Saving the World from Sudden Death
Last week, I came across an article that examined the possibility that the apocalypse had already happened and that we, humans, were not aware of it.
While the article itself wasn’t actually about any kind of apocalypse, but rather, a commentary on the way dystopias and “end of the world”-type narratives have been represented differently over the years (from Brave New World to The Matrix), it made me think about superhero and other action movies, where the protagonists have to SAVE THE WORLD.
While they’re running around punching out bad guys, solving puzzles and preventing the UTTER DESTRUCTION of the world, the rest of humankind go about their daily lives, totally unaware that they were inches away from annihilation.
In Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly, the protagonist who has to save the world is Jack West Jr, who was once part of the Australian Armed Forces and is now the leader of the Alliance of Minnows (made up of representatives from a group of nations including Canada, Australia, Ireland, UAE, Spain, Jamaica, New Zealand and Israel).
This Alliance, whose main motivation is to save humans, is up against two other teams — the Europeans (who represent the Catholic Church) and the Americans (who represent the Freemasons), who have less noble motivations.
What Jack West Jr has to save the world from is a massive sunspot that occurs every 4,000 - 4,500 years, which releases enough energy to cause major flooding and cataclysmic weather on Earth.
In the book, humans from a prior era had managed to evade this by planting a capstone on the summit of the Great Pyramid of Giza. This capstone absorbed all the energy that the sunspot (known as the Tartarus Rotation) released and saved the Earth.
Because of its power and what it could do for the nation that possessed it, Alexander the Great divided the capstone into pieces and hid them in different booby-trapped locations, which humans have come to know as the Seven Wonders of the World.
The story takes place in 2006, seven days before the sunspot is due to come around again. The pieces are still divided and the three teams, each with their respective motives, are on the search for them.
In order to solve the puzzles required to disable the booby traps at each location, the team has to understand the “Word of Thoth”. In the book, this is a special hieroglyphics system that only two people in the world can read and understand.
Jack’s team has one of these two people — a little girl named Lily, whom he had raised with help from his team. The other is Lily’s twin brother, Alexander, who had been raised and brainwashed by the Vatican.
Adventure ensues. And in typical military thriller pulp fiction fashion, the whole book consists of all the teams running around, trying to best each other at solving puzzles or forcing their way through the booby traps, all with the aim of being the one to plant the capstone.
It was a super fun read that I managed to get through within just a few days (despite being extremely busy). Jack West Jr is the type of brooding, intensely male and macho character that I always find terribly attractive — a lot like James Bond but Australian, less polished, with a lot more rough edges.
With it’s straightforward language and fast-paced story, it’s not the kind of book that you have to process too much. This makes it perfect for reading while commuting, or in bite-sized amounts in between appointments.
Definitely follow it up with the two other books about Jack West Jr, The Six Sacred Stones and The Five Greatest Warriors.
Although I was in the middle of expanding my wholesale vape service, I still managed to finish those two books within three days. They were amazingly fun reads, and gripping enough so that I couldn’t put it down until I was done.
The good guys are superbly good and the bad guys are horrifyingly evil. There’s no need to think while enjoying these books.
If you’re looking for something to read while travelling or for something to take your mind off your stressful job, this series by Matthew Reilly is perfect! My only complaint is that there are only three books…
*Jeannette also writes at http://jeannettegoon.com/
