Read-along: Seven Ancient Wonders - Part 17

Let's just get this chapter over with. The prologue of this book goes on for 28 more pages, which makes for a prologue of 72 pages. The book itself is 462 pages long.
A prologue is supposed to be a short, snappy thing to get somebody invested, or to set up a central mystery in the novel. By instead choosing to start this tale in media reas by thrusting us into an action scene where he is hurriedly trying to add some sort of context and character, in a desperate attempt to make us care and have this entire prolonged sequence matter, Reilly has instead set himself a bar which he never surpasses in terms of action and pacing. This entire sequence also adds nothing to the story in terms of plotting or character, so actually makes one wonder why he started here, of all places. We don't care about the characters, as we have not had enough time to get to know them. So if/when they die in this segment, there is no impact.
Fucking Reilly.
The final wall-ladder was embedded in the centre of the Scar itself, flanked by two fiery waterfalls.
Wizard erected another awning over the mini-ledge leading to the ladder, then allowed West and Lily to rush past him.
I thought that we had established that these were "mini" ledges?
"Remember," Wizard said "if you can't get the Piece itself, you must at least note the inscription carved into it, okay?"
"Got it." West turned to Lily. "It's just us from here."
Take three shots. I can't be bothered any more.
Also, when you see how large the Piece is, you'll be sighing at the stupidity surrounding the idea of just taking it.
They crossed the mini-ledge, came to the rough stone-carved ladder.
Drops of fire rained down on it, bouncing off their fireman's helmets.
We've already established that the fire does nothing to them due to their fireman's helmets, so why is he bringing it up again?
Every second or third rung of the ladder featured a dark, gaping wall hole of some kind,
Gay porn count: 25
which West nullified with 'expand and harden' foam.
Gay porn count: 26. Keep that tension coming, Matthew.
"Jack! Look out! More drop-stones!" Wizard called.
West looked up. "Woah, shit...!"
Jack West is a genius. When I'm told that there are things falling from a great height, I don't move out of the way, oh no. That's not THE JACK WEST WAY!
Never do anything the "West Way".
Unless, of course, moving to the West is the only way to avoid something, in which case, carry on. You'd be an idiot not to. Like Jack West Jr.

Moving on.

A giant drop-boulder
Why call them "drop-boulders"? Surely "boulder" will do? Anyway, I thought they were "drop-stones"?
Fuck it.
slicked with oil
Gay porn count: 27
and blazing with flames came roaring out of a recess in the ceiling directly above the ladder and came free-falling towards him and Lily.
"Swear jar..." said Lily.

"I'll have to owe you."
They have this conversation BEFORE moving?
West quickly yanked an odd-looking pistol from his belt - it looked like a flare gun, with a grossly oversized barrel. An M-225 handheld grenade launcher.
Take a shot for the equipment porn.
Then vomit up that shot, because that grenade launcher pistol does not exist.
Without panic, he fired it up at the giant boulder free-falling towards them.
The grenade shot upwards.
The boulder fell downwards.
Thanks for that.
This may be the most ridiculous moment so far, and let's not forget that Wizard and West have deflected bullets with science.
Then they hit and -BOOM!- the falling boulder exploded in a star-shaped shower of shards and stones, spraying outward like a firecracker, its pieces sailing out and around West and Lily on the ladder!
Take two shots.
BULL
SHIT.
They would be stone-cold fucking dead. Even if they weren't, the shock would leave them with sound ringing in their ears and they'd be stunned for a while, long enough for another boulder to land on their head. Or for a European to throw a rock at them. Or a hand grenade, because those don't seem to be affected by the Warblers, since West's grenade gun wasn't. And don't tell me that the Europeans don't have rocket or grenade launchers, as that is also false. For one thing, they use them later.
Maybe we'd be better following a more interesting hero in the novel. Horus, perhaps.
Let's just move on from West detonating boulders with his imaginary grenade pistol (Which, by the way, he never again uses for the rest of the novel) and hopefully finish this damned chapter.
West and Lily scaled the rest of the ladder, flanked by flames, until finally they were standing at the top of the Scar, at the top of the giant rockface, past all the traps.
Clarification three times? Three shots!
They stood before the trapezoidal door at the peak of the fire-filled cavern.
"Okay kiddo, you remember everything we practised?"
She loved it when he called her kiddo.
Great? Of all of the things to develop characters with, and of all the things to use, you choose this? It just makes her sound more saccharine and annoying as a character than it did before. It's also a weird thing coming out of West's mouth.
Yes, I get that the point is for there to be a dichotomy between "West the Mysterious Soldier" and "Awwwwww, West the Father Figure to this ADOOOOORRRRRRRABLE Girl!", but I'm not biting, Reilly.
Fuck you.
"I remember, sir," she said.
And with a final nod to each other, they entered the holy inner sanctum of Imhotep V's deadly labyrinth.
Why doesn't he capitalise "inner sanctum", is it not important enough? He's capitalised everything else so far.

