Ice Station by Matthew Reilly Release Date: 15th September 2000
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Format: Paperback
Pages: 611
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Summary from Amazon:
Format: Paperback
Pages: 611
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Summary 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 deep beneath the ice..."
One of my best friends recommended this book to me because she absolutely loves the author, and I hadn't read any of his books. She told me that it only took her 3 days to read, so I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, the book fell a little short for me. As it turns out, this type of book just isn't to my liking. It's a real action packed story, with lots of mystery (which I did enjoy in parts), but this is definitely more aimed towards a male audience. That's not to say that girls won't enjoy this - if you're into anything to do with action, mystery, political espionage and lots of kinda gory fighting, then I'm sure this book would interest you.
For me, I think that when it comes down to it, it isn't so much the story or the characters or anything like that that put me off this book, I think it was more the writing style. Every single paragraph ends with some sort of cliff hanger. Sure, in the beginning this is an effective writing tool - it keeps with glued to the book, forces you to turn to the next page instead of closing the book, and at certain parts a cliffhanger is justified - but after a while it just gets annoying. Honestly, you don't need to end a paragraph with a cliff hanger like, "and then he found it", only to find out in the next paragraph that what he actually found was just some scuba diving equipment; its just annoying.
Overall, I did enjoy this book somewhat - parts of the story really did interest me, and some of the action sequences had me reading up late into the night. But, when it comes down to it, I don't think I'll be reading another Matthew Reilly book any time soon.
For me, I think that when it comes down to it, it isn't so much the story or the characters or anything like that that put me off this book, I think it was more the writing style. Every single paragraph ends with some sort of cliff hanger. Sure, in the beginning this is an effective writing tool - it keeps with glued to the book, forces you to turn to the next page instead of closing the book, and at certain parts a cliffhanger is justified - but after a while it just gets annoying. Honestly, you don't need to end a paragraph with a cliff hanger like, "and then he found it", only to find out in the next paragraph that what he actually found was just some scuba diving equipment; its just annoying.
Overall, I did enjoy this book somewhat - parts of the story really did interest me, and some of the action sequences had me reading up late into the night. But, when it comes down to it, I don't think I'll be reading another Matthew Reilly book any time soon.
