Book Review: Ice Station by Matthew Reilly

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:

"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..."

Review: 

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.
 

Book Review: The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1) by Michael Scott

The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #1) by Michael Scott

Release Date: 24th June 2008
Publisher: Random House
Format: Paperback 
Pages: 400
Rating: 4.5/5.0

This book was read as part of the 2012 OTS Challenge 

Summary from Amazon:

"He holds the secret that can end the world.

The truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on September 28, 1330. Nearly 700 years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life.

The records show that he died in 1418.

But his tomb is empty.

The legend: Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for centuries. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects—the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. That's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it.

Sometimes legends are true.

And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time."

Review:
I'm going to keep this review short and sweet because I'm currenlty reading the second book in this series, and want to get back to it - because these books are really, really good. From the first few pages, I was drawn in. Unlike some books, this one threw you directly into the action within the first few chapters, and managed to keep up the momentum for the rest of the book. And since the book was so engaging, with action pretty much non-stop, it made it extremely easy to read. 

Whilst the book was really good, I gave it a rating of 4.5 because the writing style, at times, annoyed me. Some facts were repeated excessively - it was as if Scott thought we had short-term memory loss and couldn't remember the important facts so he had to continually remind us. But if you can get past that, the book itself was a really enjoyable read. If you like anything involving magic, action, history and the supernatural, then you will enjoy this.