I don't even care anymore.
It gets stupider from this point (well, stupider than grenade pistols, exploding rocks, falcons, bullet deflectors and bridge building German brigades anyway), so I'll leave it for a while. I promise I'll get back to this.
Unfortunately.

Read-along: Seven Ancient Wonders - Part 16

The spectacle of Imhotep's Master Snare going off was sensational.
Allow us to infer that from your descriptions, Matthew. Do not tell us what things are supposed to be like if you cannot describe them as that.
Also, gay porn count: 23. I don't want to know what Imhotep's "Master Snare" is, and I certainly don't want to be there when it goes off.
Blasting streams of black crude oil shot out from the hundreds of holes that dotted the cavern: holes in the rockface and its side walls.
OIL! Now we know why the Americans are headed here...

Dozens of oil waterfalls flowed down the rockface, cascading over its four levels. Black fluid flowed out from the sidewalls, falling a clear 200 feet down them into the croc lake.
Black fluid? You can say "oil", Matthew.
The crocs went nuts, scrambling over each other to get away from it - disappearing into some little holes in the walls or massing on the far side of the lake.
The crocs went nuts? Is this the Australian in him coming out?

In some places of the great tiered rockface, oil came spurting out of the wall, forced out of the small openings by enormous internal pressure
Gay porn count: 23.
Worst of all, a river of the thick black stuff came pouring down the main course of the Scar, a vertical cascade that tumbled down the vertical riverbed, overwhelming the trickle of water that had been running down it.
Down the vertical shaft, with a vertical trickle of water, with a vertical action, down the vertical wall. I honestly don't think that the worst thing to happen here is a river of oil. I have many, many more suggestions of what could happen:
1. Pirate attack
2. The oil could be falling from the ceiling.
3. The walkway could collapse
4. The oil could be on fire.
5. Horus could be dead.

This man's music could be playing. Although, this scene would be made a lot better if "How Can We Be Lovers if we Can't be Friends?" was playing.

And then the clicking started.
Take a shot. Can you guess what is going to happen next?
The clicking of many stone-striking mechanisms mounted above the wall holes.
Striking mechanisms made of flint.
Colour me amazed. Take a shot.
Striking mechanisms that were designed to create sparks and...
WE GET IT!
Just then, a spark from one of the flints high up on the left side wall touched the crude oil flowing out from the wall-hole an inch beneath it.
The result was stunning.
Take a shot. Why do you keep doing this, Matthew? Why do you hurt me so?

