Are you still with us?
I'll give you a moment to recover from the harrowing death of Pooh Bear. Oh Pooh Bear, we hardly knew you. At his funeral, we shall play "Ave Maria" and "Arab Money" and remember his life by dropping giant rocks on the guests and having the eulogy be a dismissive racist ramble by Wizard.
The previous diagram is actually very helpful in the segments which follow. Since he doesn't really explain the layout very well, I'll try to do so in bullet points:
- It's basically a giant sheer cliff face
- There's one long stairwell criss-crossing up it
- West's team arrive on the right hand side (if you're facing it)
- The Europeans are on the left hand side, armed with a giant crane.
- There are "trap holes" built into the wall.
- This particular trap is effectively one enormous pachinko machine.
The Grand Cavern
West poked his head up through the manhole to behold a truly awesome sight.
We'll be the judge of that, Reilly. Stop complimenting your own writing. I can assure you that it is not worthy of it.
He was at the base of a gargantuan cavern situated right in the belly of the mountain, a cavern easily 400 feet high.
A former rock quarry, it was roughly triangular in shape, wide at the base, tapering to a point at the top.
West was at the extreme sound end of the cavern, while opposite him at the northern end, one hundred yards away, were the Europeans: with their floodlights, their troops... and a half built crane.
Cursed Europeans! Those young folk, with their "technology" and their "sensible things". Don't they know that you're supposed to turn up with only a thong and some flip flops and run the gauntlet of traps, getting all of your people horribly murdered in the process? Fucking amateurs... How dare those European psychopaths try to do this safely and bypass the traps! You can tell that they're evil...
Without doubt, however, the most striking feature of the cavern was its charcoal-coloured diorite rockface.
The rockface rose for the the full height of the cavern, soaring into the darkness beyond the reach of the Europeans' floodlights: a giant black wall.
As a quarry, the Egyptians had mined this diorite seam systematically - cutting four narrow edges out of the great wall. So that now the rockface looked like a 30-storey office building that had been divided into four step-like tiers.
Why? Does it have windows? Is there an over-abundance of stationary? Are middle management looming over their heads and pushing deadlines upon them, whilst trying to remain "friendly" for the office environment?
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| Um, yeah, if you could go ahead and, uh, finish those Diorite Excavation Reports before Lily gets another line, that'd be greaaaaaaaaaaaat. |
Each ledge ran for the entire width of the rockface, but they were perilously narrow: barely wide enough for two men to stand on side-by-side.
If that wasn't already dangerous enough, Imhotep V had adapted this already unusual structure into a masterpiece of protective engineering.
In short, he'd laid hundreds of traps all over it.
Why didn't you use that line in the first place, Matt? Although, simplifying your prose even further is unnecessary and does you no favours whatsoever. An interesting thing to note is this: Matthew Reilly apparently is a perfectionist where it comes to his books, frequently cutting and editing multiple drafts more than most authors do.
He still thought it fit to keep those lines.
The four narrow ledges swung back and forth, each rising steadily before ending at a cut-into-the-rock ladder that led to the next level.
So, Donkey Kong? I'm actually a little surprised that Titus Pullo or some other character hasn't made that comparison in the texts, to make it "cool 4 teh kidz yo!"
The only exception was a wall-ladder between the first and second levels: its ladder was situated in the exact centre of the cavern equidistant from the northern and southern entrances, as if Imhotep V was encouraging a race between rival parties who arrived at the same time.
Since each narrow ledge was cut from pure diorite, a grappling hook would be useless - it could never get a purchase on the hard black stone.
Unless it's a diolite hook, or a regular grappling hook for that matter, we've been through this Matt.
To get the top, one had to traverse every level and defeat the traps on them.
And how many traps there were!
Oh for fuck's sake, Matthew.
Is this an Edward Lear poem? Well, fuck it, it is now. I hereby promise to create a nonsense poem based upon "Seven Ancient Wonders" in the same style as Edward Lear's "Owl and the Pussycat".
Small arched forts dotted the great wall at irregular intervals, spanning each of the ledges, concealing traps.
