She Treads Softly: Tides of Fire

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Tides of Fire

Tides of Fire by James Rollins
8/15/23; 480 pages
HarperCollins
Sigma Force Series #17

Tides of Fire by James Rollins is a very highly recommended, action packed, heart-stopping thriller wrapped around a geological disaster. This 17th novel in the Sigma Force series is a winner! (Teaser: there is biomineralization of bodies.)

Sigma Force joins with the Titan Project which has an international research station off the coast of Australia in the Coral Sea. The researchers are looking at the Tonga trench and the otherworldly bioluminescent coral living there when a Chinese military nuclear submarine is lost in the trench. Obviously, the Chinese want to keep this a secret, setting up a raid on the research station, but what happens next is already set into motion. A geological disaster that destabilizes the entire region starts and could bring about the end of the world.

An excellent addition to the Sigma Series! The pace starts out fast and only picks up the pace as the various plot threads unfold. Rollins knows how to write a complicated, riveting plot that is science based, detailed, and includes historical facts. The new characters introduced for this adventure are all wonderfully interesting and capable or decidedly evil.

As a long time fan, I have read every Sigma force novel. Tides of Fire rates as one of the best in the series. It is incredible and everything anyone could want in a Sigma Force novel. If you have never read a Rollins novel you could certainly start here and just enjoy the non-stop action and intricate plot. He includes at the beginning a cast of characters to help you follow who's who. You won't know the backstory of all the characters, but enough information naturally occurs in the narrative to provide basic details about them. The story is the star.

Along with maps and pictures within the novel that relate to the unfolding plot threads, there is also included an informative Author's Note to Readers: Truth or Fiction section at the end of the novel which discusses the real science and technology and where artistic license was used, which I always appreciate and find informative. There will be a sequel to Tides of Fire.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins via Edelweiss.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.