The superthin waterfall of oil became a superthin waterfall of fire...
... then this flaming waterfall hit the oil-stained lake at the base of the cavern and set it alight.
Matthew. Please. you sound more and more like an excitable 8 year old on a sugar rush.
The lake blazed with flames.
The entire cavern was illuminated bright yellow.
The crocs screamed, clawing over each other to get to safety.
Then more oilfalls caught alight -some on the sidewalls, others on the rockface and, finally, the great sludge waterfall coming down the Scar- until the entire Great Cavern looked like Hell itself, lit by a multitude of blazing waterfalls.
Say what you like about that scene, "Blazing Waterfalls" is a great name for a heavy metal album. Though, I have to admit, that is a pretty cool image that he's conjured up right there.
Thick black smoke billowed everywhere - smoke which had no escape.
This was Imhotep's final masterstroke.
If the fire and traps didn't kill you, smoke inhalation would, especially in the highly prized upper regions of the cavern.
Highly prized? Why? This trap is also overdoing it a little bit. It also further undermines West's obsession with "the rules" (I'm sorry, that still really pisses me off), because how can one follow "the rules" when the entire place is rigged to kill you anyway? It's not a battle of wits, it's like an unused trap from the Saw movies.
"Fools!" del Piero raged. Then to his men: "What are you standing there for? Finish the crane! You have until they get back to the Second Level to do so!"
He's still my favourite character.
After Horus.
West's team was now moving faster than ever, leapfrogging each other beautifully amid the subterranean inferno.
That's a good sentence, I'll let that slide.
Up the rockface they went, first to the left along the Second Level, crossing the left arm of the Scar before the thick fire-waterfall got there, dodging wall-holes, jumping gaps in the ledge, nullifying the traps inside the arched forts that straddled the narrow walkway.
And you've buggered up, again, Matthew. I know you want to keep the pace quite fast, but that sentence was all too brief.

Why, Matthew? Why?
(Also, that woman is Kyoko Koizumi, an amazing actress who was in "Tokyo Sonata", which is a fantastic film that you could be watching instead of reading this)

Droplets of fire were now raining down all around them -spray from the oilfalls- but the fiery orange drops just hit their firemen's helmets and rolled off their backs. Then suddenly West's team ran past the unfinished arm of the Europeans' crane and, for the first time that day, they were in front.
In the lead in this race.
Take a shot. GOD DAMN IT MATTHEW! WE GET IT!
Up the wall-ladder at the end of Level 2, on to Level 3, where they ran to the right, avoiding some chute-traps on the way and coming to the fiery body of the Scar. Here, West fired an extendable aluminium awning into the Scar's flame-covered surface with his pressure gun.
It's tenuous, but I'm making that "pressure gun" reference our 24th count of gay references.
The awning opened lengthways like a fan, causing the fire waterfall to flow over it, sheltering the mini-ledge. The team bolted across the superthin ledge.
Again, I'm going to have to halt you there, Matthew.
Aluminium (I'm glad that you haven't used the American spelling "aluminum") melts at 660 degrees Celsius. That is fairly hot.
The wall of infernal, ungodly crude oil raining down upon that awning?
That is a bit hotter.
Now, granted, it will take a little while to truly melt through the awning (Who carries an "awning gun" anyway? I'm pretty sure that they don't exist...), but the sheer force of heat will make going through that a tad difficult, especially if the ledge really is as narrow as he makes out, and they are clambering up a ladder to get to the next level, slowing them down considerably.
Then it was up another ladder to the Fourth Level -the second highest level- 
You've stated before that it is 5 levels high, Matthew. Our attention spans are not those of the average "Smurfs 2" viewer.
and suddenly six 10-ton block boulders started raining down on them from way up in the darkness above the giant rockface.
But Matthew's, it seems, is.

One day, we shall not have to read this. One day...

