The Last Odyssey

The Last Odyssey is the fifteenth Sigma Force novel from James Rollins and one of his most ambitious. The premise reaches all the way back to Homer. A medieval shipwreck off the coast of Greenland turns out to be a thirteenth century Arab vessel that contains a strange device, a kind of mechanical map of the ancient Mediterranean. The map points to locations from the Odyssey, and the Sigma team has to figure out whether Homer’s poem was based on real geography and what dangerous power the medieval pilgrims may have hidden along its route.

Rollins likes to weave together myth, history, and cutting edge science, and this book is one of his more layered attempts. The plot moves through Greenland, Egypt, Morocco, the Mediterranean, and the underground passages of an Italian church. Familiar Sigma cast members carry their threads. Painter Crowe handles the strategic level. Gray Pierce, Seichan, Kowalski, and the rest take the field. A new antagonist organization called the Apocalypti, descendants of a medieval death cult, drive the threat side of the plot.

What sets this novel apart from some of the others in the series is how much fun Rollins has with the source material. The map device is genuinely clever as a plot engine, and the implication that Homer might have been writing about a real chain of locations gives the action a satisfying intellectual hook. The science fiction element involves an ancient form of weaponized fire that ties in believably with both Greek myth and modern thermal physics. Rollins documents his sources at the end of the book as he always does, and even after seven hundred plus pages the resolution leaves room for the next entry. Sigma Force fans will not be disappointed.