On a similarly pedantic note, at one point he describes a cross shaped room as being 'cross shaped', then later describes an identically shaped room as being '†-shaped'. He couldn't seem to figure out which one he should use so did what I used to do on French exams and used them both alternately, figuring he'd get at least half of them right. Then the next time he said hieroglyphics, and I died a little. At their first appearance Reilly called the symbols hieroglyphs, and I rejoiced. They kind of give the impression that the author doesn't quite trust in his ability to describe the current location, or the reader's ability to imagine it.įinally, and most anally, there's a lot of Egyptian writing mentioned in the book. I present my favourite sentence in Seven Ancient Wonders:Ī perhaps misplaced issue I had with the book is the presence of schematic diagrams of the various places visited in the text. The three issues above are infused in a sentence of comedic genius about half way into the book. If this were a tv series and those dots represented seven days between broadcasts then they would invoke a lot of tension, but when they involve dropping my eyes to the next line, something they have to do every dozen words anyway, all it does is irk.

… and then was resolved on the next line.

Far too many times something dramatic started happeneing… If something dramatic happens in a book I assume I'll notice, I don't really need an exclamation mark to tell me.Īnother punctuation mark of choice is the ellipsis. I'm honestly not used to seeing these outside of speech. He also has a thing for exclamation marks. I got the distinct impression he read his first draft and decided there just weren't enough slanty letters, so dropped italic dust all over each page, oftentimes on words that don't even need emphasis. There are some issues with the book and I'll get them out of the way quickly. I'm used to suspending my sense of disbelief when reading, but I wasn't aware when I started it that Matthew Reilly books require the reader to completely disregard the physical rules of our universe, maybe if I'd been forewarned I'd have enjoyed the book more. Judging the book by its cover I assumed it would be god-awful pop fiction riding the Dan Brown bandwagon, so I of course picked it up and read it today on a return trip to Oxford. Amongst the 2008 editions of Marie Claire magazines was this book.

A few weeks ago someone in my apartment building left a bunch of old magazines and recipe books in the lobby on a shelf that acts as a kind of internal charity shop.

Seven deadly wonders book