The great blocks boomed as they landed on the diorite ledge of Level 4 and tumbled down the rest of the tiered wall.
"Get off the ladder!" West yelled to the others.
This is the most sensible thing he has done. It is also an incredibly obvious thing to do, however, so it disqualifies him from "World's Greatest Leader" this year.
"You can't dodge the boulders if you're on it-"
I think that I now know what degree West got, and it was clearly at the university of Plymouth.
Too late.
Take a shot.
As West called his warning, a boulder smacked horribly into the last man on the ladder, Fuzzy. The big Jamaican was hurled back down the rockface.
Dead.
He's so dead.
He landed heavily on the Third Level -setting off a trap of spraying flaming oil (it looked like a flamethrower) but he snap-rolled away from the tongue of fire- 
NO!
You cannot firstly have the character survive that, then be in perfect physical condition, then add that pathetic, fucking stupid fucking hopelessly fucking shitty childish description in brackets! I'd missed that bracketed phrase on my first re-reading of this, truth be told, and now that I've noticed it, it gets more annoying the more that I look at it.
Why is Fuzzy the last on the ladder? Did Lily slow him down? Is he weighed down with the seemingly endless supply of equipment that he is carrying? Did wizard force him to stay at the back? How is he able to avoid a trap like that by simply rolling? How is he able to roll when he's just been hit by an enormous boulder? Why isn't Fuzzy just a smear of Jamaican jam?
Maybe these questions were about to be answered just before I rudely interrupted. I'm sorry, Matthew, please continue
in the same motion avoiding a second boulder as it slammed down on the ledge an inch away from his eyes!
Fuck you Reilly.

His roll took him off the ledge, but Fuzzy managed to clasp onto the edge with his fingertips, avoiding the 30-foot drop down to Level 2.

I'm leaving it there, this week. There's more on the next page, but we've been going for long enough. The next entry will be a short one, as we've only a page and a half to cover, before we get onto more stupidity.
We're only 44 pages in.
44 pages.

Read along: Seven Ancient Wonders - Part 15

The Seven hit the base of the rockface. 
The building-sized wall towered above them, black as the night.
Big Ears had already done his work, disabling two hand-chopping traps halfway up the rock-cut ladder.
More excitement, only this happens off screen! This just gets better and better.
Now Princess Zoe leap-frogged ahead. She moved with great athleticism, easily the match of the men.
Did she literally leap-frog? I know that they're having their actions and style dictated by an annoying child, but this is ridiculous. The fact that Reilly has to point the athleticism of the character out is a testament not only to his piss-poor writing ability, being yet another example of telling us rather than showing us, but is also a little suspicious and patronising. Is he implying that ladies are lesser than gentlemen in other circumstances, and that this is an exception which proves the rule?
He can't write male characters, let alone female ones of any substance or depth. The closest we get is this:
About 30, she had shoulder-length blonde hair, freckles, and the luminous blue eyes at only Irish girls possess.
Only Irish girls possess? Reilly mustn't be very well travelled. I suppose we should be thankful that he didn't make Zoe and Big Ears redheads...
Onto the First Level she flew, raising two aerosol cans as she did so, filling two wall holes with a dense expanding foam.
EXTREME GRAFFITI! And did she actually fly?

Radical, Reilly, Radical.
This reference was also compulsory. I'm a little disappointed that it has taken me 15 entries to insert an Avril Lavigne reference.

