Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone

You can’t imagine the relief I felt, dear reader, having finished both, Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates and Indiana Jones and the White Witch, and was able to pick up this novel by Max McCoy and finally enter what many people regard as the best period in the Indiana Jones novels. At last I’d made it!

I wasn’t disappointed, either. The Indiana Jones in this book is out there raiding temples, discovering cool stuff, fighting fascists, and delivering lines that actually sound like… say it quietly… Indiana Jones.

You wouldn’t think the Indiana Jones formula would be hard to mess up given how formulaic it is, but the initial range author, Rob McGregor, did some weird stuff and his replacement, Martin Caidin, went right off the rails. For the life of me, I don’t know if the editors at the publishing house were tearing their hair out and asking, “What is this $%#^?” when each new manuscript came in from the guys, or whether they just weren’t Indiana Jones fans and didn’t care. It would be fascinating to know the answer to that.

But third time’s a charm – as they say in the classics – and this McCoy fellow actually seems to know both the character, and what makes a good Indy adventure. After 8 previous novels, this is a big deal!

I mentioned fascists a moment ago and it may surprise some to know I don’t mean those of the German persuasion. Indiana Jones and the Philosopher’s Stone goes down the Italian route which, for anyone who’s recently played (and hopefully enjoyed), Indiana Jones and the Great Circle or even read Indiana Jones and the Unicorn’s Legacy and remembers how good it was when the action arrived in fascist Italy (but was sadly only a tiny part of the overall story), you’ll be well served. Its a great setting to drop Indy into.

Not that the whole novel is set in Italy. This is a globe-trotting Indiana Jones story, par excellence, and our hero gets around the globe and visits all sorts of locations – James Bond style – during the novel.

There was one brief moment when the novel almost jumped the shark. McCoy has Indy needing to get onboard a U.S. Navy airship that has already lifted off. Not only did I experience a flash of PTSD after Caidin’s obsession with aviation in the previous two novels, fearing McCoy was heading in the same direction, but the way Indy gets onboard – climbing a rope up into the airship, which is already a long way off the ground – just seemed a little unnecessary. I get that McCoy was probably typing the scene thinking, “This is really exciting! This is Indiana Jones!” But it just felt slightly over-done for my tastes.

Outside of that one scene, I found the story hard to fault. Indy’s paired up with an interesting female companion. The ‘McGuffin’ is interesting. Sallah shows up. There’s some cool scenes at the start and close of the novel with Indy getting past traps in ancient temples. The story is an Indiana Jones adventure through and through and I’m really delighted to be able to type that. It’s an 8/10 for me!