Deep Fathom
James Rollins is one of those writers who is absolutely awesome for the first 3-to-4 books you read from him. Then, you realize that he is just like all those other writers that churn out novels as a ridiculous pace. They’re the same novel, just with different locations, bad guy names, etc. Even realizing that, you can still appreciate – even love – some of the books, but it’s a lot easier to recognize a stinker when you see one from them, too. Occasionally, they try to do things different and it can either succeed wildly or fail miserably. There’s not much in between there.Deep Fathom is one where Rollins took a chance to do something different, and failed horribly. It’s definitely one of the few stinkers that are bricks in his ink-stained ivory tower. Its so ridiculously far-fetched that even the whole ancient/undiscovered mystery thing can’t save it. The good guys might have been likable enough, but the bad guy deserved a thin waxed mustache he could twirl, he was so over-the-top bad. While it might have read smoothly, it was almost impossible to care enough about any of the characters to root for them, and the action never even quite managed to reach happy summer-blockbuster level. It tried, it just fell a bit flat.
Definitely one of the books from James Rollins that I can’t recommend, though I’d still recommend you check out at least the earliest of his Sigma Force novels. Those are decent.
