Seven Deadly Wonders

by Matthew Reilly

  If you want totally rigid reality in weapons, vehicles. and formal military procedures, authors like Tom Clancy and Nelson DeMille have those areas covered.

  With 7 Deadly Wonders I am trying for a Lord of the Rings–scale adventure with a Star Wars feel; a story that is certainly not real, but which when viewed from the very limits of our current technology could be; a story in which the sheer outrageous adventure of it all trumps the contraints of reality. That’s what I mean by a “modern real-world fantasy”.

  Q: How was the writing of 7 Deadly Wonders different from the writing of your other books?

  MR: It’s funny, but for some reason the writing of this book was a more solitary experience than the others—if anything, it felt a lot like the writing of Contest. Perhaps that’s because the subject matter of the book, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, is so ancient, so distant, so alien to us, that I was creating most of the story from pure imagination (rather than from actual sources—some of the stuff on the Wonders is pretty flimsy). As I did when I created the aliens in Contest, I just had to create these mystical places, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, for example, from scratch.

  Q: What did you try to do differently with this book?

  MR: For me, the key difference between 7 Deadly Wonders and my previous books is the theme of “family” in it. The team of international soldiers guarding Lily ultimately becomes a family—complete with grandparents (Doris and Max Epper), squabbling brothers and sisters (Pooh Bear, Stretch, Big Ears, and Zoe), and the father-like figure of Jack West.

  This was a thematic thing that I started in Hover Car Racer and I enjoyed it immensely when I wrote that novel. In the end, when you write an action-thriller novel, you must have characters that you care about, and by creating this quasi-family environment out of a bunch of hard-ass troopers, I felt I’d created a special kind of team that readers would want to cheer for.

  I particularly love how Lily renames all the soldiers, changing all their tough-guy call signs into goofy childish nicknames. Having utilized ‘serious’ call signs in the Scarecrow books, I felt it was time to have a bit of fun, and turn this plot device on its head.

  Q: Is it true that for this book you created your own language?

  MR: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I created a language! What I did do was create an alphabet (not unlike cuneiform) to display the Word of Thoth—but my translation is just from English, not a brand-new language. That would have been way too hard and time-consuming. I’ll leave that sort of thing to J.R.R. Tolkien!

  It took some time, but it was great fun. I created symbols to match those of our own alphabet, plus rules for proper nouns and special symbols for certain objects (like the Great Pyramid, Alexander the Great, and the Sun, for instance). If anyone has the time and the inclination they can translate all the Thoth references in the book back to English, but be careful, as in the novel, it gets harder, as more symbols are used, and sometimes not from left to right!

  After the book has been out a while, I’ll put up the alphabet on my website, so that anyone who’s interested can see how it works.

  Q: With the exception of Jason Chaser in Hover Car Racer, 7 Deadly Wonders sees the introduction of your first Australian action hero. What made you decide to make Jack West Jr. an Australian?

  MR: It suited the story. Simple as that. I’m often asked why the heroes of my other books are American and the answer is really the same: it suited those stories (it especially suited Ice Station).

  Q: You mention The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown a couple of times in the novel. Have you read it? Did it influence you?

  MR: I have indeed read The Da Vinci Code and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I actually read it long before it dominated the bestseller lists—when I was touring with Scarecrow in 2003, I would recommend it to anyone who would listen!

  That said, The Da Vinci Code wasn’t really an influence on 7 Deadly Wonders. The Indiana Jones movies were probably more of an influence. I wanted to create an Indiana Jones–type story, with booby traps and high adventure, but set in the present day. The reason I mentioned The Da Vinci Code in the book was really because that novel is now so globally known, if you do write a story about Catholic Church conspiracy theories or one which has a scene set in the Louvre, you should probably make a Da Vinci Code joke!

  Q: 7 Deadly Wonders features some pretty dastardly American villains. Is it an anti-American novel?

  MR: I hope it’s not interpreted that way. The Americans are just the villains in this book, that’s all. They want the power of Tartarus and so they go after it—they just do so a little more ruthlessly than our heroes!

