...Some doors are meant to remain unopened.
Temple is a 1999 novel by Matthew Reilly. William Race is a language professor tasked with translating a manuscript that will reveal the location of an Incan idol, capable of powering a Doomsday Device.
Temple contains examples of:
- Action Survivor: William Race is just language professor, but he manages to survive run-ins with giant panthers, caiman alligators, Neo-Nazis, death cultists, and rogue military forces to save the day.
- Anyone Can Die: As per tradition in a Matthew Reilly book, no one is safe. The most shocking death is probably Van Lewen, Race's Green Beret bodyguard, who gets executed by Colonel Nash for trying to save Race.
- Asshole Victim: A whole lot of them.
- Buzz Cochrane, one of the Green Berets who is a crass jerk, gets left behind at the temple after the Neo-Nazis steal the idol. Astthe end of the book we learn that the rapas got him.
- Lauren gets shot by the man she was cheating on her husband with after learning he was a death cultist who just using her.
- William's brother Martin, who sold out William and was happily going to watch him get executed, gets shot and killed by the death cultists in his moment of victory. Double points because he was Lauren's husband and found out that she'd been cheating on him just before they both get shot.
- Big, Bulky Bomb: The Supernova is absolutely massive and powerful enough to actually destroy the world.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Lauren O'Connor, William's old college flame, turns out to be a member of the Army and was specifically brought on the mission by Colonel Nash to lure Race into joining. She, however, is already married to William's brother, but is cheating on him with another member of the Army team.
- Canon Welding: The Supernova from Temple is briefly mentioned in Area 7 and Hell Island.
- Chekhov's Classroom: There's a throwaway sentence from the protagonist about how he'll need to change his PIN after reading a story in the paper about how most people use their birth dates as pass codes. Guess how he defuses the superweapon his brother worked on? Guess again, it wasn't his birthday. But that example was used as a starting point. His brother always used Elvis' army serial number as his PIN. The Nazi scientist used his supposed date of execution.
- The Chosen One: Renco Capac is believed by the Incas to be a Chosen One, as revealed by the birthmark under his left eye, the same birthmark William Race has. The Chosen One will safeguard the idol and prevent its theft by outsiders. The ending of the novel, however, implies that Race was the real Chosen One.
- Doomsday Device: The Supernova is absolutely massive and powerful enough to actually destroy the world.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The final piece of the manuscript reveals that Alberto Santiago and Renco Capac survived their fight with Hernando Pizzaro and the rapas and spent their remaining years in good friendship with the guardians of the temple. Alberto even marries Lena and enjoys a long and happy marriage with her before their both peacefully die of old age surrounded by their family.
- Evil All Along: Colonel Nash at first seems like a friendly and reasonable guy, but towards the end it's revealed he's a sociopath who doesn't blink at killing his own men and fellow countrymen for control of the Supernova.
- Got Volunteered: Race is "recruited" by the Army to translate the manuscript. Said recruitment involves armed soldiers showing up at his office and his boss more or less saying that his job is on the line.
- Hero of Another Story: The manuscript details the adventures of Alberto Santiago, a Spanish monk who came to the New World. He befriends an Incan prince named Renco Capac and helps him escape imprisonment so Renco can take the idol to the last hiding place of the Incas, the eponymous temple.
- Interservice Rivalry: A deadly serious version, with elements of the U.S. Army and Navy willing to kill each other over control of the Supernova. With Congress on the verge of disbanding one of the branches of the military, they're all in a competition to prove their worth and the Supernova is one hell of a trump card.
- MacGuffin: The story revolves around a race to see who can find and recover a lost Incan idol. The idol is made from a very rare, non-terrestrial material (it was carved from a meteorite) which means it's the only known item that can power the Supernova.
- Pair the Spares: At the end, Doogie Kennedy, the last surviving Green Beret, hooks up with Gaby Lopez, the Army team's anthropologist.
- Panthera Awesome: The temple is guarded by a pack of rapas, giant, man-eating panthers that kill anyone trying to steal the idol. One of the tests of the Chosen One is finding a way to lure the rapa back into the temple once they're released and then getting out of the temple alive.
- Planet Destroyer: The Supernova is absolutely massive and powerful enough to actually destroy the world.
- Pocket Protector: The Bible version happens here. Justified in that the shot was from a flintlock.
- Posthumous Character: Naturally, since it was written in the 1500s, the characters from the manuscript are long dead by the time Race reads their story.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: As punishment for stealing the idol, Colonel Nash gets his hands hacked off by the natives and then sacrificed to the rapas.
- Story Within a Story: We get to read the manuscript.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: About two thirds of the way into the book, Race finds out that the idol everyone has been chasing is actually a fake that was planted in the temple by Renco. Race deduces that the real idol is being held by the native tribe living on the plateau above the temple.
