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.

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.

Meanwhile, the US military has been monitoring unusually high solar flare activity and is worried about its effect on their fleet of satellites.

They talk about the Sun, the destructive power coming from the sky, a flood, and a mythical lost city, known more famously as Atlantis.

[1] Publishers Weekly wrote "The often ludicrous dialogue and the ham-fisted handling of human relations and motivations, however, make for an unfocused novel, one patched together like Frankenstein, with every stitching line, every unnatural feature, unblushingly exposed to the most casual glance.

"[2] Nick Barrett of Blogcritics.org criticized the book's stereotypical characters, but that "Stel's sense of humour invariably steps in each time he goes right over the top.