  The key to 7 Deadly Wonders was that the heroes had to be underdogs, underdogs battling the most powerful nation on Earth, and that at the moment is America. America has more guns, tanks, and planes than the next dozen countries combined. For a bunch of little countries to go up against the United States is a big thing, a hard thing. And that, to my mind, makes for an interesting story.

  I guess, like many others, I do question the new American ‘Imperialism’ under George W. Bush, but unlike others I don’t dislike America for it. It’s a lone superpower in a changed world. It has to figure out how to find its way, just like the rest of us. It will make mistakes. Unfortunately, any mistakes it makes will have a big impact on everyone else on this planet. It will also, it must be said, do much good.

  I don’t know. I invariably find myself defending America when I’m out at dinner with friends. I have many American friends, and I work with some very clever New Yorkers and Los Angelinos. Smart people, all of them. I also firmly believe that America is a fantastic social experiment—a land of opportunity, where capitalism is king, and where 280 million people live in relative peace under the rule of law; not a bad achievement at all.

  After all that, if some Americans think that just because I made them the villains of this book that I’m anti-American, then what can I do? I’ll just have to cop it and know that they’re wrong. And hey, the Brits never minded being the villains of Ice Station! But then again, I still have not been published in France…

  Q: Will we see Jack West Jr. again?

  MR: We certainly will! I am now well advanced into the sequel to 7 Deadly Wonders, and Jack is back, as is Lily and the rest of the team. The new story takes place eighteen months after the events in 7 Deadly Wonders and is even bigger in scale and scope. It turns out that the Tartarus Rotation is actually the triggering event for a far, far larger global event. (Oh, and a nice U.S. Marine named Astro joins our team of heroes on this adventure, so the USA is back with the good guys!)

  Q: You’ve had a busy year. 7 Deadly Wonders, Hell Island, and your movie work on Contest. How have you survived it all?

  MR: Yes, it has been a busy year! But it’s been enormous fun.

  I had just finished 7 Deadly Wonders when the call came from the Federal Government asking if I would write a brand-new short-novel for their Books Alive campaign. Luckily, I had a new idea sitting in the “Story Ideas” drawer of my desk ready to go, so I turned around, sat back down and started writing again!

  And yes, at that stage, I’d already planned to direct a pilot shoot of Contest, so I was in the midst of preproduction when I was polishing both Hell Island and 7 Deadly Wonders. I’m still not quite sure how I did it, but I figured I could sleep later! Believe me, I’m resting now.

  Q: Shane Schofield appeared in the Books Alive edition of Hell Island. Will we see the Scarecrow again in a new novel?

  MR: A few things about Hell Island, especially since I didn’t do an interview like this in the back of that book.

  I really enjoyed doing Hell Island, and making it a Schofield book. I think it’s a pretty kick-ass story—bold, fast, and mean; and yet still short. It was designed to be a kind of “side-adventure” for Schofield; a minor mission that occurred in between books (although technically it occurs after the events in Scarecrow). You also have to remember that my fans in the United States and othe
r countries won’t see Hell Island, as it was a free book given out in Australia only.

  Will he appear again? I reckon so. He’s a fun character, who’s always getting into trouble, and they’re the ones I like to write about. The question is, who do I write about next? Schofield or Jack West?

  Q: What is the latest movie news?

  MR: Hover Car Racer is still with Disney. Last I heard, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar were still at work on the screenplay. And of course, I’m hard at work trying to get Contest up and running as a feature film.

  I had an awesome time directing the pilot of Contest earlier this year, which was the first twelve minutes of the book. This included getting a creature shop to build a fully-articulated Karanadon head and filming it in the Stack of the New South Wales State Library. We also filmed in the abandoned train tunnels underneath Sydney, the Royal North Shore Hospital, and even in the basement of my house! Ah, movie magic.

  Q: So, what’s next for Matthew Reilly?

  MR: Sleep. Rest. And maybe play a bit of golf. It’s been a very busy year and I need to slow down a bit. I’m just going to sit on my couch and read a bunch of nonfiction books! Although, if I get Contest up and running, then it’ll be all systems go and I can sleep next year….

  Q: Any final words?

  MR: As always, I just hope you all enjoyed the book. I had a lot of fun writing this one and I hope you had just as much fun reading it.

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