Lynda's Reviews > Ice Station

WOW! WOW! WOW!

THE PACE WAS FRANTIC!

EDGE OF THE SEAT STUFF!

A TOTALLY GRIPPING, ACTION PACKED THRILLER!


What the hell just happened?

I'm a member of the GR group A Good Thriller and in October this year they started a concept called "Book Pal". The key purpose of Book Pal is to help members attack that overwhelming "To Be Read (TBR)" shelf by assigning a random partner each month to choose a book for you to read from that shelf. This month I was teamed with Juliana from the UK who had just started to read Ice Station and, given this had been sitting in my home library unread since 1999, we thought it was an excellent opportunity for me to read it as well.

OMG! What an amazing experience. I haven't been so entertained like this for a long time. I was neck deep in this book from start to finish. It did not disappoint. This is not my usual line in escapism, but Reilly's talent for coming up with ingenious new twists on every page is awesome. I kept telling myself

"I'll get to the end of this chapter and then I'll go and do X"

but damn it, every chapter finished on such an adrenaline high, I simply had to read the next one to find out what happened!

All the various plot pieces revealed throughout the story were seamlessly woven together by the end, and Reilly's dastardly collection of marines, psychos and sadists were so astutely portrayed that I felt like I personally knew every one of them.

The story begins at Wilkes Ice Station, a US research facility about nine hundred miles from McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Wilkes Ice Station is essentially a great, big, vertical cylinder that has been bored into the ice shelf. It dives five storeys straight down, all the way to sea level. Indented at regular intervals on the walls of the cylinder are metal catwalks which run around the circumference of the cylinder. Branching out from each catwalk, burrowing into the icy walls themselves, are a series of tunnels which form the different levels of the station.


Wilkes Ice Station from the inside

After two diving teams at Wilkes Ice Station are killed following their discovery of what appears to be an alien spacecraft, the station sends out a distress signal. A team of eleven United States Recon Marines, led by thirty two year old Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield, is dispatched to secure the station. Upon arriving they find that French scientists from a nearby French research station have already arrived. But all is not what it seems and some of the French are revealed as soldiers, who are also after the ‘alien spacecraft’ discovery. A bloody and gruesome battle ensues whereby all of the French soldiers are killed, and Schofield loses three members of his team, with a further two seriously injured. So much for both countries belonging to NATO, eh?

"International alliances are not about friendship. They are about advantage. If friendship brings advantage, then friendship is desirable. If friendship does not bring advantage, then perhaps merely civil relations may be all that is necessary."

Schofield decides to send a marine dive team of three down below the ice to find the supposed alien spacecraft. They are also joined by one of the scientists from Wilkes Station. But all hell breaks loose once they’re gone. One of the two injured marines is killed, Schofield himself is shot and left for dead, and the second injured marine is also set upon. There is a traitor in Schofield’s team, a member of the Intelligence Convergence Group (ICG), whose sole purpose is to infiltrate elite American military units to keep tabs on them and make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Once the job is complete however, the ICG infiltrator is then tasked with “erasing” or wiping out the unit such that no knowledge about the assignment is leaked.

As if this wasn’t enough, the team learns of a pending nuclear attack by the French, as well as a land attack by the British SAS. Everyone wants to secure the spaceship discovery for their country.

And so the battle begins!!!!


One of Schofield's team peers through the window from a hovercraft vehicle, as troops do battle

Throughout this book Reilly delivers cliff-hangers galore! The laws of science are sometimes shunted aside to make way for improbable weaponry and impossible situations, but that's just part of the fun.

One thing's for sure…I now know I want an Armalite MH-12 Maghook for christmas! Read the book and you'll know why! :-)))

I LOVED THIS BOOK.

DEFINITELY AN AUTHOR I WANT TO READ MORE OF.

A solid 5 stars!


About the Author

Matthew Reilly was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1974. He is the international bestselling author of twelve novels: Ice Station, Temple, Contest, Area 7, Scarecrow, Hover Car Racer, Hell Island, Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones, The Five Greatest Warriors, Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves and The Tournament.


Matthew Reilly

Published in late 1998, Ice Station was an instant hit, delivering a new style of action thriller to Australian readers. It was snapped up by major publishers in the US, UK and Germany.

Matthew Reilly has been quoted as saying:

"Ice Station was a direct response to Hollywood action movies. I figured that when you make a movie, you are limited by your budget. Put simply, it costs big dollars to make big action scenes. But when you write a book, you can create the wildest and biggest action scenes you like and it doesn’t cost you a cent. The only limit is the limit of your imagination!"

Life hasn't always been happy for Matthew. In early December 2011, while Reilly was in South Australia on a book tour promoting Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, his wife Natalie, who had suffered from anorexia and depression, committed suicide. Matthew could not write for a very long time following this.

An Australian TV program, "Australian Story", caught up with Matthew in February 2014 to find out how he is doing. Attached below is a link to a very moving 30 minute interview with Matthew, his publishers and his family/friends.

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/special...



Photos

—Photo 1 courtesy of Clan McPherson
—Photo 2 courtesy of PC Power Play
—Photo 3 courtesy of Daily Mail
—Photo 4 courtesy of Mama Mia