Hundreds of basketball-sized wall-holes littered the rock-face, containing God-only-knew what kind of liquids.
Is this prose or a character? I also would like to change my answer as to who I think the 9th (Well, 8th now that Pooh Bear is gone) team member shall be, based solely upon the idea of basketball sized holes:
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Come on and Slam!
And let's beat Uncle Sam!
Come on and Slam!
Let's get out of this Jam! |
And where holes were not possible,
Porn count: 16
long stone chutes slid snake-like down the rock-face - looking a bit like upside down chimneys that ended with open spouts ready to spew foul liquids over the unwary intruder.
Porn count: 17. Are you sure you're not doing this on purpose, Matthew?
Seeing the holes, West detected the distinctive odour of oil in the air - giving him a clue as to what might come out of some of them.
OIL! Now we know why America is interested in this place! West is the greatest detective ever! Like a cross between Adrian Monk and Columbo, but with a metal arm! This could change genre and become the adventures of TV's greatest detectives, making the book infinitely better and actually giving us a reason as to why they can predict all plot which happens, no matter how insane!
Starring Jack West as Kojak, the Metal Armed Psychopath!
With:
Princess Zoe as DCI Vera Stanhope! Made sexy for Hollywood! Though, that's not to say Brenda Blethyn isn't sexy...
Wizard the Amazing Racist as Detective Andy Sipowicz!
Big Ears as Ironside! Only, he has a rocket chair and is played by Titus Pullo.
Fuzzy as Luther!
Pooh Bear as Monk!
Horus the Falcon as Magnum Motherfucking P.I
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| How I see Horus in every scene. |
Stretch can be Ellery Queen.
I would pay a ridiculous amount of money to make this series happen.
I am also fully aware that half of that list are dead and the other half elderly or not on the air anymore.
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| Poor Ellery Queen... Was I the only one to watch Ellery Queen? |
And there was the final feature.
The Scar.
New rule: Drink when he capitalises something unnecessarily.
And take a shot.
This was a great uneven crevice that ran all the way down the rock-wall, cutting across the ledges and the rockface with indifference.
Like a cat?
It looked like a dry riverbed, only it ran vertically instead of horizontally.
We are aware how directions work.
At the top of the cavern, it was a single thick crevice, but it widened towards the base, where it forked into two smaller scars.
A trickling waterfall dribbled down its length, from some unknown source high up inside the mountain.
To cross the Scar on any of the four ledges meant either tip-toeing across a foot-wide mini-ledge or leaping across a small void... in both cases in front of wall-holes or other shadowy recesses.
Gay porn count: 18.
The trickling waterfall that rolled down the Scar fed a wide lake at the base of the rockface - a lake that now separated West and his team from the European force, a lake that was home to about sixty Nile crocodiles, all variously sleeping, sloshing or rolling over each other.
And at the very top of the colossal structure: a small stone doorway that led to this mine's fabled treasure.
The head of an ancient wonder.
Take a shot.
It's nice to have our title dropped 34 pages in.
Peering over the rim of the manhole, West gazed at the Europeans and their half- finished crane.
With envy, presumably.
As he watched, dozens of men hauled more pieces of the crane into the cavern, handing them to engineers who then supervised the attachment of the pieces to the growing machine.
In the midst of this activity, West spied the leader of the European expedition, the Jesuit,
That's... racist?
del Piero, standing perfectly erect,
Gay porn count: 19.
his hands clasped behind his back. At 68, del Piero had thinning slicked-down black hair, ghost-like grey eyes, deep creases on his face, and the severe expression of a man who had spent his life frowning at people.
Here's another problem with Reilly: his villains always look evil and his heroes always look like glowing, healthy, happily perfect specimens of humanity. Observe how this is easily turned on its head:
A firm, confident, upright man, he had soft grey eyes and the expression of a studious, learned scholar.
That will be del Piero. And compare:
He had a long, straggly beard, and lean, hungry eyes. He was a dismissive, elderly man, clutching a notebook closely to himself, muttering under his breath.
And that'll be Wizard.
It's really that easy.
But it was the tiny figure standing next to del Piero who seized West's attention.
