Temple

So silly. So stupid. So slam-bang, so summer-blockbuster, so style-over-substance.So good.No, not really. Not that terribly good at all. The meat of the book is a hastily slapped-together hodgepodge of action movie cliches, good and evil character archetypes, over-the-top fight sequences that just beg to be filmed in bullet time, laughingly unlikely escapes, and paper-thin character development. The story, not that it matters, involves competing military teams, both government and militia, (including some hilarious modern-day techno-Nazis) racing after a Incan idol carved from a meteor that can power a doomsday device.It's also a very phonetically-written book; lots of "blams," "pows," and "thwats." Kind of like the old Batman TV show more series, only with guns and a lot of blood and exploding body parts.If there is one complaint, other than the absurd execution, Jerry Bruckheimer-grade dialogue, and borderline fetishism with modern machine guns, it's that there aren't a whole lot of scenes that take place in the temple of the title.Dumb fun, but hardly high art. show less

This had me dreaming of an overseas holiday, because this is quintessentially an "Airport Novel" -- it has all the elements: a search for lost treasure, exotic locations (Peru), lots of carefully enumerated military hardware, conspiracies, Nazis, not to mention continuous, breathtaking and incredible (i.e. impossible to believe) action. Somewhat endearingly, Reilly often uses italics when describing some moment of particularly hard to believe action, as though he can hardly believe it himself. Let it be said that, although this ain't literature, it did have me reading it from start to end in one (long) day. Enthrallingly diverting. Perfect for your next holiday. [Jan 2001]

Fantastic. Non-stop action. A times the narrative began to slow and teetered on the edge of boredom, but almost as if Reilly was reading my mind, he changed it up, never letting me fully fall into the doldroms of boredom.

Recommended to fans of Indiana Jones-esque adventures!

Too much, too fast. The twin parallel narratives separated by half a millennium are an ingenious conceit.

I'm a little sad. Not because of this book, this book was great. I'm sad because I've now read all of Matthew Reilly's books at least once. I have to wait for his next book to be published: wait!!

If anything, Temple is probably one of Matt's best books. In typical Reilly style it redefines fast paced and action packed, but this also feels more complete than the Jack West Jnr series. It is also one of his longer books, so plenty of entertainment in this novel to keep you going.

In short, read it.

I really enjoy Reilly's writing style. He really knows how to keep the action going and he creates some crazy fabulous scenes. The Temple was no different - action packed all the way. The only negative I have about it is I thought there one too many groups competing for the supernova and also I thought Race disabling it one time would have plenty. I didn't think another 100 pages was needed to introduce another like 5th?? 10th?? 30th?? competing group (I started losing count after 3) with Race disabling the Supernova entirely again for a 2nd time. Just thought that was way too much.

Like most of Matthew Reilly's books, this is fast paced, action packed and well plotted... and filled with a love of exclamation marks and examples of writing so bad it makes you cringe. Still, good fun and a quick read.