Reilly Redemption? Or perhaps not.

[lyore]

Authors, take note.

So your plot is sublimely ludicrous. Your grasp of basic physical concepts tenuous at best. Your writing so full of blams and slams (italics included) I feel like I'm reading an old-school Batman comic. In fact, your writing has the highest number of italics and exclamation marks per paragraph that I have ever seen in a published novel.

But for all this, you can still redeem yourself - by calling one of your groups of bad guy bounty hunters the Intercontinental Guards, Unit 88, and abbreviating it throughout your novel as IG-88. Yep, obscure Star Wars references will win me over every time. :)

The other thing to note about Matthew Reilly is that he appears to have a curious obsession with people being eaten alive. So far this weekend, I've read 3 of his novels (Ice Station, Area 7 and Scarecrow), and off the top of my head I recall people being eaten alive by:

a) Killer Whales,
b) Giant Mutated Elephant Seals,
c) Tiger Sharks, and
d) Cannibals.

No, I am not kidding. There could be more, it's a bit hard to keep track of the carnage (but I don't think the Kodiak bears wandering around the secret Air Force base actually ate anyone).

If I every go back and re-read these books, I'll definitely need to keep a count. I'd say the total number of people eaten alive so far would have to top 50. The Giant Mutated Elephant Seals took out a lot, as did the Killer Whales. The Tiger Sharks only got a paltry 5 or 6, and I think the Cannibal only got to eat one person during the entire course of the novel.

Did I mention these books are completely ridiculous?

Comments

[amethyste5.livejournal.com]

Yes, but...... IG-88!!!!!!!!!!!

Do any other Star Wars references come up? For one I might be able skip it, but more than one...

[lyore.livejournal.com]

Nope, that's it. Not worth reading for the whole book, for although they do get mentioned repeatedly. Sometimes it's a little distracting, like when the hero steals their uniforms and then the author refers to him being in 'IG-88 costume' and I have this mental image of him dressed up as a tall skinny grey droid... :P

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask what has inspired you to persist with these extremely, um, culinarily dubious offerings? (You got them all out of the library? Were given for Christmas? Were highly recommended?)

[lyore.livejournal.com]

Hmm, good question :)

A combination of boredom and curiosity, mainly. MR is a very popular author in Australia, I'd seen the books around alot, my Dad started listening to one on audio book when I was home for christmas, so when I saw these three on sale for a very cheap price I figured I'd pick them up.

And, really, they aren't that bad. The author is very upfront about what he is trying to achieve (as many explosions as possible in the shortest period of time), and he does that well, albeit at the expense of character development and a sane plot. These books are to normal action thrillers as James Bond is to the average Hollywood blockbuster, in terms of extravagance and (un)realism.

And lastly, despite being fairly lengthy books, they are a very quick and easy read. I'm currently slogging my way through a non-fiction work about extent the allies used their intelligence reports in WWII (detailed, dense, and while interesting, a hard book for me to read for long periods of time), and a weekend spent reading ridiculous no-brainer action thrillers appealed :)