Ice Station

The first thing you need to know about a Matthew Reilly novel is that there's a lot of BS going on. Our protagonist in "Ice Station," Captain Shane Michael Schofield, callsign Scarecrow, withstands more than anyone possibly could. And some of the action is ridiculously over-the-top and wholly unbelievable.

So why 5 stars?

Cause Matthew Reilly books are so damn fun to read! Think of the classic Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Willis action movies and put them in novel form. If you can put believably aside and just go along for the ride, you'll be breathless at the end of nearly ever section.

In the book, scientists studying at Wilkes Ice Station in Antarctica discover what they believe to be a spaceship hidden deep in a cavern accessible far below show more the surface and the station. Unfortunately, the divers are attacked and presumed lost.
However, the radio announcement they made back to the station was intercepted and when the top-side scientists call for help, friend and foe alike show up. Thus starts a thousand-mile-a-minute race between good guys and baddies, complete with cool weapons, near-misses, and very gruesome deaths.

If you go into the book with the right mind-set, you'll be addicted. If you keep in mind that this is not literature, you'll have a ball. show less

From Amazon:

Anarctica is the last unconquered continent, a murderous expanse of howling winds, blinding whiteouts and deadly crevasses. On one edge of Antarctica is Wilkes Station. Beneath Wilkes Station is the gate to hell itself. A team of U.S. divers, exploring three thousand feet beneath the ice shelf has vanished. Sending out an SOS, Wilkes draws a rapid deployment team of Marines-and someone else...

First comes a horrific firefight. Then comes a plunge into a drowning pool filled with killer whales. Next comes the hard part, as a handful of survivors begin an electrifying, red-hot, non-stop battle of survival across the continent and against wave after wave of elite military assassins-who've all come for one thing: a secret buried show more deep beneath the ice.

My Thoughts:

I am amazed at how much action this author can write about in one book! It makes you feel that you have run a marathon after reading it. Matthew Reilly is the kind of author you wish wrote the screenplays for action movies. Ice Station was a tremendous amount of fun to read. It has a conceivable plot twist, cliff-hanger surprises, stomach-churning thrills and spills... death-defying stunts and "risk everything" maneuvers. Our hero and his allies...which is yet another twist... definitely get put through the wringer. This is the stuff comic books and movie serials used to be made of! This is Saturday Afternoon at the Movies.... but in a book. I don't know if the "mag-hook" is real or a "Sc-Fi" invention, but I think I'll ask for one for Christmas...never mind...I'd just shoot my eye out:) show less

Reseña de Fantasía Mágica

Debo confesar que no hubiera leído este libro tan pronto si no fuera por el Reto Continental. Me lo hubiera perdido, así que ¡hurra! por el desafío que me hizo leer algo diferente :)

El prólogo es breve pero interesante desde las primeras palabras.
Comenzamos con una disertación sobre la Antártida, sus características climáticas, una breve referencia a los intentos con resultados dudosos de construir laboratorios ahí y la misteriosa desaparición de un hombre de gran importancia para el gobierno noteamericano.
El continente tiene voluntad propia, y la raza humana no es nada contra él.
Esta introducción fue suficiente para atraparme por completo. Y el resto del libro no me defraudó.

Ahora pónganse show more ropa abrigada: nos vamos a la Antártida. Y lean la sinopsis que está bien resumido lo que ocurre en el libro, no tiene caso que vuelva a contar exactamente lo que ya está dicho.

Cuando Shane 'Espantapájaros' Schofield llega a la base antártica, comenzará el libro con más acción que leí en mi vida. No les exagero. Durante páginas y páginas habrá una cantidad de acción increíble, y muy bien narrada. Realmente se siente la emoción, la tensión y la adrenalina de los personajes.
Siempre leí batallas medievales. En este libro veremos muchas situadas en la actualidad y narradas con lujo de detalle. Es lo mismo en cierta forma, pero con más tecnología y nombres de armamento que muchas veces no se si existen realmente o no.

La misión de los marines es proteger la base antártica de los diversos enemigos (enviados por varios gobiernos) que irán llegando para tomar posesión de ella. Pero además de cuidar la edificación y lo que ello oculta en una cueva subterránea, deberán también proteger al grupo de científicos que ahora se encuentra atrapado en la base, y que está en tanto peligro de muerte como ellos: lo que sea el secreto que fue descubierto, no deben quedar sobrevivientes que puedan divulgarlo.
Algo que me pareció un toque maestro, maquiavélico y sádico es que entre los civiles se incluye una niñita que por diversas razones siempre estará en peligro de muerte.
Pero si los soldados altamente entrenados que vienen a matarlos no es suficiente, en el fondo de la base hay un tanque con orcas ambrientas (que van y vienen) y para terminar de sumarle problemas, porque no tenían suficientes, en una de las habitaciones está encerrado un asesino loco y despiadado que mató a uno de sus colegas.

Por estar frente a un grupo altísimamente entrenado de marines (que yo siempre creí que eran lo mismo que los seals, pero no lo son), Espantapájaros tiene bajo su mando a un equipo -formado en su mayoría por hombres- que cumplirá sus órdenes y se arriesgará en las situaciones más peligrosas.
No se si en realidad los marines usarán tanto los apodos, pero en este libro cada personaje tiene el suyo y es un gran acierto. Son muchas personas presentadas juntas, y sólo con el nombre o apellido sería confuso y muy dificil de recordar. En cambio con los sobrenombres se vuelve sencillo identificarlos rápidamente, algo similar a lo que hace George Martin con los personajes secundarios.

