Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone is the first Indy novel by Max McCoy, and the ninth in Bantam's series.
Publisher's summary[]
BLOOD FROM A STONE
For centuries the lust for wealth and immortality has driven men mad. Now Indiana Jones is called to London to recover an ancient alchemist's manuscript rumored to contain the formula both for turning lead into gold and granting its owner eternal life. Certain that a missing British alchemist and an insane Renaissance scholar are involved in the theft, Indy—along with the alchemist's beautiful sister—travels to Rome, and straight into the hands of Mussolini's fascists.
The mad scholar Sarducci has stolen the Voynich Manuscript, all right. But that's only half the story. The manuscript is really a map, leading into the desert and the most ancient and magnificent crypt in the world, where Indiana Jones will either witness an astounding miracle of alchemy—or become the tomb's next inhabitant
Plot summary[]
Prologue: Central America, 1933[]
The novel begins with Indiana Jones descending down a hillside towards the lost city of Cozán in the rain forests of Central America. After deciphering the puzzle of the serpent descending the pyramid (and guessing the wrong door in a game of guessing) he reaches his prize, the Crystal Skull of Cozán. As he snatches it, a bald-headed Italian man beats him to the punch and snatches it away. Introducing himself as "Sarducci", he tells Indy of his plans for eternal life and orders his right-hand man Marco to kill the archaeologist. After a run in with a hungry snake saves his life and some explosive lantern fuel, Indy makes it out alive and returns with his guide to the local village, curious as to who this mysterious Sarducci was...
Princeton, New Jersey[]
Back at Princeton University, Indy prepares for his class before he is approached by a group of government men about the theft of the Voynich Manuscript. It is said to be the key to unlocking the location of the Philosopher's Stone. He politely declines their offer for him to join the hunt.
After, Indy is approached by the dean of the school who informs him that through a misunderstanding of the map during his voyage to Cozán, he passed through British Honduras and is now being sanctioned by their government of as a grave robber. He is fired from his job.
New York City, New York[]
Jones goes to visit Marcus Brody in New York City where he finds himself penniless and alone as he wanders the streets. He comes across a curious bookstore where he is greeted by a lonely old man who happens to be well read in Philosopher's Stone lore. They discuss that the men who had approached Indy also approached him, as well as Fascists from Italy. Indy contacts the government men and receives his assignment.
After climbing a dangling rope 100 feet in the air to the USS Macon, he foils a sabotage plot from the Fascists who are out for Indy’s life.
London, England[]
After he arrives in Britain, Indy goes in search of the man who is supposed to be the expert in Stone lore, Alistair Dunstin. Instead he meets his stunning, redheaded sister, Alecia. Despite some not-so-smooth talking from Indy, he still finds himself at her apartment.
Just then, the Fascists arrive and make an attempt on the pair's life. Indy and Alecia escape and the archaeologist learns that Alecia is the last of a dying race of secret metal workers and has a tattoo on her back which is said to hold the key to deciphering the Voynich Manuscript. He is also informed about the history of the stone and that Alistair and Alecia have successfully transmutated substance into gold. She tells him that a prima material is needed to fuel the stone and that there isn't much time if they want to find Alistair alive. The Fascists catch up and, after a daring shootout in the back alleys of London, the two escape with their lives and new found feelings for each other.
Italy[]
Alecia books a garbage freighter for passage to Italy, in hopes that Alistair is there. When Indy joins her, Sarducci appears once again to kill them both. After dumping the load of garbage into the ocean with Indy and Alecia inside, the pair makes their way to one of the flying boats that is part of the Italian air armada AKA The Atlantici that is allowing Sarducci to travel around the globe so fast. The pair make it to Italy where they encounter Sarducci in his office and ask where Alistair is being held. Because Alecia bares a strong resemblance to his deceased wife, Sarducci releases them and accidentally gives them a clue which leads them to Libya where they meet with Sallah.
Libyan Desert[]
In the middle of the Libyan desert, on the border to Egypt, the trio meets Prince Farqhuar who leads his rebel army to battle with the "roman pigs". Indy sneaks into the secret Italian base and finds Alistair. The pair sneak out only to be caught when Alistair reveals he was working with the Italians all along. Sarducci plans to excecute Indy via firing squad but Prince Farqhuar saves him at the last minute. They survive a sandstorm and Indy decodes the map on Alecia's back.
