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| The 6 Sacred Stones: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Matthew Reilly
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $6.60
You Save: $18.40 (74%)
New (35) Used (29) Collectible (5) from $2.30
Avg. Customer Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 92437
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.6
ISBN: 0743270541
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780743270540
ASIN: 0743270541
Publication Date: January 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A very poorly written book... February 8, 2008
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
How can this author be on the NYT best-seller list, with such terrible writing? The story does not hold together, is childish, and so poorly written that it does not even have a shred of believability. What is with his fascination with "call signs" for each character? The conversation between characters is childish at best, and inane at worst.
Underlying the horrible writing are some clever ideas, but the author is unable to turn them into a novel that has any value. I forced myself to read it, but I could not wait to get the book out of the house.
How about some real characters, real conversation, believable escapes? The novel is filled with completely fabricated and impossible escapes that make it impossible to take the story - or the author - seriously.
Don't buy this book. It isn't worth the paper it was written on.
 entertaining modern day swashbuckling epic adventure December 31, 2007
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
After spending a decade on a quest to obtain the Golden Capstone of the Great Pyramid from the ancient wonders (see 7 DEADLY WONDERS), Jack West Jr. retires vowing no more adventures as that is a young man's game. He and his adopted daughter, Lily move to the Australian outback.
However, Jack's idle idyllic time raising Lily is disrupted when his friend Professor Max "Wizard" Epper arrives in the Outback claiming the world needs Jack's help. Max insists that a strange object he dubs the Dark Sun will arrive in nine days leading to the Apocalypse. To prevent the end of days, someone of Jack's proven caliber must find the six legendary Pillars, clean them using the Philosopher's Stone and insert the pillars in the 6 Vertices. This would turn on the Great Machine that would void the Dark Sun's terminal discharge.
As with the prequel, THE 6 SACRED STONES is a wild over the top fast-paced tale that never slows down from the moment the Wizard drafts Jack. In some ways the story line lampoons the larger than life hero saving the world against all sorts of odds. You don't know Jack about fun action thrillers if you miss Matthew Reilly's entertaining modern day swashbuckling epic adventure.
Harriet Klausner
Half a Book At Full Price January 7, 2008
6 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is one of the worst I have ever read! The story just ends. The hero is falling down a bottomless pit and the world is about to end. Ok, where's the rest of the story? Don't bother spending $50 on this one. It's enough that the characters are bullet proof but at least write an ending that doesn't cost another $25.
Big disappointment January 9, 2008
6 out of 11 found this review helpful
I was really looking forward to a new Jack West adventure. I couldn't put it down but as I got further and further I started wondering how it was going to be wrapped up in some few pages. The answer was - it wasn't. Instead it just ends. What rubbish.
Maybe it should be renamed to "The First Two of the Six Sacred Stones".
Another winner from the KING of ALL Action novelists January 21, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I am a little puzzled at why some people who have read Reilly's previous novels are having a problem with this one (and 7 Deadly Wonders for that matter). What were they expecting? I don't want this to sound the wrong way, but if you've read one Matthew Reilly novel, you've read them all. Certainly they are ALL different, but the action is on a scale that is head and shoulders above ALL authors I am currently familiar with. The storylines are all different, too--but the action sequences on one book are no more outlandish and unbelievable than they are in ANY other book by him.
I LOVED 7 Deadly Wonders. Think of it as the DaVinci Code on a MOUNTAIN of steroids going Warp 9.9. Great story and most importantly: FUN. One thing I really love about Reilly's novels is that he doesn't take himself, or his stories too serious that he sacrifices in order to make everything 100% believable. If you want that, go read a non-fiction book or something by Clancy. If you want absolute thrills that takes action/adventure storytelling to a whole new level? Read Reilly.
The 6 Sacred Stones is a direct sequel to 7 Deadly Wonders. At the end of that book, through the tireless efforts of Jack West and his rag-tag group of heroes, they did something extraordinary that secured Austrailia as the dominant country on the planet for the next 1,000 years. But what Jack and all the others did not know, is that there was a counter to the Tartarus Rotation which eliminates that herculean effort and in effect helps to usher in the end of the world. It's quite a complicated storyline, much more so than anything else Reilly has produced before, and while it's pure fantasy, who cares as long as we have a great time along the way?
6 Sacred Stones takes us literally all over the globe, from China to South America to Dubai and Africa and many points in between including Stonehenge. Creative is one word I could use to describe this book, but I'll use Exhausting instead because that's how it leaves you once you finish. Oh--and talk about a cliff-hanger...! It seems many people are more than a little upset that as the story ends we leave Jack West--who escapes death more than once in this one--literally falling into what could very well be a bottomless pitt without any possible means of survival or rescue. What I personally believe and through experience with previous Reilly novels has taught me is that NOTHING is set in stone necessarily. As I read Ice Station I cannot recall how many times a character was painted seemingly into a corner that was impossible to get out of--and yet that is exactly what happened. Just reading about the prisoner train rescue scene in 6 Sacred Stones ought to give most an idea of just how Reilly manages to snatch characters quite literally right out of the jaws of death...so, do we write off Jack West Jr? Absolutely NOT. He'll pull through...I don't know HOW he'll do it, but mark my words, in the 3rd and final volume of this trilogy, he'll do it.
In short, if you are a fan of Reilly's novels, I honestly cannot see why you wouldn't like this one as well. Be forewarned: the ending is amazingly abrupt and finding out what happens will test our patience in a BIG way...but if you liked 7 Deadly Wonders, you really ought to get a major kick out of additional exploits with Jack West and Co.
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