FORTUNATE CHOICE: A Review of The Judas Strain

Being a writer, I believe in the power of reading. Reading is like physical exercise. It’s lovable. It’s also hard. Reading requires a bit of pushing around from the part of the person or teachers.

            Since I am my best student and the world my best teacher, I take cues from the reality that plays out around me. Occasionally, I get fortunate enough to pick up a good thriller. I said fortunate because often, due to a prejudiced mentality, cultivated by years of academic training, people like me ignore thrillers. We consider thrillers a mere pass time genre, a meaningless fluke.

            This mentality is hard to put aside. Even if one succeeds in keeping oneself at bay from the scorching eye of the prejudice, the thought that someone will criticize always haunts.

            The Judas Strain was available at a generous discount through Amazon. I bought it a year ago, kept it in my home library, and never opened it until six months before. Although I did open it before six months, I could not feel in harmony with the introductory part of the story: A map and a few historical records on the journey of the legendary Italian sailor and explorer Marco Polo.

           

            I went on reading other books. Six months later, I watched an interview through YouTube. It was with an author named James Rollins. I did not find the interview very much thought provoking, like interviews should be in the bubble of academic prejudice my friends and I inhabit. However, the author’s presence in front of my eyes triggered a memory, not so distant: The Judas Strain.

            Published in 2007, The Judas Strain features Sigma Force as a coterie of protagonists, the central egalitarian force that rivals the antagonists, the Guild. Although this book is part of a series, Sigma Force Novels, anyone starting James Rollins afresh can enjoy The Judas Strain.

As I implied earlier, this is the first time I read James Rollins. The Judas Strain could be read as a wonderful stand-along novel. Still, there are moments when you want to take a dip in the stream of novels that form the Sigma Force series just to find out those hidden links.

            I was startled at the final part of the novel where it exuded elements of a certain spiritual-scientific evolution of the characters. This open ending is a mark of unique excellence of the writer. When in comparison, James Rollins writes in a direct, lucid, and occasional cliché language unlike his compatriot Lee Child, as a storyteller, James Rollins has unmatched gifts. The quality of his storytelling skill became evident when I realized that he weaves tales and intrigues even better than Dan Brown and Lee Child himself.

Undoubtedly, James Rollins is at the top of the thriller genre in English language literature. In the scale of adventure and thrill that James brings into the story, he is surely unmatched even by the legends of the genre like Dan Brown and Lee Child.

           

The Judas Strain is a good book to push yourself over the edge, if that is how you’d like to see your reading graph. First jump and then grow the wings. Reading skill is difficult to maintain. It requires a certain compulsion. The Judas Strain is a compulsive read. It’s a long book. But it took me about three weeks to finish the book. If lack of time is the excuse you put up for yourself in order ignore regular reading habit, a thriller is your remedy. While I was reading The Judas Strain, I felt sad that my eyes were drooping down at midnight and that my day job was taking too much time out of my precious reading schedule. After a short period of fretting over what wasn’t going good, I decided to make good of the fortunate opportunity of discovering this good book. Before long, I was finding more time than I needed and reading had once again become a compulsive strain.