The Garden of the Blind

I have some coworkers who are avid readers. They have read many of the great modern works, such as Crichton, Grisham, Ludlow, and the likes. Well, one of them (at his wife's suggestion) read a book titled Seven Deadly Wonders by Matthew Reilly (called Australia's Crichton, which apparently means that Aussies like their technical thrillers to be ridiculous, overwrought, and unbelievable). After reading it, he gave it to the other guy to read. He made it about 80 pages in before giving up. They then handed it off to me.

It read like the Da Vinci Code. Actually, in some ways it was better (at least in the sense that it got to the action a bit faster). Both books are broken into narrative blocks of about 2-3 pages on average. Both feature vague references to things that will somehow not be as impressive when they are finally revealed later.

I find the literary style rather choppy. For example, consider the use of paragraphs that are sentence fragments (since it's more suspenseful to have to wait to the next paragraph to find out how the sentence will end), or the use of exclamation points and ALL CAPS in the third person narration.

Then there is the scientific details. And the historical details. And the blatant rip-offs from other works. And the one dimensional characters (at least the ones that got fleshed out). And the puzzles/riddles.

I'm not saying that this is the worst book in the world, but to Mr. Reilly, I say, "I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."