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| View Larger Image | The 6 Sacred Stones: A Novel
by Matthew Reilly
| | List Price: | $25.00 | | Price: | $16.50 | | You Save: | $8.50 (34%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 8057 | | Studio: | Simon & Schuster | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 448 | | Publication Date: | January 08, 2008 | | Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE Unlocking the secret of the Seven Ancient Wonders was only the beginning... After their thrilling exploits in Matthew Reilly's rampaging New York Times bestseller, 7 Deadly Wonders, supersoldier Jack West Jr. and his loyal team of adventurers are back, and now they face an all-but-impossible challenge. A mysterious ceremony in an unknown location has unraveled their work and triggered a catastrophic countdown that will climax in no less than the end of all life on Earth. But there is one last hope. If Jack and his team can find and rebuild a legendary ancient device known only as the "Machine," they might be able to ward off the coming armageddon. The only clues to locating this Machine, however, are held within the fabled Six Sacred Stones, long lost in the fog of history. And so the hunt begins for the Six Sacred Stones and the all-important knowledge they possess, but in the course of this wild adventure Jack and his team will discover that they are not the only ones seeking the Stones and that there might just be other players out there who don't want to see the world saved at all. From Stonehenge in England to the deserts of Egypt to the spectacular Three Gorges region of China, The 6 Sacred Stones will take you on a nonstop roller-coaster ride through ancient history, modern military hardware, and some of the fastest and most mind-blowing action you will ever read. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 53 reviews)
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Fun, but... 
Reilly writes an action-packed thriller but at the cost of shallow characters. It is an enjoyable read although the abrupt ending was disappointing.
September 13, 2008 | |
TOO MUCH DETAIL 
I wish I could read his books. His ideas are super and I love his imagination.. But, I just can't read them - there is soooooooooo much detail, too many diagrams that I get lost in it - and I am a post grad. If only they weren't so detailed. I just don't have time to wade through all the salad for the meat!
September 08, 2008 | |
Entertaining but ultimately flawed
I enjoy Matthew Reilly's books... they generally read like movie adaptations and are fun and exciting. I agree with many of the critical complaints about this book. Reilly's writing style leaves a lot to be desired. I've hated his overuse of italics and exclamation points ever since the first time I read one of his books.
In the Author's Interview at the end of the book, Reilly commented that he envisions this book to be part of an epic. Why not then boldly advertised that on the front cover? "Part 2 of the Dark Sun Saga" would have gone a long long way in making me not feel cheated. Reilly likens himself to Tolkien, but when I read "The Fellowship of the Ring" I knew full well that the story would continue and thus I didn't feel so irritated when there was no conclusive ending.
When I got to about page 350, I finally realized that the story wasn't going to be concluded in this book. It's just pure laziness. He said he realized that the story was too big for one book, so it seems like he just abruptly cut it off. As a result, some characters completely disappear from the canvas. What happened to Lily's twin? Iolanthe? Stretch?
I'm also tired of the fact that apparently every country in the world (U.S., England, China, Japan) is an evil power monger, and only saintly Australia is left as the force of good.
I'll continue to read Reilly's books but I do wish he would improve his literary style.
September 04, 2008 | |
How is Matt going to sell books in the U.S.? 
Wow, does this pain me! I loved Ice Station and Scarecrow, but now the U.S. are the bad guys? Man, I'm sick of hearing that one...next thing you know, Matt'll say the Brits are bad, too...oh, wait, they are in his books! Never finishd the book and won't ever buy them again. If I need to hear how much the world hates our country, I can turn on CNN! In Matt's little world, only this Aussie and the Arab are the good guys! Maybe he should write for the U.N.! What's next Matt? North Korea and Iran will team up to beat the big, bad ole' U.S.!!!! Hey, why don't you make PUTIN the good guy in your next book! It could be a comedy! Next thing you know, he'll have the Aussies bringing in Billions of Dollars in Aid to poor countries when they get wiped out from a storm...but that would be fiction? Of course, in your little world, some people reading your fiction might buy it!!
August 24, 2008 | |
Reilley Back on Track
The commando team and very special little girl from The Seven Deadly Wonders are back to save the world from certain destruction yet again, and their enemies are just as bad as ever. Australian superman Jack West, Jr. leads the pack, this time to recover six sacred stones that need to be found in exotic locales around the world, cleansed by the Philosopher's Stone they also must find, and then put in their special places inside a tight timeframe to prevent the utter destruction of the world. Of course, not only are these six sacred stones hidden in booby-trapped, dangerous places, the other men who want them and the power they will gain by them are hot on the heels of Jack's team, and they aren't afraid to kill whoever gets in their way. Plus, they are led by Jack's arch enemy, his father.
As usual, Jack's team zips around the world in their 747, the Halicarnassus, getting shot at, captured, escaping, and committing dozens of other feats of derring-do while trying to save the world from certain destruction in the nick of time. His writing tends to be a bit juvenile and he scribbles outside the lines of realism quite a bit, but that's Reilly's way. Think of an excitable guy with an Australian accent who enacts embellished stories with lots of expansive arm gestures and a continually rising voice. It's not for everyone, but I must say that Reilly's books are a whole lot more entertaining than a great number of adventure thrillers on the shelves these days, and this book was an improvement over his last two. The action is still coming hot and fast, but this time out, Reilly chose to develop his characters a little bit, and the book really benefited from this effort.
Matt Reilly is not the author for anyone looking for a "realistic" historical thriller, but if you like lots of action coupled with impossible stunts, you like your characters slightly overblown and obsessed with nicknames, and you're a fan of last-minute rescues when everything seems lost, this book delivers. My biggest complaint is that I felt cheated at its abrupt ending, which was really no ending at all. I had a feeling that there would be a sequel when I was about 7/8 through the book and they hadn't even recovered the second stone yet, but I felt that readers should have been warned about this ahead of time. I was a bit disgusted when the book quite literally left us hanging, but not so much that I won't go out and buy the next one, even though I already know how it will end.
August 13, 2008 | |
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