Rating: 
Summary: brain-freezing novel (not a good sign)
Review: Area-7 - an underground fortress in SW America - is one of the most secure military installations in the world. It's home to tons of high-tech, most of it involving bio-warfare. Using rightly-condemned criminals as guinea pigs, Area-7 scientists develop cures for diseases engineered by America's enemies. unfortunately, "Ceasar" Russel, a disgraced and supposedly executed former USAF general, seizes control of Area-7 and everybody inside - including the President and his loyal marine contingent. Ceasar, we learn, has implanted a microscopic transmitter on the president's heart connecting the unwitting chief to nuclear warheads placed in all the major northern cities. Each will explode should Ceasar's troops locate and kill the president. Also, the "football" - the special nuclear-war trigger carried everywhere by the president - will trigger the warheads unless the president keys in his palm print every 90 minutes. With his special shocktroops - vanguards of a righht-wing military junta - Ceasar can just kill the President, but he needs the Chief to die in the humiliation deserved by all politicians - bureaucrats who make others die for their decisions. Unbeknownst to either our heroes or the rogue general, Area-7's South African chief bio-chemist has his own plans for the base now that he's used its resources to develope a cure to a devestating Chinese bio-engineered disease. Unknown to him, some of Ceasar's own men have gone into business themselves - with the Chinese. Unexpected by them is the role to be played by Area-7's residents - the vilest criminals in America. And a nasty shock to them all is "Scarecrow" Schofield - the world's toughest Marine and the novel's hero.A blurb on the jacket recommends Reilly's "Ice Station" for those who like "brain freezing action". If you prefer action novels over ice cream for an eskimo migraine, then "Area 7" is your book. Reilly doesn't waste time on character development - all the players are walking dossiers rather than characters, and they never buck their trend (the book starts off with Schofield's nominal superior being described as a weasel who ascension through the Marine corps has less to do with combat achievement than careerism; a civilian presidential aide comes off as one of those connected, vapid and craven morons you see in failed sitcoms. By the climactic end of "Area 7", Schofield's superior is still a martinet, while the civilian struggles feverishly to get through to his stockbroker - time to sell dollars!!!). Neither does he give much effort to an original plot. The book is mostly action, and the action won't come as a surprise to anybody who's watched late-night cable or straight-to-video movies or played computer games like "Half-Life". (Underground fortress; hide around corners, watch-out for the special troops, kill, steal their ammo, rinse and repeat.) Reilly's idea of using a heart as a fail-safe isn't new (read Nance's "Medusa's Child"; see the movie "Spawn") while Ceasar Russel looks like any of the disgruntled post-Cold War hawks in denial that populated the novels and movies of the early 1990's. Despite non-stop action - little of it will get a rise out of you, less will come off as plausibly imaginable, and almost nothing will string together to form a coherent story. Reilly crams so much action in so small a space, it's almost laughable - as if his books were oversized screenplays in search of a producer, but I can't even imagine Steven Segal giving "Area 7" a serious look. In the space of a few pages, our heroes stowaway aboard a rogue space shuttle, blast into orbit, down a Chinese space shuttle, land intact and escape from their spaceship before it's destroyed by Ceasar's gunships. "Area-7" is less of a story for a book than some high-powered 3D computer game - obviously inspired by the "Half-Life" franchise. That would be okay if the book came with the gorgeous graphics and sound and characters empowered with an engenious brand of AI. Instead, the narrative falls back on Reilly's prose which are both action-packed and an action-suckage loaded down with over-blown verbiage and technical detail. Nobody just carries a semiautomatic pistol or assault rifle - we get the make and model of just aboute every gun in the book (Reilly otherwise has these different guns performing with equal effectiveness. Reilly's brand name-dropping likely stems from the need to add substance to the hardware used in "Area-7" that he'd otherwise have to work into the prose). Reilly not only notes the model and nationality of some of his guns and, where applicable, whether the weapon is nickel-plated - but the rate of fire as well, a detail he places in such importance, you might be tempted to give him the Armalite version of the "Pepsi Challenge" (Okay Mr. Reilly, once your blindfold is on, I'm gonna cut loose with assault-rifle "A", and you tell me whether that was the MP-10 with flash suppressor, or the P-90 with a rounded handguard). Reilly needs to be very specific with names because he doesn't know how to write their varied performances into the prose. Unless he can somehow incorporate the nickel-plating of Scarecrow Schofield's sidearm into the story, Reilly won't be able to us with sentences that begin "what many people don't realize is that...." The enemy characters have less AI than you'd get in a video game - especially in there choice of weapons, rooted in a love of high-tech rather than common sense (having trapped our heroes inside of a hangared AWACS jet, Ceasar's commandos assault it with a guided-missile armed HumVee, even though its missiles can't be trusted against the plane's electronics; simply shooting the tires and its engines doesn't occur to the evil troopers). Our heroes seem to be expert at just about anything they come across (with the marines capable of flying helicopters and navigating the electronics and cockpits of the E-3 Sentry) and always seem to come out on top. By the end, I wished I had that sundae instead.
Rating:
Summary: The Worst Thing I've Ever Read. Period.
Review: I'm serious about that. ... The comic strip Beetle Bailey is more militarily accurate (and frankly, more mature too). Not only does it seem to have been written by a team of apes with crayons, it's also unnecessarily vulgar. I don't have any problem with gritty language in a book aimed at mature readers; but this book's plot is aimed at pre-teen level, and much of the language used is pretty foul. If you're interested in military thrillers, try elsewhere. Tom Clancy, for instance. As for this lump of trash I can only recommend it as good kindling.
Rating: 
Summary: Like Reilly's "Ice Station"? Then go directly to "Area 7"!
