The Eye of God

The Eye of God is the ninth Sigma Force novel from James Rollins, published in 2013. The premise is one of the more ambitious in the long running thriller series. A NASA satellite captures images of an Earth that has been catastrophically destroyed, four days from now in real time. The images are not predictions in the abstract sense. They are actual photographs of an event that has not yet happened. As Sigma Force scrambles to figure out what is going to cause the disaster and how to prevent it, the trail leads to an ancient relic associated with Genghis Khan and to the centuries old prophecies of the medieval Christian community in Mongolia.

The Sigma Force formula is reliable by this point. Painter Crowe handles the strategic level from headquarters. The field team, in this case primarily Gray Pierce and Monk Kokkalis, follow the active leads through several countries while the larger picture clarifies. A new character, the Hindu temple guardian Jada Shaw, joins the case and gives Rollins room to expand the team’s reach into territory the existing cast had not covered. The antagonists draw on both fringe Christian apocalyptic theology and the long tail of Mongol military history, which Rollins clearly enjoyed researching.

What Rollins does well in books like this is balance. The science fiction premise of a precognitive satellite is given enough technical grounding that it does not feel like pure magic. The historical material on Genghis Khan, on the lost Christians of medieval Mongolia, and on the discovery of strange relics in the steppe is solid enough to support the plot. And the action sequences move at the pace Sigma Force readers expect, with set pieces in Hungary, Mongolia, and Washington DC that build to a satisfying climax.

For longtime fans of the series, The Eye of God is one of the stronger middle entries. New readers can pick it up as a standalone, though some of the team dynamics will land harder for those who have been with the series from the start.