Kingdom of Bones by James Rollins

From #1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins, the latest riveting, deeply imaginative thriller in the Sigma Force series, told with his trademark blend of cutting-edge science, historical mystery, and pulse-pounding action. It begins in Africa . . . A United Nations relief team in a small village in the Congo makes an alarming discovery. An unknown force is leveling the evolutionary playing field. Men, women, and children have been reduced to a dull, catatonic state. The environment surrounding them--plants and animals--has grown more cunning and predatory, evolving at an exponential pace. The insidious phenomenon is spreading from a cursed site in the jungle -- known to locals as the Kingdom of Bones --and sweeping across Africa, threatening the rest of the world. What has made the biosphere run amok? Is it a natural event? Or more terrifyingly, did someone engineer it? Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force are prepared for the extraordinary and have kept the world safe, vigilance for which they have paid a tragic personal price. Yet, even these brilliant and seasoned scientific warriors do not understand what is behind this frightening development--or know how to stop it. As they race to find answers, the members of Sigma quickly realize they have become the prey. To head off global catastrophe, Sigma Force must risk their lives to uncover the shattering secret at the heart of the African continent--a truth that will illuminate who we are as a species and where we may be headed . . . sooner than we know. Mother Nature--red in tooth and claw--is turning against humankind, propelling the entire world into the Kingdom of Bones.

CW: pandemic, virus affected animals, violence, pet injury, destruction of nature.

It's always fun getting back to a new installment in this series and while I couldn't read it immediately upon release, I'm glad I caught up soon.

I usually never even bother reading the summary of a Sigma Force because I will read it anyway, so imagine my surprise when I open it and realize it has a pandemic. I'm actually pretty astonished that this is my third or fourth book with a pandemic and it's aftermath premise since Covid started and I'm willingly reading them. I didn't think I had it in me. But this is also not the first pandemic story in this series, so I somehow felt it easier to read because I can kind of guess the beats of this story.

I'm not gonna talk much about the writing or action because they are always fun to read when written by Rollins and this is no different. I however, liked that the author brought his veterinarian experience into this book which features many many different creatures, both real and genetically different, and it was all quite terrifying to read. The author also throws light on the colonization of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the two wars which devastated it, and how even now, other countries and corporations try to exploit the country for its rich natural resources while its people suffer under the atrocities of warlords, poachers, militias and many more.

But the one thing I will take away from this book is how the author manages to describe Mother Nature as a sentient force who won't always remain silent in the wake of unfathomable destruction, deforestation, pollution and exploitation of natural resources conducted by human beings. We as a species have only been part of this world for a tiny amount of time and when we tip the balance too far, it won't be surprising if Mother Nature decides to retaliate and wipe us off. It's undeniable that we are seeing some forms of her indignation in how climate change is ravaging the world, maybe only in its nascent stages with more devastation to come; and how the havoc Covid caused across the world, helped along by incompetent governments and illogical responses by people, has wiped off millions of people in just a couple of years.

We have many scientists and intellectuals warning us that things will get worse in the future unless we do something and I feel this book is one among many fictional stories urging us to consider the same. If we continue with the take, take, take attitude, we'll have nothing but ourselves to give up in the future.

The Most Fantastical Sigma Book Yet - Yet Also Much More Real Than Previous Attempts. You can almost see in this book where Rollins was working on his fantasy books by this point, or at least his mind was already going that direction, just by how truly implausible and into the outright fantastical the "science" of this book gets. As in, hello Fergully / Avatar, complete with vividly colored creatures and mystical tree with healing powers. And yet, this is still solidly a Sigma Force tale, complete with a divided team and links to both history and science, however tenuous. Still, it may truly be getting to the point of needing to end on as high a note as possible before becoming a laughingstock, because yes, admittedly, this one does truly get that bad at times in reflection, while still feeling like the taught action thriller it is while reading it.

For those that can't possibly read about animals being in any degree of "harm" at all, know that war dog handler Tucker and his dog, Kane, play major roles here - and indeed, some of the more inventive while still realistic roles in this tale.

As for the "Much More Real Than Previous Attempts" bit, in The Last Oracle Rollins portrayed Autistics as damn near superhumans, with almost god-like abilities. Here, the Autistic character - a different one, and seemingly the first one mentioned at all in Sigma since Oracle - is a much more grounded and realistic Autistic, complete with hyperfocusing, rambling, self-recriminations, blowups, sensory issues... and no real meltdowns, which is perhaps the only "not-real" aspect of this particular character. In other words, at least in regard to Autism generally, Rollins shows tremendous growth over the last decade or so and is to be commended for showing how such a person could be a benefit even in such tense, potentially Apocalyptic, times.

Overall, this is going to be a particularly divisive book mostly because of just how fantastical it does get at times, but I thought while reading it that it worked perfectly well within the story - though even while reading it I was thinking it was a touch fantastical, and the Avatar notes in particular were unavoidable even while reading - and this was a solid several hours of pure escapist fun, no matter the exact bent of the genre of the story. Very much recommended.