than a little sleazy, not to mention dead. He also played for the Eagles. Perhaps Archie’s sleaziness has something to do with the bullet that found its way into his skull while he was sitting in his Maserati.

Veena Lion and Cooper Lamb are two high profile private investigators in Philadelphia. They compete against each other for business but occasionally sleep together. When Archie is murdered, the DA hires Lamb to help make its case against the prime suspect, Archie’s wife Vanessa. Naturally, Vanessa’s lawyer hires Lion to make a case for her innocence. And naturally, Lion and Lamb both insist they will go wherever the evidence takes them in their quest for the truth. For that reason, they decide to keep no secrets from each other. I’m not sure it’s quite ethical for a defense attorney’s investigator to share information with the prosecution’s investigator, but ethical or not, that’s the story.

The plot builds little suspense but it does offer the traditional elements of a murder mystery, including misdirection and an abundance of suspects. The obvious clues point to Vanessa, apart from the automatic assumption that a murder victim must have been killed by his or her spouse. Most damaging is the murder weapon that a gardener digs up in Vanessa’s yard.

Archie and Vanessa had two kids who are often in the care of their hot nanny. She’s a suspect, as is the police detective who is canoodling with the nanny while investigating the murder. He's also investigating a second murder that might or might not be related. A gambling subplot brings in the team owners as suspects. A tight end might also be a suspect, if only because he often seems to be lurking. Perhaps the killing was a random robbery, as Archie's Superbowl ring is missing.

The solution to the mystery is unconvincing, but farfetched attempts to surprise the reader have become commonplace in modern mysteries. Occasional action scenes, complete with gunplay, are a bit too casual (if not downright silly) to allow the novel to be categorized as a thriller. It’s almost a middle-aged version of a cozy mystery, given its strict avoidance of naughty words and its suggestions of sexual encounters that are far from explicit.

My only serious gripe about Lion & Lamb is the authors’ writing style. Most of the novel consists of dialog, often in transcript form, a style attributed to the habit that both protagonists have adopted a habit of recording all their conversations. Unlike a narrative, dialog is easy to write. Some readers will happily embrace the novel as a “page turner,” but it’s easy to turn pages rapidly when there is so little content on each page.

The dialog doesn’t seem genuine, but placing that concern aside, the novel makes no attempt to establish an atmosphere through the story’s setting. Philadelphia might as well be Kansas City or Phoenix. Nor does it build the story’s background beyond the most basic facts. Characterization is nearly nonexistent. Lamb’s kids and puppy are props; they add no flesh to the cardboard from which the protagonist is constructed.

In a mystery, plots are generally more important than characterization, setting, or atmosphere. Lion & Lamb would have been a better book if the authors had made a greater effort to include all the elements that make a novel memorable. Still, they did enough to earn a guarded recommendation for mystery fans seeking a breezy, PG-rated novel.

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"Black Vault" by Alma Katsu

Published on Kindle by Amazon Original Stories on August 8, 2023

“Black Vault” is a timely spy story — a longish short story — drawn from recent congressional investigations into UFOs. The timeline alternates between 2006 and the present.

Craig Norton is a career officer in the CIA. In 2006, his career is going nowhere. Norton is arrogant and cocky but he doesn’t have the success or pedigree to back up his attitude. He’s running an unimportant asset in the Russia Division. When the asset is transferred to an assignment in Mongolia, Norton follows him. The relocation places Norton under the supervision of the China Division. The China Division harbors an institutional hatred of the Russia Division. Norton is not made to feel welcome.

Norton arranges to meet his asset at night in the middle of a field. The asset never appears, but Norton sees some strange lights in the distance moving at angles and speeds that defy physics. With some trepidation, he writes a report about what he saw because reporting anything unusual is part of his job. After all, maybe he saw an experimental Chinese aircraft.

Norton is cautioned against submitting the report by a CIA officer who reviews reports and tells agents not to say anything stupid. Norton disregards the advice. Head of Station soon complains that Norton has become a laughingstock and has tainted the rest of the office by writing a report about a UFO. Craig learns that Alvin Lee, chief of the China Division, was particularly critical of his report.

Norton’s career comes to an abrupt dead end. He’s eventually reassigned to the US, where he’s given pointless tasks to fill his time until he reaches retirement age. Norton made the mistake of bringing his wife to Mongolia. She left him as a prelude to divorce. He never really connected with his son. He used the classified nature of his work as an excuse to avoid meaningful conversations.

A few months before he’s able to retire, Norton is assigned to a new task force that was formed in response to a 60 Minutes story exposing the government’s suppression of information about UFO sightings. The task force is composed of other deadenders until Norton mentions to the Deputy Director of Operations that the task force will never accomplish anything without young agents who haven’t lost their curiosity. After suitable agents are assigned, Norton begins to learn why his initial report was buried.

