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Author | Peter Lerangis |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Fantasy, adventure, mythological fiction and children's fiction |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Published | 2013—2016 |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback), ebook, audiobook |
Website | http://www.sevenwondersbooks.com/ |
Seven Wonders is a pentalogy of children's fantasy, adventure and mythological fiction books written by American author Peter Lerangis. It is based on Greek mythology and set around the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Jack McKinley discovers a secret organization on a hidden island, and becomes the leader of a mission to retrieve seven lost magical orbs. As Jack and his three friends realize their lives are at stake, they have no choice but to accept the quest and embark on the challenge. [1]
The Colossus Rises is the first book in the series and was released on February 5, 2013.
The day after thirteen-year-old Jack McKinley is told he has six months to live, he awakens on a mysterious island, where a secret organization promises to save his life—with one condition. Jack and three other kids: Aly Black, Cass Williams, and Marco Ramsay, must lead a mission to retrieve seven lost magical objects known as Loculi, which can save their lives only when combined together correctly. The Loculi have been missing for a thousand years, lost amongst the ruins and relics of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. With no one else to turn to and no escape in sight, the four kids have no choice but to undertake the quest. On their quest, they learn more about one another and the secret superhuman abilities each possesses, but Jack has trouble finding out his own inner strength. The first Wonder they visit is the Colossus of Rhodes, where they realize that there is way more than just their lives at stake when a mythical creature kidnaps Cass and an enemy organization, known as the Massa, threaten to get the Loculus before them. [2]
Lost in Babylon is the second book in the series and was released on October 29, 2013.
After unearthing the first Loculus and defeating the Colossus of Rhodes, Jack and his friends are in worse shape than when they first set out. Marco has disappeared without a trace, along with the first Loculus. With no time to spare and no one else to turn to, Jack and the group have no choice but to follow the only clues they have and to head off on the next leg of their quest—to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. [3]
The Tomb of Shadows is the third book in the series and was released on May 13, 2014.
With Babylon in ruins, Marco on the Massa side, and long-held secrets coming unraveled, the Select don’t know whom to trust or where to turn. With their G7W powers manifesting at a furious pace, Jack, Aly, and Cass have no choice but to continue their quest. As lives hang in the balance, the friends rush to the next stop on their quest, the famed Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Here they have to face down their own demons and engage in a battle with the shadows of the dead. [4]
The Curse of the King is the fourth book in the series and was released on March 3, 2015.
Having already defeated the Colossus of Rhodes, hunted through Ancient Babylon, and outfoxed legions of undead, the Select have recovered three of the lost Loculi hidden in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, only to lose one of them in order to save a life. They must now find a way to undo what has been done, to save themselves from the power that will overwhelm them—and destroy the world. [5]
The Legend of the Rift is the fifth and final book in the series, released on March 8, 2016.
This story begins after King Uhla'ar kidnapped Aly and dragged her back through a rift in time. A giant, merciless behemoth guards the opening to the rift, and so Jack McKinley and his friends realize that rescuing Aly will be a lot harder than they thought. Their only hope is to rush to the last of the Ancient Wonders and find the rest of the lost Loculi. This mission takes them to the Temple of Artemis to fend off a mighty army before heading off to the Lighthouse of Alexandria where they wind up in the belly of a beast. But before all is said and done, they must return to where it all began, to Atlantis, to save Aly, themselves, and the world. [6]
Publishers Weekly reviewed The Colossus Rises saying "Lerangis, contributor to the 39 Clues series , has created a real page-turner, and while the characters are somewhat one-dimensional (particularly the adults), there’s a genuine sense of mystery and even a touch of grandeur to this tale". [7] Kirkus Reviews has called it "a fast-paced, page-turning adventure". [8]
Antipater of Sidon was an ancient Greek poet of the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World listed by Hellenic culture. They were described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines, resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks. It was said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq. The Hanging Gardens' name is derived from the Greek word κρεμαστός, which has a broader meaning than the modern English word "hanging" and refers to trees being planted on a raised structure such as a terrace.
The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek sun god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, by Chares of Lindos in 280 BC. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was constructed to celebrate the successful defence of Rhodes city against an attack by Demetrius I of Macedon, who had besieged it for a year with a large army and navy.
The siege of Rhodes in 305–304 BC was one of the most notable sieges of antiquity, when Demetrius Poliorcetes, son of Antigonus I, besieged Rhodes in an attempt to make it abandon its neutrality and end its close relationship with Ptolemy I.
