After a selection of quotes, in an attempt to add a sense of grandeur and "epicness" to the proceedings, we start as we mean to go on in this whirlwind adventure:
The Greatest Statue in History
It towered like a god above the mouth of Mandraki harbour, the main port of the island state of Rhodes, much like the Statue of Liberty does today in New York.
Well, I don't think that the Statue of Liberty is quite the same thing, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Finished in 282 BC after twelve years of construction,
280 BC. Sorry to be that guy, but... Really Matthew? On your first page, two sentences in, and you've already buggered up your exposition. This is going to be educational, I can tell. I did a quick internet search, cross-referencing three things, and got the correct date. Fuck. I'm adding a new rule:
Drink when something it historically inaccurate.
it was the tallest bronze statue ever built.
I think there's on in Malaysia which is taller, as well as ones which have been built since, but I'll let that slide. It's the Colossus of Rhodes we're talking about.
At a stupendous-
Stop.
I'm sorry to have to keep doing this, but really? You're on your first page, going for a sense of adventure, and you use the word "stupendous", expecting us to take it seriously? This is already beginning to sound like 14 year old fan fiction, and we're on the first page. A Google search reveals that Matthew Reilly was 31 when he wrote this.
Go on.
At a stupendous 110 feet, it loomed above even the biggest ship that passed by. It was crafted in the shape of the Greek Sun-god, Helios- muscled and strong, wearing a crown of olive leaves and a necklace of massive golden pendants, and holding a flaming torch aloft in his right hand.
98 feet, and if there were ships NOT loomed over by that thing, I'd have been shocked. Though, I now take back my comments about the Statue of Liberty. Also, we're already halfway down the first page.
Experts
Like Matthew Reilly
continue to argue whether the great statue stood astride the entrance to the harbour or at the end of the long breakwater that formed one of its shores. Either way, in its time, the Colossus would have been an awesome sight. Curiously, while the Rhodians built it in celebration of their victory over the Antigonids (who had laid siege to the island of Rhodes for an entire year), the statue's construction was paid for by Egypt - by two Egyptian Pharohs in fact: Ptolemy I and his son, Ptolemy II
I understand he's trying to add some historical basis, but is all of this really necessary? It sounds like the lecture that the main character of a Michael Bay movie would be attending right at the start, to foreshadow the plot. I mean, yes, that's kind of what he's doing here, but do we need all of this? And I cannot be arsed to check if all of this stuff is true. We're only on page 1.
But while it took Man twelve years to build the Colossus of Rhodes, it took Nature 56 years to ruin it.
Oooh! Is "Nature" going to be the villain of this book? Or maybe that's the codename of the main villain. Captain Jack "Nature" Napier, US Marine Corps.
Sorry.
When the great statue was badly damaged in an earthquake in 226 BC, it was again Egypt who offered to repair it: this time the new Pharoh, Ptolemy III. It was as if the Colossus meant more to the Egyptians than it did to the Rhodians. Fearing the Gods who had felled it, the people of Rhodes declined Ptolemy III's offer to rebuild the statue
Ungrateful dicks that they were
and the remainder of the statue was left to lie in ruins for nearly 900 years - until 654 AD when the invading Arabs broke it up and sold it off into pieces.
One mysterious footnote remains.
A week after the Rhodians declined Ptolemy III's offer to re-erect
Hehe, "re-erect".
the Colossus, the head of the mammoth fallen statue -all sixteen feet of it- went missing. The Rhodians always suspected that it had been taken away on an Egyptian freighter-barge that had left Rhodes earlier that week.
As you do. Presumably hidden beneath a tarpaulin or lots of bails of hay.
The head of the Colossus of Rhodes was never seen again.
UNTIL NOW!
And that is the first chapter.
I've coloured the word "head" in red, because italics don't show up very well in this font. Matthew Reilly uses italics a lot in these books. I'm not making a drinking rule for it, because I am not a monster.
Literally, that is the first chapter. Nothing but (incorrect) details of the history of the Colossus of Rhodes.
Would you care to guess the relevance of that information in regards to the rest of the book?
Please submit your answers on the back of a postage stamp.
Oh, and there are three diagrams on the next page, detailing the "South Entrance".
Three shots
Join us next time, when we are introduced to our principal protagonists, and you get to see Matthew Reilly write tension!
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