Modern spy fiction tends to develop the theme of bureaucracy and professional infighting as impediments to accomplishment. As Norton digs into the aftermath of his 2006 report, he discovers that people who took his report seriously went to war with bureaucrats who thought UFOs were embarrassing. The notion that UFOs might exist, that their secrets might be investigated by Chinese rather than American scientists, was a potential career killer for anyone who scoffed at Norton in 2006. Now it’s looking like the suppression of inquiry should have been a career killer. The theme of government agents stepping all over each other to cover their mistakes by blaming others is always fun, if only because it always seems plausible.

Craig’s relationship with his son comes across as an afterthought, a way of forcing human interest into the story, but Norton benefits from careful characterization in other ways. He feels abused, overlooked, and underappreciated, to some extent with good cause.

The plot is tight, as a short story plot should be. Alma Katsu was wise to develop her concept in short form. The concept may be insufficiently substantial to carry a novel. The story eventually leads to a resolution that will be familiar to fans of spy fiction, at least after the UFOs are set aside. The mixture of fresh and familiar makes “Black Vault” an enjoyable read for fans of spy fiction and UFO conspiracies.

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You're an Animal by Jardine Libaire

 

Published by Hogarth on August 8, 2023

You’re an Animal is a domestic drama about an unconventional, makeshift family of misfits who develop a bond as they struggle to live off the grid in Texas. Ray misses his affiliation with a motorcycle gang. Staci is still coupled with Ray but feels “vaguely unwelcome in the world” as she recalls the self-help lessons she learned in addiction recovery programs. Coral doesn’t speak — she scarcely acknowledges that the others exist — but Ernie can’t stop fantasizing about making a white-picket-fence life with her.

The novel begins with a group of outlaws living on a compound in Oklahoma. Tim is married and has a new baby. Tim’s uncle owns the property but is in prison for gun crimes, making Tim the de facto property manager. He also manages the meth operation. Tim is thinking about abandoning the compound and making a new life.

Assorted tweakers and bikers come and go. Coral was dropped off by Tim’s half-sister after Coral’s grandmother died. She is better than Tim's wife at nursing his baby. Ernie is the meth cook until a new arrival with a better recipe takes over. Several people make meth deliveries but Tim only trusts Ernie to pick up cash.

The communal relationship works (more or less) until a fire consumes the meth lab. Ray and Staci are shopping for supplies with Ernie and Coral when the fire breaks out. Ernie has also collected money for meth sales, so they have a supply of cash. On their way back, they see smoke coming from the commune. They also see police cars. Deciding that their best option is to disappear, they eventually rent an isolated home in Texas, where they use their skills to start a new meth lab. They learn that Tim survived the fire, but he’s essentially abandoned them so they decide they won’t return his money. Ray is concerned that Tim will find them, creating tension whenever a car parks near their property.

Most of the novel’s drama comes from the domestic relationships formed by the four characters who make a home in Texas. They plant a garden. They hang out. At some point they are joined by a cheetah who is used to living with humans, so the reader will inevitably wonder whether any of the characters will be clawed to death. While the plot as I describe it sounds bizarre and insubstantial, the story is absorbing.

Ray and Staci have relationship issues, aggravated both by Ray’s unfaithful actions while they still living at the compound and by Staci’s growth, her realization that her current life of sobriety isn’t working any better than her earlier life of addiction. Ernie either has a fear of intimacy or a fear of being rejected. Perhaps those fears are two sides of the same coin. Ernie is paralyzed when he considers how to express his feelings about Coral. The fact that Coral doesn’t speak, rarely makes eye contact, and spends most of her time wandering alone in the woods doesn’t make a meaningful connection easy. Well, except for the cheetah, who seems to have a better understanding of Coral than her human friends.

In a refreshing change from most modern relationship dramas, the story offers closure. We know the fate of each character. We know whether couples will get together, stay together, or break apart, at least for the present. We even know what happens to the cheetah. The final scenes treat the reader to a significant surprise without resorting to melodrama. Three cheers for throwback storytelling that doesn’t leave all the characters in the wind, delegating to the reader the task of writing an ending to the plot.

Near the novel’s conclusion, Ernie has an epiphany that might provide valuable insight for others, even if they aren’t meth dealers. He regrets “always wanting what he didn’t have. Life was a series of situations, you find the good in each one, that’s all you can do, because none will last.” Other characters have their own moments of awareness. As domestic dramas go, this one is more interesting than most, not so much because of the plot (which is just a vehicle for the characters to grow or change), but because the characters are so far outside the mainstream that they represent a more primal version of humanity than most of us are used to seeing.

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