Seven Ancient Wonders

Reilly's back and his latest thriller explodes off the page with the force of tornado. He introduces us to a new character, Australian superhero and all-round good-guy, Jack West Jr., whom we meet on the run with nine other people, one of which is a 10yr old girl, named Lily, (which explains the subsequent names) and the rest are Wizard, Woodsman, Fuzzy, Stretch, Princess Zoe, Pooh Bear, Noddy and Big Ears. Other than Lily and the Wizard - an elderly professor capable of matching the fittest trained soldiers from the `mice' nations (as Reilly puts it several chapters later) - the rest are handpicked warriors bristling with every weapon known the man and with a few others borne from Reilly's imagination. The best of the lot is the `warbler' which is to West as the trusty maghook is to Schofield. This creation is able to deflect bullets by emitting a powerful electro-magnetic field. So, we find ourselves sitting back in a comfortable armchair, drink perched on one side having carefully arranged three hours personal time, ready to be taken on the rollercoaster ride that is a Matthew Reilly novel. Take a deep breath, suspend disbelief, forget quibbling about the overuse of punctuation and cliched one-liners and prepare to be entertained in a manner that no Hollywood blockbuster could currently hope to match. The premise (given just after the first mission is completed) is that we are fast approaching the several thousand year old cycle of the alignment of the Tartarus sunspot and the Earth. It turns out that the Great pyramid once bore a golden capstone with a crystal that diverted the power of the sun and gave three options to humanity. The first, to not do it and suffer the destruction of the planet, the second to give peace on Earth and the third to enable a nation to earn a thousand years of supremacy. All of which brings the international best onto the stage to hunt down the prize. To achieve this the task force under West has to reassemble the capstone which Alexander the Great cut into seven pieces and hid at each of the ancient wonders. To compound the problem ,as six of the seven wonders no longer exist they all got moved elsewhere and only a little girl, named Lily, has the ability to read the work of Thoth and translate the text pointing to where each piece is hidden. So, seven wonders, seven missions. The first mission finds the team locating the head of the Colossus in the Sudan. A race against the European team headed by Captain del Piero and the Americans led by West's old mentor, Marshall Judah, with the vicious Cal Kallis of the American CIEF force. The second Mission is for the base of the mirror at the top of the Pharos Lighthouse concealed in Tunisia at Hamilcar's refuge, the third Mission is an inmate break out from Guantanamo Bay via its golf course, the fourth Mission for the Statue of Zeus and Temple of Artemis, it's capstone pieces now located at the Louvre and Vatican. After an interim piece about an attack on the Kenya

I absolutley loved this book. It was fast paced and exciting. I loved the descriptions of the seven ancient wonders. It is one you can't take very seriously, but I mean that in a good way. It has a Indiana Jones type quality that is non-stop action. It is the perfect read when you want to get away from the real world and read something that is engrossing but you don't have to think to hard to enjoy it. I cannot wait for his next book.

As a child I was always interested in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, so it was nice to find a book that entailed these wonders. I thought the action was very good and kept your interest. I have enjoyed all his other books, so I knew I would enjoy this one. There are not enough books written about treasure hunting and all the adventures that happen in finding the treasure. This book gives this to you. I would really recomment reading this book.

I am absolutely dumbfounded by the folks who have given this novel poor reviews, and yet enjoyed Matthew Reilly's previous novels. What were they expecting? I mean C'MON!! Matthew Reilly has repeatedly admitted that his novels placed character development way behind plot and action. Anyone who made it through Ice Station in one piece knows what I am talking about. You either LOVE or HATE these books. This guy writes for the sheer pleasure of seeing an impossible situation MADE possible by adrenaline-filled cartoon-like action sequences that could NEVER be taken seriously by virtually anybody who reads them. Its brain candy pure and simple. A large dose of action followed by an even larger and bigger dose of adventure laced with yet more action on top of a speed-driven storyline. Yes, character development in situations like this will have to take a backseat in order for the story to move forward. Many feel this is an unforgiveable act on the part of the author...I just enjoy it for the fun that it truly IS. Someone already likened the Seven Deadly Wonders to The Da Vinci Code meets Indiana Jones and I definitely agree -- IF Indiana Jones drank about two dozen Red Bulls and topped it off with a Tomahawk Missle. Yes, there are but a VERY FEW novels which can be favarably compared with The Da Vinci Code...The Map of Bones is one, and I think to a lesser extent would be the Seven Deadly Wonders. Now why would I make such an outlandish comparison? Because its TRUE. I doubt very much that Matthew Reilly did nearly as much research as Dan Brown. He certainly didn't do as much character development, but that's okay with me -- it allows for MORE ACTION. I'm sorry, but once you suspend your belief as you begin one of Reilly's novels, you can sit back and get washed up in a tale that is in many cases, literally out of this world. In this novel we have a small group of mercenaries who are charged with stopping a couple of better equipped and certainly better funded military groups bent on collecting the Golden Capstone to the Great Pyramid of Giza in order to stop them from gaining supreme authority for a thousand years. Sure, a bit of the near-supernatural is thrown in just for fun. The Capstone was dismantled and spirited away in pieces to be buried with the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The problem is big and almost insurmountable: Almost nobody knows where ALL the Seven Wonders actually are, and only ONE still exists to this day, and even one is in doubt to have ever existed at ALL. Along the way, the leader of the tiny group against all odds is faced with his old adversary, who says some pretty harsh things and makes it all worse by killing a few people near and dear to his heart. Now as this is happening I knew, I mean I really KNEW that eventually his end was 100% assured and it was going to be rather spectacular and above all: entertaining. Was I wrong? Check it out for yourself and find out. Once again, as I have