La antigua Roma, descubrimientos arqueológicos en Pompeya, secretos del Vaticano, misteriosas civilizaciones perdidas y señales desde el espacio. Estos son los ingredientes con los que Valerio Massimo Manfredi construye La torre de la soledad, una de sus mejores novelas.
Un grupo de soldados romanos que avanza por el desierto del Sahara es aniquilado por una presencia feroz y misteriosa nacida de una torre solitaria en el extremo del mar de arena. Solo un superviviente: el arúspice etrusco Avile Vipinas.
Veinte siglos después, en 1930, un joven arqueólogo norteamericano, Philip Garrett, descubre en Pompeya la habitación de Avile Vipinas quien, antes de morir, quiso dejar testimonio del horror oculto en la torre solitaria y de cómo llegar hasta ella para destruirlo.
Mientras tanto, en el Vaticano, Guglielmo Marconi es convocado en mitad de la noche al observatorio de La Specola, donde una potentísima radio, construida con gran secreto, está captando una misteriosa señal que proviene del espacio. El padre Boni, director del observatorio, ha hecho construir esa radio tras haber descubierto en las notas de su predecesor que diez años antes Garrett había traducido con éxito un texto oculto durante siglos en un lugar recóndito de la Biblioteca Vaticana: una especie de biblia elaborada por una civilización mucho más antigua que cualquiera de las conocidas. Antes de extinguirse habían construido la Torre de la Soledad y lanzado una señal al espacio. Pero ¿qué esconde la torre? ¿Quiénes eran, si realmente existieron, los Blemmi de los que hablaban los antiguos viajeros? ¿Cuál es el secreto de la bellísima Arad, por cuyas venas corre la sangre de la antigua reina negra de Meroe?

Una storia dall'inizio avvincente,ma con un finale troppo frettoloso. ( )

I gave up on this book at page 150something as I got more and more bored. The characters weren't interesting, the story is kind of confused and not at all what I expected ( )

Let me start by saying I didn't think this book was too bad, although I seem to be in the minority there. A fantasy action adventure does not need to be great literature or full of memorable, believable characters as long as it is fast paced and exciting: The Tower suceeds in both those regards.

Manfredi is renowned as a writer of historical novels but neither this nor the only other of his books I have read [the Oracle] is set in the ancient world, although both explore a mystery which is rooted deep in the past. I must add one of the reasons I was pleasurably surprised by The Tower is that I really loathed The Oracle and find this later read infinitely better.

The story starts with a Roman legion travelling deep in the Sahara desert when it is attacked by mysterious creatures and is destroyed with the exception of one man who returns to tell the tale but is buried in Pompeii together with his account when Versuvius erupts. Fast forward to the 1930s when American scholar Phillip Garrett is informed by the Foreign Legion that his father, who vanished into the desert some ten years before, might be alive and in the Sahara.

As a subplot, the Vatican have tasked Marconi with building some sort of super wireless reciever that can pick up signals from deep space - signals coming from extraterrestrials or possibly [hence the Catholic Church's interest] from God himself? As is now par for the course, the senior priest is ruthless, secretive and completely without empathy: he is not in fact a Jesuit but employs a degree of cunning and heartless manipulation that popular literature likes to associate with the order.

Phillip follows clues left by his dad which lead him first to the vatican, then to a buried house in Pompeii, then finally into the desert where he has all sorts of adventures, including rescuing and falling in love with a beautiful woman who just happens to be queen of a hidden oasis. Unknown to the rest of the world, the oasis kingdom is at war with an inhuman species of warriors who resemble the legendary Blennyae, the race with no head whose faces resided on their chests.

Phillip, in an amazing series of co-incidences, does somehow find his long lost dad in the vast expanse of the Middle Eastern deserts - never actually quite sure where the story is set, North Africa or around Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea - then squares off against the Blennyae while the solitary tower [which is never properly explained] recieves the message from God or from aliens thanks to an Irish Jesuit having lugged the wireless plus recording equipment all the way from Italy to the heart of this desolate and dangerous spot.

The message by the way is Do not kill Cain. Which makes little sense, either from the Almighty or from ET. The story comes to a sudden halt in which lose ends are ignored and story-lines ruthlessly cut rather than wound up. The renegade legionnaire, a thoroughly unpleasant murderer, comes to no good, the Jesuit goes back to Italy with his message, Phillip retires to his personal Shangrila, the secret oasis, where he marries the queen, and his old dad rides into the desert sunset with his fathrful companion who, no doubt, helps him keep warm during those cold desert nights.

Not a great read and singuarly lacking in humour, or answers, but fairly exciting for all that and certainly not nearly as bad as most reviewers would have you believe. ( )

Un grupo de soldados romanos que avanza por el desierto del Sahara es aniquilado por una presencia feroz y misteriosa nacida de una torre solitaria situada en el extremo del mar de arena. Solo un superviviente: el arúspice etrusco Avile Vipinas. Veinte siglos después, en 1930, un joven arqueólogo norteamericano, Philip Garrett, descubre en Pompeya la habitación de Avile Vipinas quien, antes de morir, quiso dejar testimonio del horror oculto en la torre solitaria y de cómo llegar hasta ella para destruirla. Mientras tanto, en el Vaticano, Guglielmo Marconi es convocado en mitad de la noche al observatorio de La Specola, donde una potentísima radio, construida con gran secreto, está captando una misteriosa señal que proviene del espacio. El padre Boni, director del observatorio, ha hecho construir esa radio tras haber descubierto, en las notas de su predecesor, que diez años antes el desaparecido padre de Garrett había traducido con éxito un texto oculto durante siglos en un lugar recóndito de la Biblioteca Vaticana: una especie de biblia elaborada por una civilización mucho más antigua que cualquiera de las conocidas. Antes de extinguirse habían construido la Torre de la Soledad y lanzado una señal al espacio.