Decipher (Paperback)

by Stel Pavlou (Author) "With reports surfacing of unusual activity in the region of Jung Chang, a Chinese Research Station based 130km west of Mount McKelvey in central Antarctica,..." (more)
Key Phrases: benben stone, sonic artifact, ice passage, Rola Corp, Bob Pearce, Richard Scott (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In British screenwriter Pavlou's adolescent first novel, it's March 2012 and huge storms are raging around the globe, sparked by giant sunspots. The villainous U.S. Rola Corporation, drilling for desperately needed oil off Antarctica, discovers strange crystalline artifacts covered with a precuneiform script, while radiation detected under the antarctic ice portends the awakening of powerful alien forces. An unconvincing gaggle of scientists discovers they have only one unholy Holy Week to ship a nuclear device to Antarctica and bomb the underwater threat to smithereens. Pavlou builds his unlikely crescendo of Bad Things from nearly every major folklore, myth and religion, dizzyingly cutting between eye-popping disasters and eye-glazing capsule summaries of linguistics, geology, chemistry, mathematics, numerology, cryptology, archeology, ESP and Edgar Cayce. Stripped down to comic book proportions for the big screen, with a deafening soundtrack and a teenage audience anesthetized to a vocabulary largely dominated by four-letter cliches, this often gruesome tale might make a middling SF adventure flick. The often ludicrous dialogue and the ham-fisted handling of human relations and motivations, however, make for an unfocused novel, one patched together like Frankenstein, with every stitching line, every unnatural feature, unblushingly exposed to the most casual glance.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
In a frozen wasteland near the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, a world-weary team of oil drillers jubilantly believes that it has located a major strike. Instead of black gold, however, the men discover a bizarre cluster of rocks with unnatural markings similar to ancient hieroglyphs. Shortly afterward, these enigmatic rocks begin to appear in seemingly unrelated sites across the globe, including the Amazon River and an underground chamber beneath the Sphinx. A crackerjack squad of the world's premier geocryptologists soon determines that the stones are actually composed of carbon 60, a superior energy source previously unknown to modern science. From this point, the plot machinations are revved into overdrive with all the subtlety of an avalanche. Solar flares, Atlantis, ancient Mayan prophecies, the Book of Revelations, and unexplained worldwide cataclysms are tossed into the mix, creating enough fringe ideas to make an Art Bell radio show listener drool. Ludicrous theories about the origins of carbon 60 are proposed, and the narrative is continually peppered with textbook passages that attempt to ground the science in reality. Pavlou does not exactly strike gold with this initial effort, but regardless of its faults, Decipher remains a semiprecious page-turner. For larger fiction collections.
Jeff Ayers, Seattle P.L.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312366965
• ISBN-13: 978-0312366964
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (112 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #791,172 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very entertaining read, March 31, 2005

By	C. Bierdrager - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Decipher (Hardcover)

Well-researched and chock full of interesting information - I really enjoyed this book. The characters were very real; Stel really did a good job, in my opinion, with the human element. It was thoroughly interesting and entertaining, my two primary criteria for fiction. Actually, I would give it a 4.5 (not 4).

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A daring story., March 13, 2006

By	Julie M. Judkins (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Decipher (Mass Market Paperback)

I like my science-fiction a bit mind-bending when it comes to reality. What I really admire about this story is that it actually dares to tie all the following TOGETHER: linguistics, geology, chemistry, mathematics, numerology, cryptology, archeology, precuneiform script, Atlantis, contemporary physics, the pyramids, chaos theory, Solar flares, ancient Mayan prophecies, the Book of Revelations, and unexplained worldwide cataclysms. Check it out.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, February 16, 2006

By	dr_aneesh_desai (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Decipher (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of the best page-turners that I've read in a long long time. It's a totally engrossing story which moves at a very quick pace. The book reminded me of a lot of Michael Crichton's work, in particular the combination of a thriller with cutting-edge science. In fact, if I didn't know who had written it, I would have assumed that he had, so similar are the styles. Impressive considering that it's Stel Pavlou's first novel.

If you like Michael Crichton then this book is definitely for you. A thrilling read from start to finish! I look forward to reading his next novel.