Rating: 
Summary: Action-Packed, but not very believable
Review: SEVERAL times while reading this book, I found myself laughing out loud at the unbelievable scenes. This book has some really cool action sequences, but man are they HARD to even begin to believe.
Some of the stuff is things you'd only think to find in a video game.
I'm not sorry I read it, but I think it'll be a long while before I pick up another Matthew Reilly book.
Rating: 
Summary: Bullets and Bombs in the desert
Review: Shane Schofeild: If he had a nickle for every time he saved the world, he'd have.... fifteen cents. But that's still a lot.
Area 7, the second of the Schofeild novels, finds our intrepid (if slightly two dimensional) hero in the middle of a US Airforce base/research facility, acting as a body guard to the President of the United States. With him are some friends from the previous Schofield novel, also guarding the commander in chief. The base, called Area 7, is the home of the United States' must cutting-edge biological weapon research. More specifically, the scientists at the base are working round the clock to find a vaccine to a Chineese biological weapon called the Sinovirus, which targets only non-Aisian people (via their specific pigmentation). Well, they've finally developed a vaccine, but guess what? The fifty well-armed, highly trained, ultra-elite soldiers guarding the base are actually traitors, intent on killing the Prez and stealing the vaccine! To make matters worse, they've attached a satelite transmitter to the President's heart, which will denotate nuclear weapons in major cities all over America if the POTUS's heart stops beating. In other words, if Mr. President dies, so does the country. It's up to Schofeild and friends to defeat the bad guys and save the day!
But in a Reilly novel, its never that simple. Matthew incorporates a series of plot twists into his relatively straightforward narrative, including a racist military conspiracy, a corrupt South-African general, a plot to take over America, a thermonuclear weapon, escaped convicts, and a trip into outer space. Admit it, you're just drooling over this novel, aren't you?Now, I'll admit, Area 7 is not going to change your life (besides getting you hooked on Reilly novels). The characters tend to be one sided and cliched. The ending is the predictable happy one, where the hero gets the girl, the little kid isn't harmed, and all the fuzzy little animals are safe..... but its an action thriller. Are you really looking for powerful moral statements and thought provoking subject matter in an action thriller? No. You're looking for a lightening-fast plot, explosions, gunfights, chases, and lots of violence. And that's exactly what you're going to get.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling and exciting!
Review: This is the first book of Matthew Reilly's I've read, and it's very thrilling. To me, it seemed to combine the intensity of a halo novel by Eric Nylund/William C. Dietz and complexity of an Agatha Cristie mystery, you get an extremely fun-to-read book. I never wanted to set this book down as I was reading it, because it was so thrilling, and I was also curious, as reading a mystery, as to what would happen next. Brilliantly written!
|
