Product Description

A novel which makes Crichton and Spielberg look small-time! There is a signal emanating from deep within the ice of Antarctica. Atlantis has awoken. Ancient monuments all over the world from the Pyramids of Giza, to Mexico to the ancient sites of China are all awakening too. Reacting to a brewing crisis not of this earth. Connecting to each other in some kind of ancient global network. A small group of scientists have the fate of the earth in their hands. And they have merely days in which to save it. Imagine that 12,000 years ago it really did rain for 40 days and 40 nights. That storms reigned supreme. Imagine that survivors of human civilization really were forced to take to boats or hide out in caves on mountaintiops. Then consider that these same myths from around the world predict this kind of devasatation will occur time and again. What occurs in nature with such frightening and predictable regularity? What could cause such a catastrophe? God? A pulsar. But not just any pulsar. Not the ordinary type that pulses once a second, or a minute, or even a week. This pulsar pulses once every 12,000 years and sends out a gravity wave of such ferocity it beggars belief. Not only that, it's closer than anybody ever imagined. For it lives in our own backyard. It is the Sun. It is the year 2012. The secrets of Atlantis are encoded in crystal shards retrieved from the sunken city. Humanity has had 12,000 years to decipher their messages - now, there is one week left. In the greatest tradition of Jules Verne, and with the breath taking depth and pace of Michael Crichton, Stel Pavlou's Decipher is a roller-coaster ride through an epic of an adventure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #373289 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
From its opening disaster in the oilfields of Antarctica through its escalating scenes of destruction and discovery, Stel Pavlou's novel Decipher keeps the tension mounting. Inevitably, readers care quite a lot about thrillers involving the entire destruction of the world in which we live, but Pavlou also makes us care for his characters, living through gravity waves and solar flares and trying to do something about them. Many of the ideas in his plot will be familiar to those of us who have read the alternative archaeology of writers such as Graham Hancock--the lost civilisation before the dawn of history, the uncannily accurate archaic maps, the secret chambers below famous religious monuments. However, there is considerably more to Pavlou than just wide reading effectively recycled--his evocation of the chillingly cold or the deeply strange, for example, and his understanding of both the human drive to greedy evil and the human capacity for self-sacrifice. Scott, passionate student of ancient languages, and Sarah, brilliant young geologist, are uncomplicatedly virtuous characters and rather refreshingly so; Pavlou's sense of the dangerousness of a universe with which humans greedily tinker without understanding it is balanced by a sense of the other things of which humans are capable. --Roz Kaveney

From the Publisher
I had more fun working on DECIPHER with Stel Pavlou than pretty much anything else I've done in the fifteen years I have worked in publishing. He's a writer whose ideas are non-stop, and whose dialogue is wonderful. Like some other recent writers of terrific thrillers, he appeals to the paying public, not always to critics who disappear up their own fundaments!!! Rock on, Stel.

From the Author
THE GREAT BOOK AND FILM SWINDLE by Stel Pavlou

It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and I’d just come in from signing on the dole, feeling well and truly sorry for myself. But that day I was to embark on a journey that would result in my first novel, Decipher, and my first screenplay, The 51st State, being bought virtually the same month. One telephone call was about to change my life forever.

“Hi, this is Tim Roth,” the voice on the phone announced. Yes, the Tim Roth, of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction fame. “I really liked your script.” I immediately knew that this man was either a nutter or a wind-up merchant. Clearly there was only one way to deal with this. “Sod off,” I growled.

OK, my entry into the film business could have gone better. But it was an entry nonetheless and it is inextricably linked to my entry into publishing. I had sent my script to Tim Roth and he’d read it. Ultimately he had absolutely nothing to do with the finished film, but he’d decided to associate himself with something I’d written. What he did that day was lend me legitimacy.

I was in my final year at University when I got an idea for my book, but I didn’t know how to write it. And it was while trying to work out how to write that book, I came up with the idea for a film. I had no reason to suppose these things would actually come to pass. I had no training in the entertainment business, no training as a writer, no contacts, and no relations or convenient marriages to draw upon. Mum was a Carer for Social Services. Dad was retired. And I had a more immediate concern: I couldn’t get a job.

I applied for over 600 jobs in six months when I left Liverpool. I got one interview. And I didn’t get that job. It got to the point where one female friend applied for the same job as me under her name, but with my exact CV, she got an interview, I didn’t. Eventually all that was left was bitter anger directed towards a degree that wasn’t getting me a job. American Studies. Why had I bothered?

