Decipher (novel)
 |
|
| Author | Stel Pavlou |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Religion, Thriller, Mystery novel, Speculative Fiction, Novel |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster (UK) & St. Martin's Press (US) |
|
Publication date
|
2001 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 624 p. (UK hardback edition) & 400 p. (US hardback edition) |
| ISBN | (UK hardback edition), (US hardback edition) & (UK paperback edition), (US paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 50215869 |
Decipher (first published in 2001) is a speculative fiction novel by Stel Pavlou (1970–present), published in 2001 in England by Simon & Schuster and 2002 in the United States by St. Martin's Press. It is published in many languages with some significant title changes. The Italian and Russian editions have the title Il codice di Atlantide (The Atlantis Code), while the German edition is called Code Zero. The novel is about a fictional linguist, Richard Scott, and an assembled team of specialists who are in a race against time to crack a code found on ancient monuments around the world before an impending cataclysm predicted in mythology can strike. The story centers on the ancient city of Atlantis and features other mythical sites such as the Hall of Records.
Decipher was longlisted in the UK for the W.H. Smith Best New Talent Award 2002.
Set in the year 2012, a series of seemingly unrelated events take place, which during the course of the story all become interconnected.
In Antarctica, an oil drilling venture is taking place by fictitious oil company Rola Corp. It is an unstable time in the region because the US and China are at loggerheads over mineral and oil rights, and the geopolitical landscape is dicey. The drill ship does not strike oil, but does discover a very hard form of diamond which turns out to be Carbon 60. Not only that, but the samples they retrieve have hieroglyphic writing on them.
Meanwhile, the US military has been monitoring unusually high solar flare activity and are worried about its effect on their fleet of satellites. While observing Chinese military maneuvers in Antarctica, the spy satellite picks up a highly unusual energy signal emanating from two miles beneath Antarctica's ice sheet.
When the US military and Rola Corp. pool their resources it is discovered that not only is the diamond-type material reactive to the sun, but the time of the energy pulses under the ice in Antarctica, match the timing of flare activity from the Sun.
...
Wikipedia