Crucible by James Rollins - book review

A book that I was so eagerly awaiting, considering that it touches upon Artificial Intelligence. Knowing his penchant to weave thrillers from even hitherto un-interesting topics, I was having great expectations around this topic, only to see the book fail miserably on all counts. It starts off on an interesting historical note, as always in any James Rollins book, with the trial of Witches as background. There would’ve been a million references about the book on witches as to how it is supposedly the bloodiest book on documented human history, for it has contributed to the death of so many innocent women. Beyond a point, it has become so monotonous that, the build up around the book became pretty obvious. There was an even explosive parallel track of a pregnant Seichan (wife of the main character) being abducted along with the kids of another main character, with the wife of the latter, battered to near death. Usually, the parallel tracks wouldn’t have any knot till they converge on a spectacular boiling point from where the stories would merge. But here right at the beginning the hand is revealed and there is no sense of suspense as well. Even for a story devoid of any logic when it comes to fights and chase sequences, the way a heavily pregnant Seichan rides a Ducati and evades her attackers is too much cock and bull. If at all there is a portion that beats the log out of logic, it’s the sequence involving, picturizing brain activity to visualize whatever the person wants to convey, when they are in coma. Let me explain. The lady who gets beaten to near death, goes into coma. To find out about her attackers who have abducted everyone on the house, the doctors try to read her brain – literally. They induce something on her brain and map the result to paint a picture of what she was trying to think!!! There are some references on the author note, that such medical facilities are actually available. But it is impossible to believe the extent to which it has been used as a premise on the novel. Literary liberty at its peak I should say. Coming to the concept of AI, the way in which the author has tried to build up on the AI growing up and eventually out of control, is akin to Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and other novels, where he follow similar timeline. But the comparison stops right there. If AI is actually intelligent, it wouldn’t read this book about itself and would probably dismantle itself post reading the same. The description and the conceptualization make it sound more like a virus than a supremely powerful being. And the ending was an absolute let down. It reminds of erstwhile movies, where to justify a “Subam” end card, everyone would pose for a happy picture.

Gils verdict – If you are a James Rollins fan, this book is not for you. If you are a first time reader of his books, don’t start with this.