Seven Ancient Wonders
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| Seven Ancient Wonders | |
 1st edition cover |
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| Author | Matthew Reilly |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Wayne Haag |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Thriller novel |
| Publisher | Pan MacMillan |
| Publication date | October 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 472 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 1-4050-3692-3 |
| Preceded by | None |
| Followed by | The Six Sacred Stones |
Seven Ancient Wonders (Seven Deadly Wonders in the United States of America) is a book written by the Australian author Matthew Reilly in 2005. Its sequel, The Six Sacred Stones was released in the fall of 2007.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
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The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. |
Around 4500 years ago, the capstone upon the summit of the Great Pyramid of Giza absorbed the energy released by the Tartarus Rotation (a monstrous sunspot that occurs every 4,000-4,500 years), and saved the earth from major flooding and catastrophic weather. This capstone was later divided up by Alexander the Great with one piece in a booby-trapped hidden location within each of the seven wonders of the world, in other than the Pyramid. If and when they are reunited and replaced on the capstone during another solar event, they can bring 1000 years of peace or power for the nation which possesses them.
In 2006, seven days before this sunspot is again due (marked by Ra's Prophet, a smaller, less prominent sunspot), the pieces are still divided and 3 teams are trying to reunite them, 2 for their own gain - one from Europe (principally from the 'Old European' nations of Vatican City, France and Germany, led by the Jesuit Francisco del Piero, and covertly representing the Roman Catholic church as a surviving Egyptian sun-cult called Amun-Ra) and the other the CIEF, the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force (an American force covertly representing the power of the Freemasons, and led by Marshal Judah). A third team is an alliance of a group of 'small nations' (Canada, Australia, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Jamaica, New Zealand, and later Israel) trying to reunite the capstone for nobler reasons, led by Captain Jack West, Jr., an Australian SAS man, and Professor Max Epper. This team and the European team each also possess a child of the oracle of Siwa (Alexander with the Europeans and Lily with the "small nations"), who is the only person who can read the "Word of Thoth", a special hieroglyphics system used in the booby-traps. Lily was saved from a booby trap within a Ugandan volcano by West and Epper at her birth by an emergency Caesarian, with Alexander being taken by the Europeans without noticing his twin Lily - in this episode, detailed in flashback, West lost his arm trying to stem the flow of lava that was creeping around them when they try, and fail, to foil del Piero's evil plan to take the child of the Oracle, but was later built a new stronger, artificial one by Maximilian Epper.
Also note: Before any of the events in this plotline, Jack West was injured at an exercise at Naval Base Coronado, during his recovering the Americans implanted him with a tracking device without West's knowledge.
West's team lose a capstone, the head the Colossus of Rhodes to the CIEF but manage to escape and then reach the hiding place of two more pieces at Hamilcar's Refuge on the coast of Tunisia. There they again lose their gains to the CIEF, and again escape.
They then spring Mustahpa Zaeed, the world's foremost authority on the Capstone and a known terrorist, from Guantanamo Bay, who leads them to two more pieces in the Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre and an altar in St. Peter's Basilica. Part of the team goes with West to Paris, where they successfully retrieve the piece and gaining vital information from the Place de la Concorde obelisk, but Epper's group is captured by del Piero at the Vatican, as is West's group on landing back at base in Kenya with the piece. Judah executes Doris Epper, the Professor's wife, for warning Lily of the impending trap, and takes the Paris piece. The survivors escape to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Iraq, but are there apprehended by an Israeli strike team, led by Avenger who managed to track down Archer (renamed Stretch) without him knowing, and trying to get just one piece as a bargaining chip against the European and American teams. West is forced to lead the Israelis to the piece, but the Americans arrive, execute the Israelis, capture the piece and trap West and his team. As the chip flickers off, Judah assumes West is dead, but in fact he has escaped in the Halicarnassus, found the chip and destroyed it.
Francisco del Piero escorts his hostages to Cairo with his lone Piece - taken from St. Peter's Basilica - and, in attempting to capture the CIEF's five pieces, lose the St Peter's piece and Epper and Lily to them. Judah then goes to Hatshepsut's Mortuary, and - with the aid of the measurements from the Paris Obelisk - finds the last piece in the tomb of Alexander the Great. Taking the whole Capstone to the Giza pyramid on the day of the rotation, placing Alexander in the chamber beneath it to ensure the ritual works.
However, Jack West and his team's plane return to stop them. Judah tries to carry out the ritual, but Alexander crawls out to save himself from death, unwittingly ensuring its failure and del Piero's death, then Lily crawls in willingly and Zaeed carries it out successfully. West, however, has switched the soil necessary for the ritual to Australian soil, ensuring 1000 years of Australian world dominion instead. West then kills Zaeed, Cal Kallis (Judah's Deputy), and Judah himself (notably, Judah attempts to shoot West, but his gun explodes because West is Australian and is protected by Tartarus's power), and finds that Lily has survived by (unlike Alexander) going into the chamber willingly.
The epilogue takes place three weeks later, with Wizard and Zoe accompanying Lily across Central Australia. Following a riddle left by West, the three set out to find him beyond the remote town of Death Valley. Upon arrival, they find West intends to bury the Capstone in the abandoned mines and will make future expeditions to recover the pieces of the Mausoleum, Lighthouse and Colossus from their hiding places. They also agree to lie about the events at Giza, describing how they had successfully managed to perform an alternative ritual that would save the world from Tartarus without making any single country invincible.
[edit] Cultural references
- The solar event is named the 'Tartarus Rotation', after the ancient Greek word for hell.
- Lily renames the members of West's team after children's fiction characters such as Noddy.
- A World War II U-boat is found in Hamilcar's Refuge, used by a Nazi expedition to find the piece. This references various popular culture items such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade showing Nazi Germany as setting out to recover occult archaeological artefacts.
- Hans Koeing, leader of the Nazi expedition, now working for the CIEF team, references various other Nazis pardoned and used by America, such as Wernher von Braun.
- The Callimachus Text is a vital plot device, referring to Callimachus, the real-life librarian of the Musaeum in Alexandria, who wrote the famous list of the seven wonders. Here he is held to have been privy to Alexander's splitting up the pieces and thus to have left coded references to that in his list.
- There are numerous references made to Egyptian and Mesopotamian landmarks, notably tombs, monuments and obelisks
- West finds an extinct plant in the Hanging Gardens, and takes one to Australia. The power of Tartarus allows the plant to grow in Australia, and he gives one to Zoe
[edit] The Six Sacred Stones (Sequel)
Matthew Reilly has written a sequel to this novel, called The Six Sacred Stones. It was released on 23 October 2007 in most bookstores in Australia, but some stores released them later (1 November). It was released on 8 January 2008 in the US and UK. Like its predecessor, the main character of the novel is Jack West Jr.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- MatthewReilly.com - homepage of author