They arrive at the hiding place of the Philosopher's Stone and Indy and Alistair swim down to retrieve it. Sarducci arrives and takes the group prisoner, stows them in a van and his servant and he open the mechanism and activate the Stone. The stone melts his assistant after they touch it and soon Sarducci finds himself melting too. Alistair, in a last ditch effort, gives his life by jumping into the oasis with the stone. Indy emerges to find Alistair gone with the stone. Indy, Sallah, Alecia and Farqhuar head back to civilization.
Epilogue: Princeton, New Jersey[]
When Indy arrives back home, he finds out the Crystal Skull has been stolen.
Appearances[]
Characters[]
- Alexander the Great (Mentioned only)
- Penelope Angstrom
- Tommy Atkins
- Roger Bacon (Mentioned only)
- Italo Balbo
- Bieber
- Bernabé
- Carl Blegen (Mentioned only)
- Napoleon Bonaparte (Mentioned only)
- Botticelli (Mentioned only)
- Marcus Brody
- Richard Francis Burton (Mentioned only)
- Roger Cadman
- Caramia
- Geoffrey Chaucer (Mentioned only)
- Jesus Christ (Mentioned only)
- Christopher Columbus (Mentioned only) (as "Columbo")
- Devil (Mentioned only)
- Dickens (Mentioned only)
- John Dillinger (Mentioned only)
- President Dodd (Mentioned only)
- Arthur Conan Doyle (Mentioned only)
- Wilhelm Dörpfeld (Mentioned only)
- Alger Dresel
- Alecia Dunstin
- Alistair Dunstin
- Sallah Mohammed Faisel el-Kahir
- Farqhuar
- Faust (Mentioned only)
- Huckleberry Finn (Mentioned only)
- Nicholas Flamel
- Perenelle Flamel
- God (Mentioned only)
- Griffith
- Mona Grimaldi (Mentioned only)
- Harold Gruber
- Hippolytus (Statue only)
- Hudson
- Henry Walton Jones, Senior (Mentioned only)
- Indiana Jones
- Judas (Mentioned only)
- Ponce de Leon (Mentioned only)
- Niccolò Machiavelli (Mentioned only)
- John M. Manly
- Mordecai Marlow
- Maximón (Mentioned only)
- Mercury (Mentioned only)
- Charles Rufus Morey
- Benito Mussolini (Pictured only)
- Benito Mussolini's mistress (Mentioned only)
- Newbold (Mentioned only)
- O'Toole
- Paracelsus (Mentioned only)
- St. Patrick (Mentioned only)
- Peter Pan (Mentioned only)
- Marco Polo (Mentioned only)
- Raphael (painter) (Mentioned only)
- Giuseppe Rinaldi
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Mentioned only)
- Babe Ruth (Mentioned only)
- Lord Rutherford (Mentioned only)
- Leonardo Sarducci
- Heinrich Schliemann (Mentioned only)
- Sparrowhawk pilot
- Vilhjalmur Stefansson
- Tinker Bell (Mentioned only)
- Tobias (Mentioned only)
- Edward Trimbly
- Hermes Trismegistus (Mentioned only)
- Martin Tupper (Mentioned only)
- Mark Twain (Mentioned only)
- Jules Verne (Mentioned only)
- Luigi Volatore
- Mario Volatore
- Marco Volatore
- Wilfred Voynich (Mentioned only)
- Yartz
- York
Artifacts[]
- Crystal Skull of Cozán
- Emerald Tablet
- Mona Lisa (Mentioned only)
- Philosopher's Stone
- Revolutionary War big cannon
- Rosetta Stone (Mentioned only)
- Shew Stone
- Voynich Manuscript
Locations[]
- Africa
- Egypt
- Alexandria (Mentioned only)
- Cairo (Mentioned only)
- Siwa (Mentioned only)
- Tomb of Hermes
- Valley of the Kings (Mentioned only)
- Libya
- Egypt
- Angkor Wat (Mentioned only)
- Atlantic Ocean
- Baghdad (Mentioned only)
- British Honduras
- Cozán
- Street of the Dead
- Temple of the Serpent
- Maya Mountains
- Cozán
- Europe
- Argonne (Mentioned only)
- Belfast (Mentioned only)
- Eiffel Tower (Statue only)
- Italy
- Ostia
- Rome
- Arch of Constantine
- Colosseum (Mentioned only)
- Gate of St. Anne
- Museum of Antiquity
- Piazza Colonna
- Royal des Etrangers
- University of Rome (Mentioned only)
- Via Bocca di Leone
- Inghilterra
- Trent (Mentioned only)
- Lisbon
- Moscow (Mentioned only)
- Ponta Delgada
- Sarbonne (Mentioned only)
- Toledo (Mentioned only)
- United Kingdom
- Isle of Wight (Mentioned only)
- London
- Bank of England
- Bloomsbury
- Southampton Row
- Tottenham Court Road
- British Museum
- Dark Horse
- Mortlake (Mentioned only)
- Thames
