Don't Think, Just Read, And It'll All Be Fine

When I first saw Ice Station in the library, I assumed it was Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean, so I figured it would be a good chance to give another of his books a try. I couldn't figure why it wasn't with the other "M" authors, but who knows with small-town libraries? Then I read the cover more carefully, saw there was no Zebra in the title, and this book was written by Matthew J. Reilly. Well, what the hell, still might be worth a read.

It does have one thing in common with a MacLean book, it goes quickly. Things are constantly happening, most of them involving shooting and/or explosions. Also, most of it isn't probable. It's very much a big summer action movie. An American Antarctic research station hits something metal over a thousand feet below them in the ice. They find a water passage into the cavern where it is, and proclaim over the radio they've found an alien spacecraft, oh, and one of the researchers killed one of the other researchers. Please send help. A U.S. naval vessel in for repairs in Australia sends a Marine Recon team down there, and everything goes nuts.

The book has fighting between the Marines and a crack French Parachute Regiment, between Marines and the SAS, pits the Marines against traitors within their unit, loyal to some shadowy cabal in the U.S. government dedicated to making sure America stays on top of the world, and willing to kill anyone (even their own soldiers) to keep secrets the U.S. discovers secret. The Recon unit is full of the usual types: the eager rookie, the experienced sergeant the commander counts on, guys nicknamed "Hollywood" and "Montana", and one of the two female members of the squad has a crush on the lieutenant. The lieutenant, nicknamed "Scarecrow", is the "good" type of commanding officer: open-minded, concerned for the well-being of his subordinates, not overconfident, not too good* at what he does, and apparently handsome, despite the scars. I wouldn't say any of the characters are developed past a rough sketch stage. Even Scarecrow, whose mind we spend the most time in, doesn't flesh out too much. I couldn't tell you a hobby of his, for instance. I suppose Reilly's counting on the reader to recognize Scarecrow as the "good guy", and that'll be enough for us to root for him. It works to a certain extent, though you could say it's from everyone else being even more of a cipher, or because if this group is killed, the conflict probably wraps up sooner, and where's the fun in that**?

Lot of death in the book, in a myriad number of ways. Death by choking, crossbow, machine gun, handgun, fragmentation grenade, claymore, liquid nitrogen grenade, by gunfire igniting flammable CFCs (CFCs are not usually flammable) causing a huge explosion, grappling hook to the stomach, diving bell implosion, orca (lot of those), radiation-mutated elephant seal, drill, Stinger missile fired into a hovercraft, tossing a helmet into a hovercraft fan (causing it to flip into the air in an apparently improbable manner), explosive launched into a torpedo tube on the end of a magnetic grappling hook, and sea snake venom. There's near death by nuclear missile, torpedo (a French sub tries to shoot the hero, swimming underwater, with a torpedo), and all those ways people actually died listed above also nearly killed people on other occasions.

There's a clever little girl who manages to avoid all these methods of death so she can save the day with Fibonacci numbers. She has a seal for a friend, who also helps, naturally. There are ice stations swallowed by earthquakes, ice stations floating upside inside icebergs for over 30 years (with still functioning scuba gear inside), ice stations blasted off the continent by explosives. Planes equipped with Predator-style cloaks (which run on plutonium and require more power than Doc Brown's flux capacitor). Marines presumed dead who are not, members of Nixon and Carter's Cabinets who vanished that, fortunately, do not make dramatic appearances decades later***, but were mixed up in this. The SAS, despite being perfectly willing to shoot handcuffed men in the head, decide to try and kill some of the Marines by lowering them into the water to be eaten by orcas. I guess they do it because they find it entertaining, because otherwise you think they'd realize elaborate Silver Age death traps like that inevitably backfire.

It's all completely mad, and if you take the time to do a little research (I've done a little as I write this) much of it doesn't hold up. My advice would be to not do that while you read. Surrender to the momentum, and once it's over, then look things up and shake your head at the book.

* He seems to think that, but all the loyal members of his group seem to think the world of him, and for all his concerns about how the French got the drop on them, and how the SAS commander anticipated his moves, Scarecrow survives, and those dudes do not, so, maybe he's better than he thinks. Or maybe he needs to be a lone operative, rather than lead troops. Things seemed to go somewhat better when he ran around on his own, killing people.

** It could have been funny if the station kept switching possession. The French have it, the Marines take it, then the SAS slaughter them and get it, only to lose it to the, I dunno, Argentinians, screaming 'For the Falklands!', then they lose it to the South Africans or Chileans, then maybe the SEALs retake it for the U.S., and so on until someone blows it up. Though Reilly wrote it so there probably isn't time for that lengthy a game of hot potato.

*** Was there an Otto Niemeyer in Nixon's Administration? The only Otto Niemeyer Wikipedia came up with was the director of the Bank of England from long before Nixon was President. I though perhaps this was a real guy who abruptly vanished that Reilly decided to use for kicks, but I think he didn't really exist.