The Cats’ Mother's Reviews > Ice Station

I first read Ice Station in the early 2000s, and it began my addiction to Mr Reilly’s books. They’re like bookish crack - you’re hooked from the first taste, but subsequent doses never quite recreate the same high as your first time - but it doesn’t stop you trying… This was Audible Australia’s free book of the month last year sometime, and given I had forgotten most of the plot, was happy to read it again, mostly while running. (It was so good an exercise book that I ran 10km for the first time ever on Saturday, then did it again today!!) I had previously rated it 5 stars for sheer enjoyment, but twenty years on, it has inevitably dated a little, and various things bothered me enough to dock a star. It was still a fab listen though.

A crack team of marines led by the enigmatic Lieutenant Colonel Shane Schofield - call sign Scarecrow - has been sent to a remote scientific base in Antartica after a distress call mentioned the discovery of a submerged spaceship. Knowing many countries will want to get their hands on the technology, the US government is determined to claim it first - but the other teams are just as motivated. Can Scarecrow and his colleagues defend the base and protect the scientists when everything and everyone there wants to kill them?

This is bullet-paced explosive action which barely lets up, with a very high body count. It’s much gorier than I remember - I’ve lost my taste for this much violence especially when inflicted on innocents. Last time I either ignored or didn’t register many of the ridiculous plot details, including improbable coincidences and impossible scenarios. For example, a 12 year old girl with asthma dropping in to an Antarctic base in winter for a family visit and adopting a fur seal? Ludicrous. Even what Schofield gets away with without being court-martialled is preposterous.

The thing I disliked the most this time was the portrayal of orca - referred to consistently as Killer Whales - as relentlessly bloodthirsty predators of humans. The number of cases of orca attacking humans is in fact vanishingly small, but this book left me fearful of them for years afterwards.
I know nothing about military technology, so had no idea how real the descriptions of weapons and various accessories used were. Mentions of real world resources like microfiche and paper atlases did show the book’s age though. The geopolitical machinations were depressingly believable however. I enjoyed the range of characters - and knowing that certain favourite individuals reappear in later books meant I wasn’t worried about what happened to them.

Apart from these niggles this was an enjoyable repeat read, and the audiobook narration was well done with Sean Mangan handling all the different accents admirably. You do miss out on the diagrams which are a useful feature of the paper versions in all of Reilly’s books, and I normally read them in one sitting so would probably only choose the audiobook version for a reread, as here, where I’m not in such a race to the finish.