- Vatican City
- Court of Belvedere
- Tower of the Winds (Mentioned only)
- Vatican Library
- Waterloo (Mentioned only)
- Gobi Desert (Mentioned only)
- Guatemala
- San Pablo
- Mexico (Mentioned only)
- Chichén Itzá (Mentioned only)
- Tulum (Mentioned only)
- Troy (Mentioned only)
- United States of America
- Chicago (Mentioned only)
- Baldo Drive (Mentioned only)
- Florida (Mentioned only)
- Fountain of Youth (Mentioned only)
- Gettysburg (Mentioned only)
- New Jersey
- Fitz Randolph Gateway
- Nassau Street
- Palmer Square
- Princeton University
- McCormick Hall
- Tiger Coffee House
- Witherspoon Street
- New York
- New York City
- American Museum of Natural History
- Broadway (Mentioned only)
- Cadman's Rare Books
- Carmine's
- Coney Island (Mentioned only)
- Madison Square Garden (Mentioned only)
- Penn Station
- New York City
- San Diego (Mentioned only)
- Yale University (Mentioned only)
- Chicago (Mentioned only)
Miscellanea[]
- Anaconda
- Aztec (Mentioned only)
- Bedouin (Mentioned only)
- The Book of Abraham (Mentioned only)
- Boy Scouts of America (Mentioned only)
- Cat (Mentioned only)
- Council of Trent (Mentioned only)
- Explorers Club
- Fairy (Mentioned only)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Great War (Mentioned only)
- The Gospel of St. Dunstable (Mentioned only)
- Howler monkey
- Inca (Mentioned only)
- Indy's pistol
- Maya (Mentioned only)
- New York Herald Tribune
- New York Journal
- The New York Times
- Oxford Unabridged
- OVRA
- Pigeon (Mentioned only)
- Passenger pigeon (Mentioned only)
- Renaissance (Mentioned only)
- Shelta Thari
- Sparrowhawk
- Speculum (Mentioned only)
- RMS Titanic (Mentioned only)
- Trojan War (Mentioned only)
- U.S.S. Akron (Mentioned only)
- U.S.S. Macon
- Zulu (Mentioned only)
Behind the scenes[]
Development[]
After his first four novels, Max McCoy was approached to take over the Indiana Jones novel series started by Rob MacGregor and Martin Caidin due to his editor serving as a liasion with Lucasfilm Ltd., who were interested in hiring him. To take the assignment, McCoy studied how Lawrence Kasdan, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and was given an Indiana Jones bible by Lucasfilm about the franchise's canon to prevent him from violating what was established, with information from the movies and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles for example, leading McCoy to realize that these novels weren't part of an alternate universe like that of Star Trek.[1]
Accepting the job, McCoy came up with the Crystal Skull of Cozan in order to have an overarching storyline in the four Indy books he had been hired to write, starting with this one, to avoid repeating the same plot in all four books. As for the book's MacGuffin, McCoy originally made a list of 30 or 40 possibles MacGuffins to use and his favorite was the Spear of Longinus, but Lucasfilm Ltd. notified him that Dark Horse Comics was already working in a comic book storyline featuring the Spear, much to his dismay. Thus, McCoy resolved to go for his second favorite option, which was the Philosopher's Stone.[1]
Continuity[]
In the book, Indy claims not to be able to read Italian, while in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, he is shown to speak the language. Also, "stolen" is erroneously translated into Italian as ruba although the correct translation would be rubato. Ruba is the third person of the verb "to steal."
Other[]
Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone is dedicated to the memory of Marcus Brody actor Denholm Elliott (1922 — 1992). The novel prints Elliot's death as 1994.
Notes and references[]
ADVENTURE TIMELINE | ||
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previous | next | |
1932 | March 1933 | June 1933 |
Indiana Jones und die Gefiederte Schlange | Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone | Indiana Jones and the Curse of Horror Island |