What a terrible, incredibly long dribble this is. Many of the people who've rated this book poorly have pointed out the many failings within it.



The entire plot is absolutely ridiculous:

You have an implausible group of so-called geniuses who also happen to be -supposedly- super agents, James Bond type of guys. They put them through "fast track PhD programs" (what in the hell is that anyway, who goes through a "fast track" PhD???) so they know anything about everything or something.... and yet the

What a terrible, incredibly long dribble this is. Many of the people who've rated this book poorly have pointed out the many failings within it.



The entire plot is absolutely ridiculous:

You have an implausible group of so-called geniuses who also happen to be -supposedly- super agents, James Bond type of guys. They put them through "fast track PhD programs" (what in the hell is that anyway, who goes through a "fast track" PhD???) so they know anything about everything or something.... and yet they are utterly incompetent all throughout the book. This is where we find the first of the book's many cliches, and to me, the first warning sign: The group is called Sigma Force (because Delta is already taken as a cliche, I guess)



Then there's the "bad guys" - cartoonish, Dr. Evil type of bad guys, who are nothing but Yet-Another-Ancient-Secret-Society blah blah blah, yadda yadda, complete with an evil plot to rule the world or something. I swear, the main bad guy is a mix of the bad guys from the 60's Batman show, Dr. Evil and Disney villains. The author does a feeble attempt of making the reader hate him for his evilness, but I just rolled my eyes every time he acted "evil".



Finally there's this "mysterious white powder" (m-state gold), as the author refers to it the whole time, which somehow "the ancients" discovered and used as a superconductor. They left clues (for who?) that take you to some treasure or other...they hint at "ancient knowledge", but never say what or what about. Having the bad guys find this will bring about "armageddon" (I kid you not) or "remaking the world in their image" - whatever that means. It's all so far fetched and ridiculous that I really couldn't find a reason to wanting the bad guys stopped.



In between there's this romance building up between 2 of the characters but the author is so clumsy about it he just builds it up with cheesy phrases and yet more cliches thrown in randomly during the story.



The entire book is plagued by even more cliches, comic book style: Characters, plot, motivation for the villains, situations, the romance, the ending, everything is a cliche.



Other absurdities abound: the heroes seem to pack just about everything and anything they might need in their "packs". Two notable examples: At one point the hero is trapped in a room with metal bars in the windows. He conveniently produces a "portable jack" (or something) and separates the bars. Another example, he sets up wireless cameras transmitting video to his laptop. There he installs a USB "signal booster" so the video feed can be transmitted elsewhere. All very convenient to the specific need of the moment. Not to mention that he also carries weapons (which he seldom seems to be able to use at all), medical gear etc. These must be HUGE packs, but they only get mentioned any time the heroes pull another convenient gadget out of them.

At another point, they go into a cavern, and he tells their team to turn off the lights to conserve battery. What? Are they planning on staying down there for days? The heroes obviously not bring down food and water, so why are they worried about batteries at all?

In the same chapter, they conveniently bring down 4 six-packs of Coke. So, again, while they're worried about batteries: I'm thinking they were stupid enough not to bring extra batteries, but hey, let's bring tons of Coke, why don't we!! - most inept group of heroes, if you ask me.



This was obviously an attempt by the author to get in on the "DaVinci Code bandwagon", along with a scene almost totally ripped off from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - the author fails terribly and just manages a "me too" story.



Cartoonish characters all throughout, implausible premise and cliche packed, tedious plot, boring action scenes makes this an intolerable mess of a book. First and last James Rollins book I ever read.