Was the word "seized" really necessary? It's a little violent. I know he used it rather than "captured" or "caught", so as to further the urgency and speed, due to the connotations of the word. Yet it's so... poor.
A small boy.
With black hair and even blacker eyes.
Evil. Also, take a shot.
West's eyes widened. He had seen this boy before. Ten years ago...
Woah! Three shots!
The boy stood at del Piero's side with his hands clasped behind his back, mimicking the imperious stance of the old Jesuit.
He seemed to be about Lily's age.
No, West corrected himself, he was exactly Lily's age.
First of all take a shot for the repetition.
West having seen this boy before is explained later, unfortunately, but still raises a question: how does he recognise him?
It's also pretty obvious, to anybody who isn't an avid Matthew Reilly reader, that the boy and Lily are twins. Now, I had forgotten all about this character until I reread the book for this blog, and he's supposed to be the "Evil" version of her, the "dark mirror" thing that authors like doing with siblings, largely as a result of being raised by the evil old Jesuit. Yet he doesn't truly demonstrate anything besides being haughty and proud, and arrogantly assured of his status (which is actually totally justified due to plot, but we're getting ahead of ourselves here) and he is also FAR less annoying that Lily, partly due to having less screen time. One last thing:
How are they "exactly" the same age? One will be a few minutes older than the other. It's a trivial difference (unless you have a twin sibling, in which case the elder one holds it over the younger's head with glee), but still:
Take a shot for that.
West's gaze shifted back to the crane
It was a clever plan.
Once finished, the crane would lift the Europeans up over the first ledge and land them on the second.
Not only did this allow them to avoid about ten traps, it also enabled them to avoid the most dangerous trap of all in this cavern:
The Master Snare.
Of course it's a clever plan, Matthew, it's how any sensible person would traverse this booby-trapped structure if they needed to do so quickly.
Take a shot for that three word sentence, and another for the capitalisation.
West knew all about it from the Callimachus Text - which he suspected del Piero and the Europeans could have had a copy of. That said, they could have become aware of it from other ancient texts written by Imhotep V.
That section was just bizarre to read. Reilly is mentioning a key plot item (the Callimachus Text) which explains a few things later, and stating that it's so important as to have the villains also possibly operating from it. But he then immediately shuts that down. Why was it there? If it's to show a little of West's strange thought process, then it's too little too late, as well as an odd place to put it. If it's to show off how "cool" and "clever" West is by having read up on this beforehand, then it's simply unnecessary and also makes West seem like a smug, self-centred prick. But, he is a smug and self-centred prick...
I take it back, then, this was entirely necessary.
While the other Imhoteps had their own signature traps, Imhotep V had invented the Master Snare, a trap that was triggered in advance of the system's innermost vault - thus making the final leg of the journey a matrix of trap-beating versus time. Or as Wizard liked to say: "Beating booby-traps is one thing; beating them against the clock is another."
Gay porn count: 20. Does Wizard really say that? I think that he needs a snappier catch-phrase. It also sounds like something he'd say to a group of black people at a Klan meeting before they begin "The Hunt".
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| Since it's Wizard we're talking about here, how about making his catchphrase: "No hood? No good!" |
That said, the Master Snare was not so crude as to destroy the entire trap system. Like most of Imhotep's traps, it would reset itself to be used again.
It's nice to see the Egyptians recycling. You can say what you want about the murderous trap systems and psychotic compartmentalised death machines of this obsessive-compulsive madman: He did at least have the concerns of the environment at the forefront of his mind.
No, in most cases the Master Snare left you in a do-or-die predicament: If you were good enough, you could take the treasure. If you weren't, you would die.
Clarification is wonderful, isn't it?
The Callimachus Text stated that the trigger stone for the Master Snare of this system lay in the very centre of the first level, at the base of the ladder there.
Wizard appeared at West's side, peered out from the manhole.
"Mmm, a crane. With that, del Piero and his men will avoid triggering the Master Snare. It'll give them more time up in the Holy of Holies. Very clever."
"No, it's not clever" West said flatly. "It's against the rules."
"The rules?"
