In spite of board exams round the corner, i just can't seen to make myself study. My mind is constantly looking for new things to do. In all this, I found myself reading a book yesterday, again. And as i am, i can't stop myself from completing a book when i start reading one. The same happened this time around.
Well, the book was "Six Sacred Stones" by Matthew Reilly. It's the second book in the Jack West Jr. series, the first one being "Seven Ancient Wonders". As it happens to be 6SS was'nt the complete story. The rest of the story is in "Five Greatest Warriors". So, to know the full story i read 5GW too.
The novels are about celestial events, that threaten life on the Earth. Yeah, much like 2012, that everyone has seen. A sun spot in the first book and a super powerful ball of anti matter the size of our sun in the final two books which are an extension to confucius' theory of duality.
In 7AW , we see earth bearing the brunt of a horrific sun spot Tartarus, the hottest place on sun's surface. To counter its effect our protagonist, Jack has to find all the seven ancient wonders of the world and recover from them the seven parts of the mysteriously missing capstone of the great pyramid of Giza. Then they perform an ancient rite performed last by Alexander the Great. Sounds easy ? Well, there is a catch. All the major powers of the world are after the capstone as performing the rite will give a nation the power to rule over the world for a millenium. These include the US, the EV and a small team representing some small countries of which the leader is Australia's Jack West Jr. So he and his team fight through various traps protecting the ancient wonders and fighting against their enemies to finally perform the rite and give the power to rule the world to Australia.
In 6SS however this rite is undone by a Japanese doomsday group. Then there is the discovery of a dark twin of our sun (not by scientists but by one of Jack's researcher friends in old cave inscriptions). This dark sun is actually something called a zero point field which emits radiations in a spectrum unknown to humans which have the capability of destroying the earth as we know it. It has an effect pretty much like the neutrinos have in 2012. But it seems that an ancient civilisation, long before the present human civilisation has built a machine that can neutralise the effect of this dark sun. To do this, again a rite has to be performed which involves the smallest part of the capstone of the previous book, pillars which are basically bricks of diamond with helium 3 inside them in an ellipsoid container. These pillars have to be charged using the capstone piece, the philosopher's stone, basin of Ramses (an egyptian pharoah) amd water from the spring of black poplar. So our team embarks upon another adventure to save the world. During the course of this adventure, it becomes clear that this time the enemies are far evil than the last time and it will be really tough to emerge the winner. Each pillar has to be placed at a certain 'vertex' and the holder of the pillar will be rewarded with some extraordinary gift. So naturally, everyone wants them and will in to any ends to stop Jack, who just wants to save the world and wants nothing to do with the rewards. Eventually he succeeds and the world is a happy place again.
Matthew Reilly is known for his break neck speed thrillers, a reputation he clearly upholds in this series. This is an amazing story, mixing immense action, mythology, history and conspiracy theories. A must read book for anyone who likes over the top stories.
It was an amazing experience reading these books and really revitalized my mind. Woefully, however, it makes it more difficult to study for the exams and has awakened a fire within me to read more novels. Hopefully, it will stay dormant till may when i will be able to restart my reading frenzy.
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