Okay, where do I start? "There be Whales in there sir!"Actually, there are whales, but that's not important right now. Shane Schofeild has worse luck than that guy who played James Bond in between Sean Conery and Roger More (Her Majesty's Secret Service). His best line of the movie was "How come this doesn't happen to those other guys?" Shane Schofield, alias "Scarecrow," has a tough job. Go rescue some hot babe scientists in one of the remotest parts of the world. He and his team of Marine special warfare fighters have to go in, secure the station then wait for the rest of the corps to show up so they can claim the glory. Sounds easy right? Nothing is ever easy.Scarecrow and his team learn from the word go that nothing is easy on the butt-end of the world. The entire world seems to want a piece of the ice and for some reason they are treating the Scarecrow and his team as "persona non gratta?" If that ain't bad enough, only two of the scientists are hot babes. A new battlecry is born "NUKE THE WHALES!" This is a solid action adventure read. It's more Ian Flemming and Alistair MacLean than Clive Cussler or James Rollins. It is pure action adventure in the same vein as "Where Eagles Dare" and "James Bond." If you want action, this book's got it. I bet you'll smell like gunpowder smoke and whale poop when you get done reading this book. The story starts in the action phase and after barely a "how do you do" the runaway train is leaving the station. Then, after a third of the book, he takes the time to slow things down and add in some character development. Schofield's back story is chilling. Gant (Fox) is curiously interesting and the others are strangely absent. The background of one of the most interesting characters, "Mother" stays a question mark. Yet we get plenty of back-story on Allison and Crawford, two pencil-necked geekoid wanna-be Berstien and Woodwards. Rielly relies on action and white hat/black hat descriptions to keep the warriors straight. Having said that, he does do the work it takes to write behavior and quirks and other things that make each character distinctive if somewhere between 2 and three deminsional. He gets an "A" for the difficult prospect of writing strong female characters that come across as realistic without being bitchy or needy. Even the love swooned beauty in hiding is able to keep her emotions straight while she takes care of business. I'd have liked to see him develop relationships more, though true action adventure enthusiasts might balk at the "yuky-girl-stuff" if he'd gone farther than he did. Unless of course there was gratuitus sex. Plot wise the pace starts fast and gets faster then settles down to regroup for another round of BOHICA (Navay Rehtoric for "Bend over, here it comes again). The action is very fun and the lulls are necessary to gather the frayed ends the last hair raising segment left laying all over the place. I did find that, despite Scarecrow's comments that "we can't get a break," he did benifit from the miraculous more than a few times though Rielly did try to write in a logical reason for them it didn't quite wash. Schofield himself bordered on uber-human while his comrades had to struggle like upper teir humans. There were also times Schoofield reminded me of the Weasly Crusher (Wessley Crusher) from Star Trek, The Next Generation. The same kind of Know-it-all-ed-ness that lead to the "kill Wessly campaign" by Star Trek fans that found the charracter a bit too Godly. But that's the bad stuff. For the record, most of this is standard fare for this genre and sub-genre. Rielly manages this better most. The pace is fast, furious and none of it comes easily. Add to this a really good plot that is not so complex it can't be followed, yet not so simple you can figure everything out before Scarecrow learns it. He also did a good job of hiding adversaries so you might never know where the next one is coming from. Super job there. So, why the 4 stars? So much potential. WOnderfully worked plot. Superb pace and, though I found some of it creative, the obstacles that Rielly dropped in front of Scarecrow and his team made for some exciting edge of your seat ride. Rielly also does everything the genre asks. Short of some gratuitus sex, it's all there.Great fun. Good read. I recommend it for anyone who likes military style action, complicated plots that aren't too complicated. The characters are stronger than most that this genre produces. Lacks/likes: I'd have liked to see more development of the only romantic relationship in the book, or something that more clearly established it as a sad, unrequieted love. Warnings:No nudity, no sex, lots and lots of people getting killed in creative military ways. There is even some brutality. This violence is likely managable by most mature adults and young adults, though it's likely not right for the Amish and children. It could be worse, but if rising body counts bug you this isn't for you. bottom line. Good read, lots of fun, exciting action and aventure.
