Black Order
James Rollins
 In Black Order, the Sigma Force team members risk their lives to get to the heart of one of humankind's greatest mysteries: the origins of life itself, the true reasons of evolution. The opening of the novel in Breslau in 1945 is heavily inspired by the non-fiction book The Hunt for Zero Point by Nick Cook. Much of the plot mechanics revolve around The Bell, a device that the Polish researcher Igor Witkowski claims was a Nazi anti-gravity machine. In Rollins's novel, The Bell is a quantum measuring device that is said to control evolution. The plot begins when strange "ghost lights" appear in the Himalayas and soon after a mysterious illness affects everyone in the proximity, but the story revolves around the idea of Nazi warfare and the psyche of the human entity. The legend featured prominently and formed the core of Rollins' book's story line. In the foreword to Black Order, "Note from the Historical Record", Rollins states his belief that the Bell was a real Nazi weapons development project: "All that is known for sure: the Bell was real. " Rollins does not directly cite Witkowski, Farrell, or Cook but sections of his novel are heavily influenced by all three authors' books, although Rollins tends to interpret "The Bell" as a zero-point energy generator, incorrectly attributing the zero-point theory to Heisenberg (while in reality it was Einstein's idea).