What do You think about Seven Deadly Wonders (2006)?
This is not a novel , it might look like a novel with stunning cover page, complete with 472 pages and priced like a real novel but it’s not a novel at all. It’s a collection of notes, pictures, and some ‘Indiana Jones’ kind of action sequences in which our protagonist and his team member’s try to avoid the trap of ancient buildings etc,. There is no STORY at all, not a real plot only a grand tour of so-called seven ancient wonder’s of world.This is bad, very bad, head aching bad, jaw dropping bad, very bad. The description is even bad and lazy like ‘boom boom goes that, boom boom boom goes this, splash, thawak, WHUMP, crack and many more. Those description will make you think that you are not reading a novel instead you are reading a comic book.Story opens with every one is on the run and on the run we get their mission, we get the names of team member (code name’s also) and we get some villeins as usual trying to destroy the world. every one good guys & bad guys are in race to collect the seven parts of the cape stone of the Giza’s pyramid which are hidden by Alexander in seven pieces in so-called seven ancient wonder’s of the world. they need to collect all the seven pieces and assemble them & place them on Giza pyramid before the solar event else world will end!The bottom line is don’t waste your money and time on this nonsense book, highly highly not recommended to anyone.
—Sayed Khadri
Seven Deadly Wonders introduces a new character by Matthew Reilly to me, Jack West Jr. It's very hard to follow in the footsteps of Shane 'Scarecrow' Schofield, because, well, he's the man! But I have to say I really do like Jack. What's not to like about him? He's a fun character. Honorable, intelligent, athletic, dedicated, daring, and lethal to the bad guys. And being a girl who grew up on Indiana Jones, and wanted to be her own version of the adventurer, Jack has an Indiana Jones in a modern setting appeal. I thought this story was a clever idea. I had watched a documentary on The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and they inspired a great awe in this history buff. To read a story in which our intrepid heroes track down these wonders, not for selfish reasons, but to save the world, was both interesting and exciting. This is one of those books I could not read quietly, which makes me happy I wasn't trying to read it in mixed company. It is full of scenes where I gasped out loud regularly, verbally and under my breath yelled insults at the bad guys, cheered and laughed. This is the brilliance of Matt Reilly. He is one of those writers that engages you and gives you a fun read that takes you out of your regular world and into danger and adventure. It's not always without loss or risk, because sometimes you lose characters you grew fond of along the way. In the end though, I know that good will win out. If it didn't in these books, I wouldn't be a Matt Reilly fan anymore.I liked the found family that I met with Jack and his team. I am a tremendous sucker for a father figure hero. Even though Jack isn't the touchy-feely type, you can tell he loves young Lily like crazy, not as a mere means to an end or a mission. (view spoiler)[ I almost cried when she called him Daddy and it shocked him in a good way. Yes, I am a sap, which you probably know already! (hide spoiler)]
— Danielle The Book Huntress (Self-Proclaimed Book Ninja)
If you took all the action scenes from the Indiana Jones movies and edited them together, skipping all those pesky talkie parts, you would have something akin to this Matthew Reilly book: a thrilling thriller thrilled by its own exuberance. It’s a book that literally flies along—kind of the way it flew off the used book table at the church flea market and into my hands, which in turn forced me to part with fifty cents.I tend to judge books in the Cussler/Rollins/Preston genre by the number of times I tear my eyes from the page so I can roll them. This made me dizzy. So preposterous is the plot (and I use the work expeditiously so you won’t think there is one) I gave up on trying to figure out if there was anything even slightly believable and simply went for the sheer bravura of it all. Once you do that—a good time will be had by all.The first 127 pages are pure action--one sequence after another. There are three factions searching a lost tomb built by Imhotep V (how many more where there?). The tomb is carved inside a mountain and loaded with traps: crocodiles (how did they live underground for four hundred years?), pits with poisonous spears (if the spears don’t get you the poison…), rivers of flaming oil (apparently ok for crocodiles to live in), massive boulders crashing towards the ever-inventive raiders (does anyone know, or care, Spielberg borrowed the rolling boulder in the first Indy movie from a 1960’s adventure film staring Pat Boone?), and on and on. There are high tech gadgets galore, creative pitfalls and imaginative escapes.Somewhere in the midst of chaos, the reader is allowed to glean a couple clues as to what the hell is going on: Kufu’s pyramid had a gold capstone. Alexander the Great carved it into seven pieces and hid them in the Seven Ancient Wonders—even though two were built after the time of Alexander and only one still exists (that we know of). Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. If they can’t be found and reassembled on top of the pyramid, the world of 2006 will come to an end . . . or, something like that.Along the way the band of merry raiders knock over the Winged Victory of Samothrace (in the Louvre) climb the Paris Obelisk at the Place de la Concorde, free a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay, destroy the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and pretty much demolish every artifact they come in contact with. Again, no matter . . . it’s all for the testosterone high. The average chapter length is two or three pages. There is no sexy female protagonist gushing over the Dirk Pitt type alpha male which is a good thing—avoiding at least one cliché. The situations are inventive—and, of course, preposterous—and when the author includes copious diagrams because his descriptions are inadequate, or at least way too confusing, you know the world just might have collapsed in 2006. We just weren’t told.
—Patrick Gibson