"Yes, the rules. This is all part of a contest that has been held for the last 4,000 years, between Egyptian architects and grave robbers. And this contest has an honour code - we attack, Imhotep V defends. But by skipping a major trigger stone, del Piero is cheating. He's also showing his weakness."
"Which is?"
"He doesn't believe he can beat the Master Snare." West smiled. "But we can."
There are five shots based on short sentences alone here, so take them at your leisure. There is also a lovely return of the dialogue which would actually be better as simple prose.
Do you remember only a few pages ago that West and his team bypassed a bunch of traps with their use of hand rungs and rivet guns? And do you remember the various pieces of equipment that they have used thus far to get through in ways which were never intended by the architects?
Yes.
West and his team are hypocritcal fuckbags.
It's not stupid enough that West believes in triggering every trap and horribly murdering all of those trying to do this safely (because he's an asshole), but he cannot even follow this supposed "code of conduct" himself. If you're going to get the team killed (the team which you will run to the ends of the Earth for and seem to treat like an extended family, if the death of Pooh Bear is anything to go by) with your odd ideas about honouring this system, then you can at least die with them. THAT is honour.
You don't think that in "The Wasp Factory", if a wasp found a way out due to an error in construction, it wouldn't take it? You think that the wasp would sit there and think to itself: "No, actually, this is a fair system, I'm supposed to die in here, because using that exit would be cheating and defeating the purpose of this game."
Of course not.
So we are supposed to believe that del Piero is evil, based upon the sheer basis that he looks old and grumpy and doesn't want to trigger the death mechanisms (Also the name of a my new heavy metal album) which would surely kill the innocent members of his team who are only following orders?
Fuck you, Jack West Jr.
This is stupid writing.
And as to whether or not he can indeed beat the trap, we shall see.
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| The Wasp Factory is also a very good book. |
West dropped back down to the base of the ladder, turned to his tea of six.
"Okay kids. This is what we've trained for. Leapfrog formation, remember your places. Lily, you're with me in the middle. Fuzzy, you're the point for the first disable. Then Big Ears, Zoe and Stretch. Wizard, you'll have to cover for Pooh Bear, who was going to cover the fifth, I'll trigger the Master Snare."
That phrase "who was going to cover the fifth" is more clunky exposition dialogue which is also completely redundant if the reader is able to count.
Calling your team "kids" is also not going to endear the to you. Wizard is definitely older than you, Pooh Bear, Stretch and Big Ears are definitely in their 30s at least (probably older in the case of Big Ears) and they are all trained soldiers, not amateur grave robbers.
We've been told that they're soldiers.
Except for Stretch, actually. We only know he's tall and thin. Maybe he's just a mechanic, or a man they use to reach things on shelves.
Everyone nodded, game faces on.
Take a shot. Not the for the length, but the idiocy. That is a retarded sentence.
West turned to Wizard. "Okay, Professor. You got those Warblers ready? Because as soon as we break cover, those Europeans are going to open fire."
"Ready to go, Huntsman." Wizard said, holding up a large gun-like object that looked like an M203 grenade launcher.
A gun-like object.
Held by a human-like figure. In a hand-shaped appendage.
Take three shots.
Warblers will make their big entrance soon. They are the second of Wizard's inventions which we meet.
Don't you think it's nice of West to call Wizard "Professor" as well? After all of this time calling him by his codename. They're supposed to be close as well, aren't they? So why not "Max"?
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| "Mad Epper: Racist Road" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. However, it is oddly appropriate, all things considered... |
"I'll need maybe four seconds before you can make a break for it."
"I'll give you three."
This isn't negotiable, West. Who's the scientist here?
They all put their hands into the middle, team-style,
Get it? Because they're a team...
and called "Kamate!", after which they broke, with Wizard leading their way up the ladder, into the fray.
Kamate is Maori and roughly translates (according to my research) as "'tis death!"
Way to psych up your team there West, especially considering how you're Australian, and not from New Zealand. Come to think of it, none of the team are. It is thus a mystery as to how they decided upon that as their big team chant.
See you next chapter. I need a drink.
