Product Description

AN ANCIENT SECRET . . . A TEAM OF HEROES . . . THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME

A legend of the ancient world decrees that every 4,500 years, a terrible solar event will wreak worldwide destruction . . . but whoever sets the Golden Capstone atop the Great Pyramid at Giza will avert disaster and gain the ultimate prize: a millennium of world dominance.

Now the Sun is turning once again and nation will battle nation to retrieve the missing Capstone . . . but a group of small nations, led by super-soldier Jack West Jr., bands together to prevent any one country from attaining this frightening power. Thus the greatest treasure hunt of all time begins -- an adrenalinefueled race on a global battlefield.

From the Colossus of Rhodes to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon to the Great Egyptian Pyramid itself, unlock the thrills of

SEVEN DEADLY WONDERS

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #862824 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-20
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Amazon.com Review
Mathew Reilly's 7 Deadly Wonders is a lot of things--fast-paced, clever, action-packed. But mostly it's perfect for a Jerry Bruckheimer treatment. The novel reads like a screenplay meets video game with one harrowing chase after another.

The breakneck action stems from an Egyptian sun cult which has hidden pieces of the capstone to the great pyramid in the husks of the seven wonders of ancient world, leaving clues that would flummox Indiana Jones. Here's the deal: whichever nation can locate and assemble the capstone in time for a cosmic event designed to end life on Earth will rule the world. Enter a ragtag team of commandos representing non-superpowers (read, in a Da Vinci Code context, not the European Union, the United States or the Vatican) who stand to lose in this eventuality. The team pits itself in a race against the formidable forces of the western world, cosmic calendar, and traps set by ancient-wonder-hider, Imhotep V. Complete with Mario-Brothers-style drawings, the book lurches from one great escape/victory/defeat until its final climax atop Cheops' Pyramid. It's a thrilling ride, perfect to enliven a lazy vacation or long plane ride. The real question is: Brad Pitt or Matthew McConaughey?--Jeremy Pugh

From Publishers Weekly
Full-stop "Screams. Splashing. Crunching. Blood" punctuate and come to epitomize Reilly's (Area 7; Ice Station) latest video game–style thriller about a race to find the seven pieces of the Golden Capstone that once sat atop the Great Pyramid at Giza. Two millennia ago, Alexander the Great broke the Capstone into seven pieces and hid them in the seven ancient wonders of the world. According to legend, whoever finds and replaces them during a rare solar event called "Tartarus Rotation" (predicted for March 20, 2006) could secure a thousand-year reign of absolute power. The race is on, and among the contenders are the United States, a coalition of European nations (and the Vatican), an Islamic terrorist group, and a team of smaller nations (including Canada, Ireland and New Zealand) led by the novel's hero, Australian Jack West Jr., a next-generation Indiana Jones. The Europeans, goaded by evil Jesuit Francisco del Piero, and the U.S., headed by Jack's nemesis Col. Marshall Judah, want the Capstone for their own aggrandizement, while Jack's noble team believes it's too potent to belong to any one superpower. The "greatest treasure hunt in history"—a nonstop roller-coaster ride that lurches around the globe—might make a summer blockbuster—if American audiences will swallow their compatriots as the baddies. (Jan.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* Some readers might look at Reilly's new novel as a calculated attempt to cash in on the success of The Da Vinci Code and its ilk. Someone with a less-cynical spirit will see it as a wildly fast-paced, hugely entertaining caper novel. The story is perfect for the big screen, assuming certain logistical and plausibility problems can be solved: a small international team of commandos, plus a scientist and a 10-year-old girl, dash around the world in a retrofitted Boeing 747. Their objective: to navigate through ancient traps set by an Egyptian architect and find the far-flung, long-lost Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and, with them, the seven pieces of the golden capstone of the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Their competitors: large, heavily armed contingents from the U.S. And Europe. At stake: the fate of the world. Many thriller writers are accused of producing first-draft screenplays that pretend to be novels. Reilly, on the other hand, writes movies in book form: his storytelling is almost purely visual, made up of scenes that leap off the page and project themselves on the screen in the reader's mind. Combine that with likably larger-than-life characters and an engaging, no-frills prose style, and you have a novel that grabs readers by the hand and pulls them along until they're out of breath. It is impossible (even for hard-core cynics) not to love this big, boisterous, action-filled adventure. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

"Power drives men mad."
In Matthew Reilly's new adventure novel, "7 Deadly Wonders," teams from various countries are racing against time to find the Golden Capstone that once stood atop the Great Pyramid at Giza. Alexander the Great broke the Capstone into seven pieces and hid each piece in one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In 2006, a rare solar event called the Tartarus Rotation is scheduled to occur. Whoever assembles all seven pieces of the Capstone at this particular time and under certain specific conditions will gain absolute power for the next thousand years. The American faction, led by a ruthless soldier named Marshall Judah, has a strong army with unlimited firepower. Francisco de Piero, a fanatical Jesuit priest, guides the formidable European contingent. Trying to stop the Americans and Europeans is a small group known as the Nine, representing such countries as Australia, Ireland, and Israel. Seven are soldiers, one is an elderly professor, and the final member is a ten-year old girl named Lily. The leader of the Nine is an Aussie named Jack West, also known as Huntsman. He is Lily's guardian and, over the years, she has come to love and admire him.