Review: While "Area 7" stands perfectly alone as an extremely intense military novel, it works even better as a companion piece to Matt Reilly's earlier novel, "Ice Station". Both of the survivors from Capt. "Scarecrow" Schofield's Marine unit from "Ice Station" days (Sgt. "Fox" Gant and Sgt. "Mother" Newman) are present for the action that takes place at Area 7. In this novel, Schofield has his Marine unit on hand to help protect the President during his visit to a secret military base hidden away in Utah and known only as Area 7. What the President, his Secret Service and the Marines don't realize until too late is that Area 7 just happens to be the home base for a secret plot to overthrow the government. This uprising is led by a courtmartialed Air Force officer who calls himself "Caesar" and heads up a radical Air Force group known as "The Brotherhood". Schofield and his unit soon find themselves in the fight of their lives. What takes place during the next 300+ pages is totally unbelievable (just like the the plots from Reilly's other two books) but filled with action and zooms along at a frenetic pace. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's just that it's almost comic-bookish in that sense. One can almost visualize the "Bam", "Oof", and "Kaboom" dialogue balloons used so effectively by the old Batman television show in the background of some of Reilly's scenes. And of course, as found in Reilly's other novels, there's plenty of blood flowing and more dead bodies than a Schwarzenegger movie. Descriptions of real (and unreal) military hardware abound to impress the techo-geek in all of us! If the reader will just suspend his or her powers of disbelief for a while then he or she will find "Area 7" an enjoyable experience. The only reason that I gave "Area 7" four stars was because there was a little too much similarity to "Ice Station" for my liking. I would have liked to have seen some new ground covered and a few more characters developed. That probably won't be a problem for most Reilly fans, and especially shouldn't be an issue if this is the first book by Reilly that the reader tries. RECOMMENDED
Rating: 
Summary: Leaves you begging for more!
Review: Area 7 by Matthew Reilly definatly earned its place on my top five favorite books. I can not explain how vivid the imagery is, how much action is packed per page and is still retains a phenomenal plot without spoiling due to the constant action. On the critical side, the book's plot is incredible. It TRULY makes you sit back and say, woah... that COULD happen. On the entertainment side. The book is better, yes BETTER than watching a modern fight movie as far as the wonderful descriptions etc. Overall, I would give this book a 9.9 out of ten... and that's ONLY because nothing is perfect ;-)
Rating:
Summary: Please
Review: Out of boredom I picked this book up. I put it down soon after. I made it throught most of it, but it will be the last Reilly book I ever attempt. I enjoy escapist fiction once in a while, and this book had all the ingredients...a hero, his sidekicks, the bad guy, his henchmen, chases, etc. But please. Is a ragtag bunch of underarmed Marines really going to beat what Reilly essentially proclaims to be the greatest commando team in the world, a team VASTLY outnumbering the Marines? I was unable to suspend disbelief any longer for more rocket chases or lunar firefights or boat races. And what... are words like POW! and KaBoom! doing in there? There is probably other more inventive or descriptive terms that could be used. Perhaps Mr. Reilly should take some of his advance and invest it in a nice thesaurus.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting Close-Quarters Action
Review: I'm a huge fan of military book whether they be fiction or nonfiction. I'm also a big fan of tactical action games, so it's no surprise I enjoyed this book very much. I actually read it before Ice Station (the first Scarecrow novel), but enough background information is given to easily follow along. Although the character development is a bit under par, the amount of action more then makes up for it. Not a very deep, but a very good read.
Rating:
Summary: Scarecrow returns!
Review: Capt. Shane Schofield is settled into his new assignment, after his Ice Station adventures, as head of the President's Marine Corp escort when the poopy hits the fan again...and the reader is pulled along into another rip roaring, action packed Reilly thriller. Readers of Ice Station will be happy to see that Schofield is joined by Mother and Fox along with the almost return of Book. Together they must defend the President, the country and the world for that matter, from a renegade group of Air Force personnel. If the Prez's heart should stop beating it all goes to hell. Though out-numbered, out-gunned and taken almost completely by surprise, Scarecrow and his crew make a game of it. Reilly strength is in his descriptions of combat. There is a firefight that lasts about 70 pages. Taking place on several fronts and different levels you won't welcome interuptions. Sure Reilly's books break the laws of military strategy, physics, gravity and logic but so what. You pick up books like this to be entertained and if you aren't too much of a stickler for details you will be.
Rating:
Summary: Area 7 blows you away.
Review: How many times do you read on the cover of a book all those promises of excitement adventure and action only to be disappointed at the end? This book has no comparison in the extreme action adventure and suspense novel. If I turned the pages any faster the book would catch light. The characters are absolutely superb and I would like to see Lucas or Spielberg bring this to the big screen or in fact any of his novels.
The only disappointment came when one realises they have finished the book. Come on Mr Reilly write another as I cant hold my breath much longer.
Rating:
Summary: Great Comic Book Action
Review: Lock the doors, disengage brain, and have the time of your life. So, it's not great writting. The characters don't live long enough to worry about development. Its just action, action and more action. So, like the rest of Reilly's books get it and enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a comic book without the pictures
Review: This is the third book I've read by this author and probably the best of the bunch, which isn't really saying much. The general plot of the story is very intriguing, but he never develops it. There were so many different ways he could have gone, but he decides on creating 3 or 4 subplots and that's it. The story ends up being somewhat confusing (who's the bad guy in THIS chapter?). If you're just in it for the action and have time to kill, this book serves its purpose. But if you're looking for something half way plausible, with more than just a dash of character development, you might want to look elsewhere (like anything by Vince Flynn).
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