The great god-sized head
You have small gods, Matthew. It's also a poor choice of description, as Gods are an indescribably thing, of great power and omnipotence. You may be trying to hint at the power possessed by this head, but [SPOILER] that is not actually within the head, so it renders such a point mute. Gods are enormous creature of myth, legend and splendour, whilst this is a gigantic head.
rose up from this oil pool like a creature rising from primordial slime.
Now he's mixing metaphors. Gods and evolution? It's good that Reilly's covering all of his bases.
It sat on no holy pedestal, no ceremonial island, no nothing.
Double negative. Take a shot. Or maybe Matthew's trying to add some philosophy into this?
Suspended above the pool was an extra problem: several flaming torches now blazed above it, lit by ancient flint-striking mechanisms.
Somebody was certainly blazing when this was written.
Take a shot for that obvious joke.
They hung from brackets attached to the end of the entry-hall's lowering ceiling-meaning that very soon they would touch the pool... and ignite it... cutting off all access to the Colossus' head.
This was WAY more patronising than usual. Take a shot. I do have a question: How far down do they go? There must be an optimum point for the torches to reach the oil without submerging themselves in it. A second question: despite the throwaway line of "flint-striking mechanisms", what lit these torches and how are they burning? A third question:
Why?
"Time to run," West said.
"You bet, sir,"Lily replied.
That dialogue... I have no words for it. Its beauty, its elegance, its simple poetic nature has left me an incandescent fountain of inarticulate joy at the perfection of the written word.
Take a shot.
Are you enthralled, yet?
Smoke now began to enter the chamber from the outside, creating a choking haze.
I hope this isn't a comment on Fuzzy's activities...
They came to the oil moat.
Spread word, fair maidens! The travellers have come to the oil moat! Pray tell, what did they do there?
"If Callimachus is correct, it won't be too deep," West said.
Scratch that! I don't want to know!
I'm not going to make any jokes here, at this point where West is talking about depth to a girl he has taken into a darkened chamber.
Without missing a step, he plunged into the pool-plunging to his waist in the thick, goopy oil.
"Jump," he said to Lily, who obliged by leaping into his arms.
They waded across the moat of oil -West striding with Lily on his shoulders- while above them the fiery torches continued their descent toward the pool, the entry-hall's ceiling coming ever lower.
With his exit fast-diminishing, Jack West Jr. stopped a few yards short of the head of the Colossus of Rhodes.
Why did he use his full name here? And why did he give the head its full title? Does Reilly truly think that we have forgotten who this man is and what this enormous ("god-sized", remember) head are?
Take a shot.
That being said, Jack West is hardly a memorable character, so I can forgive Reilly just this once.
It towered over him, impassive, covered in centuries of mud.
Much like interesting characters.
Each of its eyes was as big as Lily was.
That's... nice.
Its nose was as big as he was.
That's... nicer? Where are you going with this, Reilly? We know it's big, you have established this thrice now.
Its golden crown glimmered despite its mud coating, while three golden pendants hung from a chain around its neck.
The pendants.
Has Reilly just had a brain-wave and committed it to the page? Has he made a note here to put an important plot point in the pendants, and his editors have left it in?
Take a shot.
This is stupid.
They were each about the size of an encyclopedia and trapezoidal in shape.
Bullshit. Reilly's never read an encyclopedia.
Embedded in the exact centre of each pendant's upper surface was a rough diamond-like crystal.
I wonder if these are important...
On the front slanting side of each pendant was a series of intricately carved symbols: an unknown language that looked kind of like cuneiform.
In general, in a Reilly book, if there are details on something, then that thing is important to the plot. However, plot items will usually be discarded, unless they are guns, whereby they become literal Chekov's guns. It does bug me that he used "kind of like" as a descriptor. I get that he is trying to make it sound as if Jack West Jr. is thinking this, but it's so jarring to have that coming from this character in general, let alone from the prose.
It was an ancient language, a dangerous language, a language known only to a chosen few.
And now Jack West will sing a song for you! I would like to know how a language can be dangerous. Maybe rogue juxtaposition will come out of nowhere and bring an end to this nonsense...
West gazed at the three golden pendants.
Haven't we been assuming that he has been gazing at them all this time already, hence the pain-staking lengths to describe them and the aforementioned colloquial dialogue?
One of them was the Second Piece of the Golden Capstone, the mini-pyramid that had once sat atop the Great Pyramid of Giza.
I've seen this movie! It's The Mummy Returns! Seriously, there's that scene right at the end where the heroes are fleeing the death pyramid, and there's a diamond at the top, which Jonathan Carnahan picks up!
 |
| Just watch The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. They're practically the same as this, but more fun and with more John Hannah And more airships. |
Comprised of seven horizontal pieces, the Golden Capstone was perhaps the greatest archaeological artefact in history-and in the last month, it had become the subject of the greatest worldwide treasure hunt of all time. This piece, the Second, was the segment of the Golden Capstone that sat one place below the fabled First Piece, the small pyramid shaped pinnacle of the Capstone.
Fucking riveting. I'd never have guessed where it went in relation to the others. Aren't you glad Reilly rectified that?
Three pendants.
Take a shot.
But only one was the correct one.
And choosing the correct one, West knew, was a do-or-die proposition that all depended on Lily.
And then they died.