"7 Deadly Wonders" is all plot, with scarcely any character development. The book is filled with evil spells, complex codes, numerous chase scenes, bloody confrontations, and a great deal of sophisticated hardware. As the various contenders vie to uncover pieces of the Capstone, they are beset by numerous obstacles, mostly in the form of traps that are reminiscent of the Indiana Jones movies. Spiked boulders rolling down inclines, molten lava, hungry crocodiles, quicksand, and descending ceilings are a few of the many impediments that stand between the seekers and their prize. Reilly includes drawings to clarify the elements of the search, but most readers will be confused by the multitude and complexity of the clues. At one time or another, a character in the book mentions "The Da Vinci Code." This is an apt reference, since "7 Deadly Wonders" may be an attempt to capitalize on the success of Dan Brown's huge bestseller.

Reilly's writing style is adrenaline-fueled. He overuses exclamation points, capital letters, and italics to indicate that something exciting is happening. The villains are one-dimensional and the good guys constantly escape from the most impossible situations with seconds to spare. I liked Reilly's nifty gizmos, including a specially outfitted 747 that enables the Nine to elude capture, and there are a few moments of sweet sentiment between Lily and her protectors. Overall, however, "7 Deadly Wonders" is a derivative and poorly written thriller that will disappoint all but the most hard-core action junkies.

A Group of Archeologists Races to Save the World from Certain Destruction
The easiest way to describe 7 Deadly Wonders is to say that it is a book written for the music-video generation. With two-page chapters, multiple short sections and headings per chapter, and lots of illustrations and diagrams, this book is perfect for readers who have short attention spans and need constant action rather than any literary nuance or character development to get them through a nearly 400-page novel.

Matthew Reilly's success comes from his ability to write page-turning action suspense. This book is certainly exciting--almost overly so at times. In some ways the book reads more like a screenplay than a novel. Without question it will be made into a movie, and the screenwriters who adapt the script will have a very easy job. For that matter, even the set designers will have had most of their work done for them, since Reilly has peppered his book with so many visual cues rather than relying on the more traditional use of words to convey images.

7 Deadly Wonders is without question a good, fast read. It's fast-paced, not overly lengthy, has a decent plot, and keeps the reader's attention. The characters are shallower than a kiddy wading pool, so there's not much complexity to bog the reader down. Imagery and description are used sparingly, again because of the presence of so many illustrations and diagrams. The action is intense--which is generally a good thing, though by the end the unrelenting danger the characters face becomes a bit wearisome.

The book is about a small group of militant archeologists trying to save the world from destruction. Every five thousand years, a period of intense heat and drought is brought about when the rotation of the sun brings the earth directly in line with the Tartarus Sunspot. When this happens, most of the world's population will die. Fortunately, the ancient Egyptians were aware of this problem, and they devised a means of preventing it. They fashioned a gold and crystal capstone to sit atop the Great Pyramid at Giza that could absorb most of the excess energy coming from the sun. Curiously, this capstone also endowed its user with absolute power over the entire earth for a thousand years.

The problem is, the Tartarus Sunspot is only days away from wreaking its havoc on the earth, and no one knows where the capstone is. Delegations from America and Europe are frantically searching for it, using ancient texts and clues buried at the sites of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But a number of smaller nations aren't sure they trust America or Europe to use their absolute power properly if they should find the capstone in time. So they compile their own delegation to locate the ancient relic. And the race is on.

The book's action and cursory examination of all seven of the ancient wonders of the world almost make up for its lack of depth. There's no sexual content at all, and profanity is kept to a minimum. Even so, there is some objectionable content deriving from the author's proclivity toward meeting modern readers' demand for conspiracies involving the Catholic Church. The church, according to the book, is nothing more than the modern equivalent of the ancient Egyptian cult of Amun-Ra and is put on the same level as the American "cult" of Freemasons.

The book has other problems as well. It contains more loose ends than a frayed sweater and has more dangling plot threads than metaphors. Few of the fantastic story elements (fantastic meaning "fantasy-like," not "great") are supported by explanation (such as a ten-year-old girl's ability to read ancient dead languages simply because she is the child of an "oracle"). The amazingly intricate (and lethal) booby-traps the team discovers during their archeological quests are right out of the Indiana Jones movies, but with one exception, no means is supplied for the reader to imagine how they might actually work three thousand years after their creation. And American readers might raise eyebrows at the author's portrayal of the Americans in the story as greedy criminals who want nothing more than to mistreat the Australian hero (Reilly is Australian).

But for all its problems, it book is still highly enjoyable. The conspiracy theory it presents isn't as compelling as the one Dan Brown presented in The Da Vinci Code, but the chase scenes and archeology are fun to read and make the book difficult to put down. The ending is satisfying, if far-fetched. The characters are likeable, though shallow. The villains are very evil (and American), and the heros are very heroic. It's not for readers who prefer "serious" literary works, but like I said, it's perfect for the music-video generation.

Where the heck was the editor?
I'm all for suspending disbelief and I enjoy a good little mindless adventure. It was a lot of fun reading through a book with non stop, albeit slightly silly adventures, sort of allows ones brain take a little holiday. That being said, though, I spent the larger portion of this book wondering where the heck the editor went. I mean wow! This book makes a bigger use of exclamation points than I've ever seen! It's sort of like having a conversation with an excited 11 year old girl! Lets not forget the liberal use of italics! Just in case the exclamation points didn't get the point across well enough! Let's hear it for enthusiastic writers! It was similar to reading a story written by my eleven year old daughter! Actually, I was a little disappointed in the book! I usually really enjoy Reilly's books, but the editing of this one drove me...well..crazy!! Okay, I'll stop with the punctuation now...! (Sorry had to do just one more..)