Toda la acción del libro (salvo el prólogo y el epílogo) ocurrirá en un mismo día, muy poéticamente expresado en un diálogo: "—¿Por qué no terminará este día de una puta vez? —dijo Schofield."
Cada tanto en el cambio capítulo vamos con la acción a Estados Unidos, primero a una reunión de la OTAN y después pasamos a una pareja de periodistas en busca de su siguiente gran historia.
Pero son muy breves estos fragmentos, la acción principal es en la Antártida.
No faltarán las teorías conspirativas, ni la acción (¿lo dije ya?), ni las muertes, ni la emoción, ni el peligro... pero si creen que éste es un libro de "yankis buenos, mundo malo" no se dejen engañar. No todo es lo que parece.

Hubo, sí, una partecita que se me hizo un poquito larga de tantos tiros que iban y venían. De todos modos cuando esa parte termina (aunque no la enorme cantidad de acción) la historia se vuelve emocionante y muy atrapante.
Hay mucho diálogo breve y preciso que suena muy militar (no se si será parecido con la realidad, pero se oye bien). Sin embargo cuando hay conversaciones coloquiales los diálogos son muy buenos. Atrapantes y reales.
No hay un gran desarrollo de personajes, pero sí se nos cuenta lo suficiente como para conocerlos un poco, identificarlos y por qué no, quererlos. Espantapájaros es el personaje más patea-culos que he visto, por lejos; sólo seguido de cerca por Madre, una mujerzota tamaño ropero que tiene una escena ente medio de las orcas con la que no parpadeé durante varios párrafos.

Pero quien se roba la historia es Wendy.
Wendy es una foca.

El final me encantó, muy acorde a todo el libro. Es como ver una película de acción narrada, realmente excelente (si les gusta el género).
Lo recomiendo, mucho mucho. show less

Looking for thrills, chills and surprises? Looking for action, adventure and pure, non-stop mayhem? Looking for a story that throws punch after punch without stopping to rest? Look no further than Matthew Reilly’s Ice Station: a smart, pacy confined-space thriller with a dash of well-timed humour. This book has no chapter numbers – they’d just get in the way of the excitement, which all takes place over a twenty-four hour period. The characters are well constructed, (albeit a little stereotypical,) and help to drive the plot along. Their introductions are cleverly timed – Reilly realises that readers can’t absorb the names of twelve Marines all at once, so he introduces them one and two at a time. His habit of dispatching show more characters without hesitation also makes remembering names much easier.

The sad thing is that Ice Station will probably find itself on the receiving end of much literary snobbery: “Oh, I’m not going to read that. That’s airport fiction, a cheap thrill written for a quick buck. I’m going to go read some Tolkien – something worthwhile.” It is pointless to judge Ice Station using the same criteria that The Lord of the Rings might be judged against. Ice Station excels because it rises above the competition in its own genre.

For starters, it flows like the Nile. A thriller of this sort needs to be easy to read – Ice Station practically jumps off the page and reads itself to you. Secondly, it is brimming with research about weaponry, diplomatic relationships and polar geography. I’m no expert on guns and grenades, but I was still very impressed by this novel – Reilly has obviously done his homework and clearly knows what he’s talking about, which adds quality to the book. This in turn helps Ice Station to have far fewer clichés than you would expect from this kind of thriller. Instead of killer sharks, Reilly uses killer whales; instead of a car chase, there is a hovercraft chase. Fresh new ideas such as these are used to eliminate the clichés, while retaining the tried-and-true excitement.

It may be a little farfetched at times, and it may not win prestigious literary awards, but those who read Ice Station with a ‘why not’ attitude will enjoy themselves immensely. Call me blasphemous, but I think I’d take Reilly over Tolkien any day. show less

I read this on a night train and developed a headache after a while. It must have been sheer perversity which made me finish it. The incredible thing is not so much that this trash actually sells. It is rather that editors do not find it necessary to correct even the most glaring errors contained in it. But then again, if they did, not much would remain. In that respect this book is in the same class as the worst fan-fiction stories: alternate universe, suspension of disbelief, invalidation of natural laws, the works. There are several ways one could describe this book. It is a children's book, it is a near-fantasy adventure, it caters to the comic book audience. I can only hope that at age fifteen I would have been discerning enough to show more spot most of the impossibilities it contains and bored enough by the non-dimensional characters to not like it.

There are authors who take great pains to research what they are writing about, who feel a responsibility towards their audience. This is an author who totally disregards his readers. He doesn't give a damn. Writing in a way that insults the readers' intelligence and their taste is an achievement in itself.

I left the book on the train. show less

The first in the Sheffield series and the best. Perhaps it is the Antarctica setting that intrigues and makes it appear better than it really is. Be that as it may , what sets this series apart is the fast-paced action that the writer managed to convey within an unlikely medium - the novel.

This book introduces Lieutenant Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield. The story involves the response by a crack team of marines to a distress call from an Antarctic research station saying they have found a spaceship. Unfortunately they are not the only ones to pick up the signal.

This book is non-stop action from beginning to end. The first half is excellent, with the tension never letting up, but as the end draws near I found some of the situations too unbelievable. Then I realized......this is an action adventure book so just suspend your belief and go for the gusto.

Ice Station is a military thriller in every sense of the word. It is over-the-top, packed full of action and is just a lot of fun to read. If you want realism, look somewhere show more else. The characters are quickly introduced and brief backgrounds are given. Once the stage has been set, it is off to the races and what a race it is. The author is not big on character development, although there is some background and growth in the Ice Station, its only in retrospect. The main focus of Reilly's novels is action. When I'm next in the mood for something that screams action/adventure I'm definitely going to pick up the next book in Reilly's Scarecrow series. show less