Product Description

At a remote US ice station in Antarctica, a team of scientists has made an amazing discovery. They have found something unbelievable buried deep below the surface, trapped inside a layer of ice 400 million years old. It's made of metal, and shouldn't be there.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17330 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
A remote antarctic research station, a strange alien presence and a group of hardy survivors trying to stay alive until help arrives? Sound familiar? Well, Matthew Reilly's debut novel is something of a mish-mash of several well-worn paths, borrowing liberally from movies like "The Thing" and "Die Hard" (among countless others) to create what really is the equivalent of an action movie in print. A distress call from the research station in the Antarctic prompts the arrival of a crack team of US commandos, eager to claim as their own the extraterrestrial prize discovered buried in the ice. Several station staff have already met mysterious deaths in the cavern where the supposed 'spaceship' has been found but a team of French soldiers also have their eyes on the treasure and before long all hell breaks lose as a band of soldiers and surviving scientists find themselves fighting for their life against what may be an inhuman enemy. At just over 700 pages, it's a hefty read but there is a distinct lack of padding and the plot is efficiently and tantalisingly constructed. Reilly's gifts do not lie in characterisation or believable dialogue and we are force- fed a diet of stock characters and some dialogue so banal that even Jean-Claude Van Damme would feel embarrassed to utter it. But what the book does deliver is action and plenty of it. The pace is relentless, as the reader is hit with one amazing set piece after another. Credibility is stretched to breaking point on several occasions, but that doesn't seem important. Ice Station will keep you turning the pages until the very end to create a pyrotechnic explosion of action and adventure. It is going to make one hell of a movie! --Jonathan WeirEND

Customer Reviews

Unintentionally hilarious
If Matthew Reilly is a 14 year old boy, then congratulations are in order for a great effort, one which I am sure other 14 year old boys will get hours of enjoyment from. If (as I suspect), he is an adult then oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I helped myself to this book from the shelves of the library in the school where I work. It is telling that the librarian, who 'advises' me on which books to read, was absent on the day I chose this one.

Unintentionally hilarious in many places (the scene of killer whales attacking marines for the first time had me laughing out loud on the bus), I cannot believe anyone could read it as a serious tale. Others have mentioned the unlikelihood of one man taking on the elite from several countries but it's not the same as reading it yourself, you'll be shaking your head in wonderment as you plod through this one.

Another oddity is the author's quite bizarre habit of writing in Italics to stress the impact or horror of an occurrence, ON ALMOST EVERY OTHER PAGE!

Sometime if the event is even more amazing and unbelievable and (frankly ridiculous) then he will...

DROP A LINE AND THROW AN EXCLAMATION MARK ON THE END FOR GOOD MEASURE!

Finally, I can only assume the book was never edited prior to being published. It's overly long and degenerates into farce the further it goes along. I had no feelings for any of the characters, forgot what happened to several (at one stage hero had a love interest of sorts, but I missed what became of her, and when I realised I had finished the book I had no desire to go and find out).

I'll never get those lost hours back, but you can save losing them in the first place. Avoid like the plague.

Nonsense.
I cant believe this book has a 4 star rating, its just complete nonsense, i usually buy my books off amazon after checking out a few reviews as i did with this book so from now on im gonna have to be more carefull.

From start to finish its just unbelieveably far fetched, geneticly modified killer whales with fricken laser beams on their heads, hero kills all the SAS then sinks a nuclear sub, finds a space aged plane in an undergound base in a glacier.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this book.

Insults the intelligence
I was a little more charitable about Reilly's novel Contest (check out my review folks), because the interesting alien scenario compensated to a fair degree for the simplistic and stilted use of language.

Here though, Reilly's literary limitations are as exposed as the Ross ice shelf.

Paper-thin clichéd characters engage in impossibly far-fetched adventures, with plot-holes big enough to drive a military hovercraft through.

The only saving grace is that the comic-book style action hurtles along at breakneck pace with virtually every chapter ending with a cliff-hanger. It's an undemanding page-turner that, just maybe, would make a reasonable "leave-your-brain-at-home" potboiler to take on a long flight or something. Think of Clive Cussler for those with attention-deficit disorder and you'll get some idea of Reilly's driving force.

The simplistic prose makes The Sun (or whatever is the US equivalent of a trashy tabloid) appear like Shakespeare. Reilly clearly has an aversion to adjectives - unless they are "icy", "big", "huge", "enormous" or "gigantic". He also peppers his prose with idiotic 1960's style Batman sound effects - "Snap-twangggg!" as a cable breaks; "Sprak!" as another skull gets splintered; or "craaaaaack" as our hero cops a blow to the nose. Most irritating of all, however, is Reilly's gross over-use of italics, to hammer home a point with the subtlety of a radioactive mutant elephant seal (and yes, believe it or not, that IS a spoiler!).

If you come across this book in your library, please make sure it is placed in the "teen-read" section. Had I read this when I was about 12, I would probably have given it 3 or 4 stars.

I hate myself for actually finishing this book. In fact I hate it so much that I must just hurl it across the room one final time; "weeeeeeeeeee......KER-THUMP!!!!"