The Devil Colony
by James Rollins
Wm. Morrow 2011
What if when America was founded, there were negotiations between Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin with a potentially unified Native American nation which wanted to become the fourteenth colony to join the United States?
What if ancient Mormon, Native American, and American mythology were combined with a long ago understanding of nanotechnology and particle acceleration?
If there are two great forces in the world, the Guild (let by a Frenchman with ambition to unite his family heritage with the great legacies of history) and the American Sigma Force, which will prevail?
In this rollicking thriller, good vs. evil compete across the history of America and some of our cultural monuments to gain control of the technology embedded in the weapons, metallurgy, and fail safe mechanisms of the long gone Indian cultures that failed in their bid to be part of the United States. The cleverness of the elements brought together in this beautifully crafted story are testament to the analytical interest of the author, both in history and technology, and story-telling skill.
James Rollins populates the torridly paced story with a collage of characters, each set of which could be the centerpieces of another story (perhaps they will be). There is a physically weak Frenchman and an African Amazon who cannot speak and has been with him since childhood; a Sigma leader and a distant niece; another Sigma operative loving a father in failing health and a femme fatale in the operation (both needing each other in a variety of ways); a combat medic with a Sigma leader spouse who is about to give birth; and others.
In the end, Rollins brings it all together in a beautifully orchestrated crescendo. As always, it will be interesting to see where the Sigma Force turns next. Perhaps, it will be to the inevitable rise of the Fourth German Reich. I can imagine Rollins following the current tribulations of Europe, the rise of Germany as the financial well for the continent, a failing America, and a rising China with its own economic woes barely beneath the surface needing to own energy and other imperatives of super-powerdom. Into this vortex, the Fourth Reich is ready to rise, having preserved its wealth through two world wars and three failed reichs.
Obviously, I enjoyed The Devil Colony and thinking about new adventures.
Warms, Cym
AMAZON
James Rollins
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