Whatever evils were in those wall holes were caught by the foam and neutralised.
That's the end of that then.
Expanding foam is the way to defeat all evils, you heard it here first, folks!
Fire? FOAM!
Crocodiles out for blood? FOAM!
Spikes and boiling oil? FOAM!
Cthulhu? FOAM!
No sooner had she done this than she was leapfrogged by the seventh member of the group, the tall, thin trooper named Stretch. Once known as Archer, he had a long, sanguine, bony face. He hailed from the deadly Israeli sniper unit, the Sayeret Matkal.
From my research, the Sayeret Matkal isn't a dedicated sniper unit, it's a reconnaissance and intelligence gathering unit modelled upon the SAS and engaging largely in counter-terrorism works. Emphasis in training is on small arms, reconnaissance, martial arts, camouflage, navigation and intelligence gathering skills, as well as other essential abilities for surviving behind enemy lines, after the unit was re imagined as a commando squad in the 1970s. It's notable for its members not wearing any kind of insignia, which ironically denotes and identifies them as members of the Sayeret Matkal.
Yes, snipers are involved in the army and trained in units, but the Sayeret Matkal is not a dedicated sniper outfit. Stretch is more likely a trained sniper hand picked for the Sayeret Matkal, or a man who joined it and later applied to be a sniper, displaying a natural aptitude for it. I don't proclaim to be an expert, but from what little knowledge I have, the research I have done and how I have been informed special forces and selection for such groups works (by friends in the Armed Forces), this is how I believe it goes down.
A better choice of "mysterious unit" for Stretch to have worked for would have been Kidon, the secretive branch of Mossad, upon whom information is scarce, and thus he could have invented anything. Or even better, he could have chosen the Shaldag Unit, who are known to carry Mauser SR 82/66 sniper rifles (continuing with his gun porn theme) and are the commando force based within the Israeli airforce, the significance of which will become apparent later on when we deal with the team's most retarded member (as if these guys weren't bad enough...).
I'm sorry for that miniature rant, I didn't mean for it to go on for so long, considering my limited knowledge of military workings, but I've not called out Reilly on his misinformation for some time now, and what better time to do it?
Stretch arrived at the right-side arm of the Scar, where he triggered a huge trap from a safe distance: a bronze cage that fell out of a dark recess in the Scar and clattered down into the lake.
How did he trigger it? Did he shoot it?
Had any of the team been walking along the foot-wide mini-ledge in front of the recess, the cage would have caught them and taken them down to the lake, to be either eaten by the crocs or drowned under the weight of the cage itself.
Oh, I wonder if this will be a trap which affects the enemy forces? Is this exciting yet?

Now West and Lily took the lead, crossing the mini-ledge across the Scar, stepping out onto the centre section of the First Level.
Here they found the trigger-stone for the Master Snare at the base of the wall-ladder leading up to Level 2. West made to step on it-
"Captain West!"
No, this is not a sensible character warning West to heed the warnings in the book so far, this is something actually kind of stupider.
West froze in mid-stride, turned.
Del Piero and his troops were staring up at him from the base of their half-finished crane, holding their useless guns stupidly in their hands.
Now, that's just childish.
He also missed an opportunity to tell him that he looked: WEST!
"Now, Captain West, please think about this before you do it!" del Piero called. "Is it really necessary? Even if you trigger the Master Snare, you are only postponing the inevitable. If you do somehow get the Piece, we'll kill you when you try to leave this mountain. And if you don't, my men will just return after the Snare has run its course and we will find the head of the Colossus and the piece of the Capstone it contains. Either way, Captain, we get the piece."
I like del Piero. He is the only character in the entire book thus far to speak any kind of sense, or to have any logical thought. His plan is exactly what anybody would do in this situation, and is the safest course of action for all concerned. Why trigger the traps and get people killed, when you can let the psychopathic assholes trigger it, then just murder/beat up them and take the thing you need?
I wish del Piero was the hero of this book.
West's eyes narrowed.
Take a shot. Can they narrow anymore?
Still he didn't speak.
Take a shot. That sentence is also out of place, because we've heard him speak, only a few pages ago.
Del Piero tried Wizard:
That sounds like he's taking some hip new street drug.
"Max. Max. My old colleague, my old friend. Please. Reason with your rash young protege."
Take three shots. I would pick him up on that exposition-like dialogue, but del Piero is still far more sensible and likeable than our protagonists, so I'll let it go.
Wizard just shook his head. "You and I chose different paths a long time ago, Francisco. You do it your way. We'll do it ours. Jack. Hit the trigger."
West just stared evenly down at del Piero.
"With pleasure." He said,
And with that, he stomped on the trigger stone set into the floor at his feet, activating the Master Snare.
Fuck's sake West.
Take 6 shots for those sentences, two thirds of which are from Wizard's "dialogue" alone. Take another 5 shots for West's monumental arrogance and stupidity. "Oh look at me! I'm untamed and will beat the traps!" He does things solely because it's the opposite of what del Piero wants. He's like a child throwing a temper tantrum, and I can only react thus:

Fuck you, Jack West Junior, and see you next week.