So the conception of Decipher came about purely by chance. I’d been reading Revelations, the whacko chapter in the Bible about the end of the world, and - for a change of pace - start reading some Plato. As you do. In reality this too was born of poverty. I love to read but at the time couldn’t afford any books. A second-hand bookshop down the road had Plato for sale for 50p and the Bible, well they were having a hard time giving them away.

Have you ever noticed that the holy city in Revelations bears a striking similarity to Atlantis as described by Plato? That was my big discovery of the week, and that, in a nutshell, was how Decipher was born. An action adventure story about how six scientists discover Atlantis and realize the end of the world is coming – and the key to stopping it lies in the scriptures of a myriad of religions dotted around the world.

Pretty quickly I knew that I couldn’t blag my way through this one – it was going to require some research. So, at the height of unemployment, I set to work on a book and a film, and prayed to God I would find a job.

Threshers came about by accident. A little while after Tim Roth had phoned, my brother was walking past Threshers when one of the assistants leaned out and offered him a job. He didn’t want it – but he knew a man who did.

It would be something to tide me over, I thought. In the end I stayed there nearly four years. But there was the opportunity to work overtime and the hours were flexible. Which was handy because, armed with my script, and financed through some friends’ generosity, I was going to Cannes.

The details are long and convoluted, and involve a certain degree of, shall we say, artful misrepresentation, but in the end, I got there. This period of my life is best summed up by something I read that Francis Ford Coppola had said, and it was this: If you tell enough people enough times that you’re making a movie, pretty soon it’s treated as fact and becomes real. And do you know what? He’s right.

Again, what about Decipher? During all this I quietly got on and wrote my book. In 1997, I’d written the first 100 pages of what would turn out to be an initial 800-page manuscript. I showed it to a few people and they seemed interested. 1997 was also the year I got my first agents both in London and the US. Before the film deal nobody would take my calls, now I’d pulled this off, doors were slowly opening.

At the same time, back in London my novel was just starting to be sent out to the publishers.

And then the strangest thing started to happen. A local journalist was inspired by the story and started pumping out articles about my imminent success. Then the nationals got interested. Soon, articles were surfacing about how great the book was, and these were sent to the studio. And vice versa, despite the fact there was no guarantee that there was even going to be a movie, articles about how good it was started surfacing and these were sent to the publishers.

In November 1999, in the space of four weeks Decipher was bought in a two-book deal for six figures. And The 51st State was finally bought outright by Alliance Atlantis, again for a six-figure deal.

I thought I’d blagged my way to success, but John Jarrold, my editor at Simon and Schuster, told me, “Sorry, mate, you’ve written a terrific book. Live with it.”

Customer Reviews

A wonderful read "One of the best books I have ever read"
I purchased this book 2 days before going on holiday and had read 85% before I got there. What an all inspiring read you just cannot put this book down, I just didn't want it to finish - I think that this is a great first Novel and would love to see more from this well accomplished author. I never new this name before but I will be looking out for the next one. Once you have read this book "Could you just imagine a film - it would be great" I would say this chap could win an Oscar if he was an actor.

I feel that all of the 99.7% of reviews have 5 stars are well deserved - but you do get the sad exceptions - get a life chaps !!

A whole lotta fun...
Decipher is a great little thrill ride through physics, linguistics, religion, big business, archeology, mythology, and the end of the world. Stel Pavlou has pulled many diverse fields together, wrapped them in a tight, fast paced plot which takes the reader around the globe, added some great characters (and humor!), and produced a fine novel which keeps the reader gripped til the last page. Its also nice to see scientists portrayed as real, if sometimes quirky, people as opposed to the stereotypical characters seen so often in the media. Hope to see his second book soon!

A good story, but it has it's bad points
The story's fantastic, have no doubt, and really keeps you hooked until the end. However, there are glaring (and I mean REALLY bad) errors in the science, and the proof-reading was obviously done in a hurry.

However, if you're prepared to forget some of the basic science you learned in school, the story moves well, and the historical and linguistic side of things is fascinating. Halfway through the book, you'll be wondering how on earth the story can possibly continue for much longer, but by the end you'll swear that the beginning was a totally seperate book, it's so far removed.

Good stuff.