Chares of Lindos was a Greek sculptor born on the island of Rhodes. He was a pupil of Lysippos. Chares constructed the Colossus of Rhodes in 282 BC, an enormous bronze statue of the sun god Helios and the patron god of Rhodes. The statue was built to commemorate Rhodes' victory over the invading Macedonians in 305 BC, led by Demetrius I, son of Antigonus, a general under Alexander the Great. Also attributed to Chares was a colossal head that was brought to Rome and dedicated by P. Lentulus Spinther on the Capitoline Hill in 57 BC.
Thomas Archibald Barron is an American writer of fantasy literature, books for children and young adults, and nature books.
Katherine Roberts is an English author, best known for her fantasy trilogy The Echorium Sequence. She spent most of her childhood in Devon and Cornwall, England. She is the daughter of Derek Robert, an electrical engineer, and Dorothy Margaret, a teacher.
Seven Ancient Wonders is a book written by Australian author Matthew Reilly in 2005. Its sequel, The Six Sacred Stones was released in the autumn of 2007. The final novel in the series, The One Impossible Labyrinth, was released in Australia on October 12, 2021.
The Six Sacred Stones is a novel by Australian thriller author Matthew Reilly. It is a sequel to Seven Ancient Wonders and The Five Greatest Warriors is its sequel. The novel was released on 23 October 2007 in most bookstores in Australia and was released in January 2008 in the US and UK.
The Rhodes Colossus is an editorial cartoon illustrated by English cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne and published by Punch magazine in 1892. It alludes to the Scramble for Africa during the New Imperialism period, in which the European powers, beginning in 1884, expanded their colonial expansion in Africa by dividing the continent up amongst themselves.
Peter Duncan Lerangis is an American author of children's and young adult fiction, best known for his Seven Wonders series and his work on the 39 Clues series.
Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, in order to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural features and human-built structures.
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, also known as the Seven Wonders of the World or simply the Seven Wonders, is a list of seven notable structures present during classical antiquity. The first known list of seven wonders dates back to the 2nd–1st century BC.
Matthew John Reilly is an internationally bestselling Australian action thriller writer.
The Rhodes earthquake of 226 BC, which affected the island of Rhodes, Greece, is famous for having toppled the large statue known as the Colossus of Rhodes. Following the earthquake, the statue lay in place for nearly eight centuries before being sold off by invaders. While 226 BC is most often cited as the date of the quake, sources variously cite 226 or 227 BC as dates when it occurred.
Owlchemy Labs is a video game developer based in Austin, Texas. The company was founded in 2010 by Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate Alex Schwartz. Owlchemy is best known for its virtual reality video games Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality. In May 2017, the studio was acquired by Google.
The Seven Wonders is a historical novel by American author Steven Saylor, first published by St. Martin's Press in 2008. It is the thirteenth book in his Roma Sub Rosa series of mystery stories set in the final decades of the Roman Republic, although it is chronologically the first. The novel is made up of a series of connected short stories, and the main character is the Roman sleuth Gordianus the Finder.
Stephanie Mary Dalley FSA is a British Assyriologist and scholar of the Ancient Near East. Prior to her retirement, she was a teaching Fellow at the Oriental Institute, Oxford. She is known for her publications of cuneiform texts and her investigation into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and her proposal that it was situated in Nineveh, and constructed during Sennacherib's rule.
Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia, also known as Progress Carrying the Light to Asia, was a plan for a colossal neoclassical sculpture. Designed in the late 1860s by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the project was to be a statue of a robed female Saeid Misr or "Upper Egyptian" bearing a torch at the entryway of the Suez Canal in Port Said, Egypt. The statue was to stand 86 feet (26 m) high and its pedestal was to rise to a height of 48 feet (15 m). The proposed statue was declined by the Khedive, citing the expensive cost, and in 1869 the Port Said Lighthouse, designed by François Coignet, was built in the same location.
The Colossus of Rhodes is a 1954 oil painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí. It is one of a series of seven paintings he created for the 1956 film Seven Wonders of the World, each depicting one of the wonders. The work shows the Colossus of Rhodes, the ancient statue of the Greek titan-god of the sun, Helios. The painting was not used for the film and was donated to the Kunstmuseum Bern in 1981, where it remains.