This is a book that you can read in a moment and that hooks you from the first page. Although it is not science fiction per se (it is increasingly difficult to find science fiction in bookstores), it is a technological thriller with a good scientific basis and a military context.
If it weren't for the fact that it is clear that the author is Matthew Reilly, an Australian born in 1974 who I had never read anything from before, as indicated in the New York Times review, one would say that it was written by Michael Crichton or Clive Cussler himself due to the fast-paced pace he gives to his scenes and the suspense he generates at the end of each chapter.
The book tells a story that takes place in a remote American polar station in Antarctica, where a group of scientists have discovered an object trapped inside a four-hundred-year-old layer of ice. At first glance, the object looks like a spaceship, and so many people are determined to conquer the base and get their hands on the object.
A team of US Marines, led by a charismatic yet strange Lieutenant Shane Schofield, heads to the polar station to protect the find, while in the United States a journalist investigates plots between the army, the CIA and other government agencies, and an ex-military man tries to unmask infiltrators in the Marine Corps, from one of these agencies.
It is very curious to see how the author has dealt with the alliances between NATO states and how these alliances are so soon hanging by a thread that after a while they are shown to be the most solid in the world… at least in the eyes of the general public. It is also funny to see the French and the English as rivals of the Americans… if they ever make the book into a movie and turn it into a script, I don't think they will allow them to show the French and the English as enemies.
All in all, this is a good book to spend an entertaining weekend with, although it doesn't force you to concentrate on details or to consider existential dilemmas. Personally, I have learned a lot about military weapons and strategy. That being said, it is a 100% recommendable book.
6 responses
Well, what you learned about armamaneto you should forget. Because most of it is fictitious.
🙂 Yes, this already happens… but hey, have a good time!
Well, I just read the prologue and I'm hooked. I like your review, too. Greetings.
I liked this book, its review and everything. I give it a 10.
For militaristic fantasies, Tom Clancy is much better, where are you going to end up? That thing about blowing up nuclear devices everywhere, or the plane with a nuclear reactor on board… and the lack of concern about what happens when you blow up nuclear weapons, or nuclear reactors… And the radioactive contamination?
When he talks about handguns and bomb technology and so on, he seems right. The rest… Of course, you can set the pace as you like, like Dan Brown…
We write to each other.
Hahaha… Tom Clancy is good, but it’s for emergencies. When I’m somewhere in the summer where there’s no decent bookstore (that is, one that doesn’t have Science Fiction), that’s when I read Tom Clancy, Robin Cook, Ken Follet… the bad thing is that they really get you hooked and since I read them while on vacation, I’ve sometimes spent a whole day reading (even at night)…