Tome Thursday: Pyramid

Hello everyone!

So last week, if anyone remembers or if anyone read, I talked about David Gibbins and his underwater archaeology books. In a very brief summary of what I wrote then, basically, this is about a team gathered around Jack Howard, who globe-hop a lot and discover strange things left behind by our ancestors, whether this is Atlantis or a meteorite-fashioned swastika, it doesn't matter. Jack is joined in his endeavours by a lot of prominent members, notably Costas Kazantzakis, Maurice Hiebermeyer and his wife Aysha, his daughter Rebecca, and various females ranging from Spaniard Maria to Russian Katya.

Whew, that really was brief. Anyone else already feeling winded?

Anyway, last week, I talked all about the seventh book in the Jack Howard series, titled 'Pharaoh', and dealing with the hunt for Akhenaten, one of those Egyptian guys we really don't know that much about, and what we DO know is now being turned upside down by new discoveries.

History never sleeps, ladies and gentlemen.

Back to the topic at hand: 

When we last saw Jack and Costas, they had just dived down through a shaft to enter Menkaure's pyramid (incidentally, one of the Great Pyramids of Giza), and they saw a light (no, not at the end of the tunnel).

This, as stated by the author, was Akhenaten's 'City of Light', and they had found it.

So, jumping to book eight after I managed to reread the seventh and reacquaint myself with the lunacy of both Jack and Costas (not to mention dear ol' Hiemy), you'd think the moment we open 'Pyramid', we'd finally get to see just what, precisely, Jack saw underwater.

You'd be thinking wrong.

Luckily for my Kobo e-reader, I'm not so brutal as to toss it across the terrace or room, depending where I'm reading, because it's my baby, but if it had been a physical book, I would have chucked it as far away as I did with 'A Dance With Dragons' upon reading about Jon Snow.

Because Jack and Costas are NOT underneath the pyramid. Actually, they're hunting down a lead they saw when they'd first found the sarcophagus of Menkaure in an underwater wreck, something to do with Akhenaten.

And I want to scream with frustration.

BUT.

Luckily, this book is a much more Gibbins-type book, meaning that our two guys do a whole lot of running and diving around, but they actually follow (mostly) one lead, and we get to see the results of that! Also, not too much historic bits in here from other periods, just a brief note about a sapper we've met before once or twice, who finds the entrance that our duo uses later, which is also handy.

Jack thinks they might have missed something in the previous clues, something to lead them to Akhenaten's city, and what this city would even be. At this point, we are also introduced to the Exodus story, and the startling theory that - wait for it ...

... Akhenaten is the Pharaoh from the Bible at that time.

Huh?

Maybe you're gong to say "Oh yeah! Makes perfect sense!" but me, I'm a little more of a confused kitten there. Because I distinctly remember something about Ramesses II and Moses and them growing up and then growing apart and stuff, the ten plagues, etc. etc.

Then again, I think that was Disney's version. It was a cartoon. Also, I found this link here, which explains a lot.

Anyway, yes, the theory for our team is that it's actually AKHENATEN who's the Pharaoh, and he and Moses staged the Red Sea situation, destroying the Pharaoh's army in the process, but letting the Israelites survive and travel to a different, safe destination, to continue with the religion both Moses and Akhenaten felt strongly about, the one-god religion.

Does it smell faintly of Jerusalem yet?

That's right, they went on to found Jerusalem, and there is actually evidence of a lot of unexplored underground tunnels under the actual city proper, older than what one would think.

So we have that, and we're still digging to get under the pyramid, but there's a problem.

Extremists are growing bolder in Egypt, and they're pretty much gunning for anything of Western influence, meaning that things are growing hot - as per usual, in Gibbins' books, which is more in-stride with what I had come to expect from him. 

At this point, Jack and Costas have found another way to enter under the pyramid, and have done so, finding the City of Light - an ancient library full of knowledge from that time; Maurice has to evacuate his institute, saving all he can and getting the heck out of there, as does Aysha - not to mention the rest of the team! But, as is also usual, our duo get caught up in the fray later on, as Jack is recognized (hard not to remember someone well over six feet tall with distinct Nordic influence in bearin) and they are taken hostage. They do escape, barely, and manage to get to the designated meeting spot where they are picked up by helicopter and taken out of Cairo, with the promise to some day return.

Those particular scenes were dificult for me to read, as they were vivid and almost surreal, and you could see in your mind's eye Maurice, his life's work destroyed, as he leans out the helicopter to watch the burning Cairo disappear over the horizon. Or Jack and Costas, watching the same thing, listening to the bombs exploding in the city. 

It made my throat tighten, imagining that.

But all's well that ends well, and the team is safe; Jack decides to make a further step with a woman he has cared for deeply for a while now; and a new mission is on the horizon.

What I especially loved about this book was that, for a lot of the previous ones, as the team has grown and there were more characters to interact with, the integral relationship and friendship between Jack and Costas was sidelined. Not so in this one, where Costas is plunging to the bottom of the sea in a submersible without enough air, and Jack free-dives with only a diver's belt to weigh him down to rescue his best friend.

I mean, come on. We all want friends like that.

This ties the knot on what was two books in the making, and now hopefully they will all go someplace else besides the desert! Like, somewhere with martinis and a beach, possibly.

Costas has been harping about it since book one.

xx

*image not mine