Part 2 in a four-book review of Matthew Reilly's novelsContest -> Ice Station -> Temple -> Seven Ancient Wonders<= Contest... found an engaging read again! I liked the story - a simple mystery about an alien artefact found lodged thousands of feet underneath the Antarctic ice shelf. There is an excellent turn half way through (which I will not reveal) that keeps the plot believable, and the novel more tight as a thriller. It is - for a lesser part - well written and Matthew keeps it fast paced and maintains suspense through a series of literary devices and tricks. There are cliffhangers, "mystery moments" (this is my expression for sequences in which a character's behaviour seems odd to the reader until the reason suddenly becomes apparent), "narrative time dilation" (again, my words to denote a device that extends the time it takes to narrate an event and hence creates "24"-style real-time tension), plot constraints (external constraints that require characters to solve an issue within a certain timeframe) and some others.So that's good about it. But I said 'for a lesser part' well written". That is an odd expression to use. Should it not be "for the most part"? Well yes - but only if I meant it. My edition has near 700 pages, and I think Matthew could have told his story in 300 and would not have lost anything. Why is it 400 pages longer than it needs to be? Because Matthew insists on extending fight scenes beyond anything that is remotely tolerable to a sane individual. The initial battle scene, for example, is 117 pages long. Yes, you heard right. 117. Onehundredandseventeen. An isolated occurrence? Not so. A wild chase involving a hovercraft is similarly overdone, and so are other miscellaneous action scenes dotted around the novel. The result? Unspeakable tedium. There is no psychological suspense in these plot segments and after getting through them you feel as if somebody had forced you to watch action scenes from the Transformers movies for 4 hours in a row.And the worst of this is that Matthew does this deliberately! It's not that he simply loses control over his plot, he consciously devises action scenes of this length because he thinks this is really cool. How do I know this? Because he said so himself: "... I'd been finding that the books I was reading were too slow, or taking too long between action scenes. I also saw no reason why books couldn't have really massive action scenes, action scenes that were even bigger than those you see in blockbuster Hollywood movies." ("An Australian Interview with Matthew Reilly", in Matthew Reilly, Temple, London 2000, n.p.) Well. Like I said - 4 hours of Transformers-style robot-thrashing, rather than 30 minutes."Movies are constrained by budgets", Matthew continues. "But with books, the limit of your budget is the limit of your imagination. I like to think I have a big imagination." (same place). In Matthew's case, a smaller imagination would have definitely been more.Still, I sort of still liked this one, so I went to pick up Matthew's next offering, Temple, and...=> Temple
What do You think about Ice Station (2000)?
Atención James Bonds, Ethan Hunts, Chuck Norrises, Rambos y MacGyvers ha llegado el nuevo héroe: Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield!!! sois todos unas abuelitas a su lado, ja! Qué bien lo he pasado leyendo este libro, adrenalina a tope, acción en cada párrafo, apenas he tenido tiempo para respirar. Que la acción es rocambolesca, descabellada, increíble, imposible y poco realista?? pues tal vez sí, pero está tan bien contado y explicado que yo no he parado un segundo en pensar si los hechos se sostenían o no. Por suerte no sé nada de armas, aviones, bombas, detonadores, estaciones en el Polo Sur, etc. Mi ignorancia, respecto a tecnicismos militares, me ha hecho disfrutar en cada línea de una historia de acción trepidante, más parecida a una película que a una novela. Un libro de verdad "unputdownable"
—Cora
Ice Station is a fast, often breath taking and action filled story. Just when I found myself believing I could tell where the tale would lead, another dramatic twist would leap out and grab me by the throat. It is a very hard book to put down.The characters are layers and their loyalties and allegiances demonstrate the nature of the military beast. The masculine undertones of the good guys fighting the bad guys, Cowboy and Indian style is muddled when some of the good guys show their hands as mercenaries patriotically defending the 'national security' at the cost of their own military personal.So detailed are the battles that it's hard not to blanch when a grenade is thrown into the midst of the characters. Matthew Reilly has clearly done some heavy research and maybe some imaginary future developing of military weapons and organizations. This all gives credence to the incredible scenario played out at Wilkes Station in the Antarctic.The main character 'Scarecrow' Shane Schofield seems like an updated James Bond eluding death with alarming regularity. He is a Lieutenant in the United States Marines, simply trained to secure and rescue hapless civilians who might have discovered something at their research station that they shouldn't. Indiana Jones would marvel at the ingenuity and tenaciousness of this character. Throughout the book Matthew Reilly pulls all the complexities of close combat situations together with goals set and obstacles to be overcome to achieve the final solution. The spine tingling thought that such under cover operations in the name of 'national security' could be keeping a apathetic public blind was numbing.The cover of this book says it all - 'Strap yourself in for the Ride - what follows is action, action and more action. For anyone who's looking for a dose of something different try this great read. Perhaps we aspiring writers can take heart at this youthful and bold approach to writing and becoming a success.
—Jill Smith
A great debut for Shane Schofield. It was an amazing read! Shane Schofield's character was unique and full of luck, hehe! He should say "Give me a break Matt Reilly!" I really agree that those secret military organizations do exist. But I was so confused about the behavior of those Antarctic Killer Whales! This is the very second time that I've heard/read about Killer Whales attack (after watching Orca The Killer Whale), kill and eat Humans, its kinda weird! Now I want to read the Manga version of this book. But overall its an extremely total non-stop action!
—Jason Sta. Maria
