Decipher

More Sci-Fi reading for your summer weekend: Javed Ikbal writes "Decipher by Stel Pavlou is a mind-blowing work of science fiction. If you thought Stephenson's Snowcrash did a great job of bringing myth and science together, bite into this. I am still shaking my head over the amount of research that must have gone into this book." Read on for Javed's review. Warning -- spoilers within. Decipher author Stel Pavlou pages 422 publisher St. Martin's Press rating 10 reviewer Javed Ikbal ISBN 0312280750 summary Ties together all the myths you can think of (Atlantis/Pyramids/Maya/Inca/Noah/Flood) and does it very well.

What it's about: Tag line: Mankind had 12,000 years to decipher the message. We have one week left ...

Let me make something clear. Although this is my first Slashdot review, I do not give this book a 10 lightly.

March 2012. The whole world is experiencing unusual weather. A commercial research ship is drilling in Antarctica when the drill breaks against something hard. The pressure sends up chunks of C-60 (Fullerene) with glyphs on them. Cameras show a wall miles under Antarctica: Atlantis has been found.

A linguist, a geologist, a physicist and an engineer convene at CERN, invited by the U.S. military to analyze the C-60 and the writing on it. They discover that the mysterious molecules can create standing waves to temporarily solidify liquids. The government wants them to go on an expedition to the site, assisted by some U.S. marines.

In the meantime, the earth is being hit by gravity waves emanating from the sun, and astronomers predict massive solar flare activity that will practically destroy earth.

And home by dinner time ... Natural disasters are occurring everywhere because of the solar activity, and a plasma cloud is being sucked into a hole in Antarctica. Atlantis is sucking in all that energy without any trouble. Everyone is hoping that the answer to the coming cataclysm lies in Atlantis. Just to round things up, the Vatican wants Atlantis blown up with an atomic bomb, and the U.S. president agrees. The marines will be carrying a warhead; if Atlantis does not yield its secret, it will be blown away.

The linguist and the physicist figure out that every 12,000 years the sun goes through a massive coronal mass ejection (it's a pulsar, but with a 12,000 year period) and last time this happened Atlantis was destroyed. They were building equipment to prevent the destruction, but could not do it on time. However, the Atlanteans left automated nanobots to complete the task for the next time it happened. The time is now.

The expedition reaches the core of Atlantis, but the nanobots, as a result of over 12,000 years of artificial intelligence evolution, do not want to help humanity. They know that if humanity dies, they will take over; but if humanity survives they will have to go. Last-minute tension, the hero gives his life for humanity, the earth is turned solid for a second by standing waves generated from structures all over the earth, the gravity wave passes safely and then earth and all its creatures are returned to normal form. All is well.

I strongly recommend this book, but note that this is not a quick read: you have to assimilate this book to appreciate the wide scope. Good reading!

You can purchase Decipher from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

woah

[meshko]

I'm sorry, but this sounds really, really, really bad.
Vatican vs Atlantis would have been a better name, probably. And with a story line like that (and with the new name) it should have been a computer game, not a book. Don't you hate the entertainment industry? They can fuck up even the best ideas!

Re:woah

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get people that eat up everything that has tomb-raider themes with a guaranteed apocalypse in every chapter without regard to the actual *quality* of the book. I grabbed this book quite some time ago whilst on a layover in London and it's written terribly - cardboard characters, predictable deaths, and every chapter reads like a collection of scenes for the desparately hoped-for Hollywood produced movie with Bruckheimer attached. If you want to read stuff like this that's *good*, try reading Umberto Eco. Translated from the Italian is still many light years above this popcorn stuff. Even the research - I'm currently reading The Da Vinci Code and it's head and shoulders above Decipher in terms of clever inside stories and research with ancient artefacts...

DT

Thanks

[Astin]

Ok, so I realize it carried a spoiler warning. And I realize that it would be a rare occurence indeed for mankind to be wiped out at the end of a book, but was it necessary to sum up the ending entirely? Maybe a "of course it all works out in the end." would have worked. Not that I'll ever get around to reading the book anyway.

terrible review, but the book is well worth readin

[Kubla Khan]

I picked up a copy a few weeks back. The story is good, and the background is interesting, although i do think the author has spent far more time than is healthy pouring over 'chariot of the gods'. In short if you like this kind of book its entertaining , if you dont, this book wont change your mind, its no great work of literature , but itsnt badly written.

I found it passed the time on the bus to work quite nicely.

Re:Is this a fourth grade book report?

[Otter]

The vibe I got from this review was -- the guy read the book, went nuts over it, thought, "THIS IS FANTASTIC! I MUST SUBMIT A SLASHDOT REVIEW IMMEDIATELY!" and set out to write the first book review of his life.

At least Timothy warned about the spoiler twice, so I clicked the link and applied my goatse.cx-honed ability to squint, read cautiously and avert trauma.

Anyway, it worked. I'll take a look at the book; that's the same "YOU GOTTA READ THIS!" rant my friends heard from me after I read Snow Crash.

You get what you pay for...

[Cap'n Canuck]

In the case of this review, I think the reviewer actually paid timothy. Not that that hasn't happened before...

Lame Story?

[Jerk City Troll]

At a high level, the concept is cool. The way I would have approached writing this is the idea that life on earth is seeded by higher intelligence. Encrypted messages are then scattered on the planet and in order to be allowed to survive past a couple million years, they must decipher the messages and report back that they've got the answer.

The core premis being that advanced cryptology (I'm not talking Rail Fence or Vigenere, but number theory and extremely large values) requires the advance of many sciences. First, you need physics to develop machines capable of crunching lots of numbers. You need advanced mathematics in concert with that. You need linguistic analysis, which comes from developed language. You get the idea.

Humanity's challenge would be to get over all the stupid bickering and fighting that leads nowhere (except to our own destruction) and concentrate on making ourselves smarter until we succeed in breaking open the message.

Basically, you put monkeys on earth, write encrypted messages on C-60 tablets, wait a couple of million years. If they evolved enough to decipher and understand the message, keep them. If not, rince, lather, repeat. The end goal of the higher intelligence would be to enhance itself by cultivating new forms of intelligence (which would theoretically be unique to every planet intelligent life forms on).

Come to think of it, I should write this book...

Re:terrible review, but the book is well worth rea

[belroth]

I quite liked it, but felt the last third went a little downhill. Actually I was waiting for Cthulhu to put in an appearance.
I rarely fail to finish a book (well fiction, anyway), but I wasn't too sure about this at one point. A qualified 6/10 from me.

Thinking about it the only books I can remember deliberately abandoning are :
1) The first Thomas Covenenant (blecch!)
2) Paradiso Street Station (just didn't ever engage my interest)
3) Chasm City (got bored)
4) Anything by Dickens

One of the books I'm currently reading is Dawnthief, which started well but I'm halfway through and it's got a bit flat, but I'll probably persevere.