The Six Sacred Stones
2008 novel by Matthew Reilly

The Six Sacred Stones is a novel by Australian thriller author Matthew Reilly. It is a sequel to Seven Ancient Wonders (released as Seven Deadly Wonders in the United States) and The Five Greatest Warriors is its sequel. The novel was released on 23 October 2007 in most bookstores in Australia (though some stores released it later on 1 November) and was released in January 2008 in the US and UK.
Reviews
Described as a "thriller for film fans" by the Sydney Morning Herald, while providing greater insight into "the world of Jack West Jr., his family and upbringing – shining further light on what makes him tick" in The Six Sacred Stones Matthew Reilly "presents readers a cliff hanger of a scale rarely seen in a fiction series".
Plot summary
This novel is a sequel to Matthew Reilly's previous novel, Seven Ancient Wonders, which ended with the Golden Capstone re-assembled atop the Great Pyramid at Giza, and the ritual of power performed to grant one nation a thousand years of unchallenged power – invincibility, as shown by the end of the book – which is won, unknowingly, by Australia. The Six Sacred Stones picks up eighteen months later, 20 August 2007, on Easter Island, the geographical opposite of the Great Pyramid, when seven men use a second Capstone to counteract the power of the Tartarus sunspot and remove Australia's invincibility.
In China, Professor Max Epper (known as 'Wizard') is investigating the tomb of Chinese Philosopher Laozi, owner of the Philosopher's Stone. With his research partner, Yobu 'Tank' Tanaka, Wizard discovers the cryptic message referring to the Tartarus Sunspot and the use of the Sa-Benben, or Firestone, the top piece of the capstone from the previous book. They find another message, saying that the first pillar must be laid 100 days before 'the Return'. Wizard sends a coded message to Jack West in Australia, just before a contingent of Chinese military arrive to capture them, intending to use Wizard's knowledge to find the Six Sacred Stones. Jack West receives Wizard's message, just before the farm is attacked by the Chinese army, participating in the Talisman Sabre military exercises.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2008 novel by Matthew Reilly. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12299346. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Six Sacred Stones” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.