ICE STATION

Rollicking, think-and-you-missed-it military action-adventure pits a lone Marine against highly trained hostile troops, a secret government organization, killer whales, Stealth fighters, mutant monsters, and an entire submarine in a multinational race to claim what might be an alien spaceship frozen in the Antarctic ice. Marine Reconnaissance Platoon leader Shane “Scarecrow” Schofield’s day in hell begins when his 12-person team (which includes two women) take two ice-skimming Hovercraft to answer the distress call: American scientists are missing after investigating a huge metallic object in a cave 1,500 feet below the South Polar Wilkes Ice Station. Though a solar flare has made radio communications nearly impossible, word has gone out to a distant French ice station that the object may be of extraterrestrial origin. Before Scarecrow’so-called because his hideously disfigured eyes have been equipped with supernaturally acute vision—can investigate a murder victim in the ice station’s freezer, a French rescue team starts shooting at the Americans. The blood-splattering, ultraviolent play of high-tech weaponry, unforeseen catastrophes and death-defying escapes (12-year-old American math whiz Kirsty and her cuddly pet seal Wendy become convenient targets for villainous aggression) are only the beginning as killer whales rush in where the French fear to swim. Then Scarecrow learns that if the French fail to get the spaceship, they will “erase” the station from existence, because an even larger British SAS team, lead by Scarecrow’s former mentor, Brigadier General Trevor Barnaby, is hot on their heels. Worse, a secret US government intelligence cabal has planted double-agents in Schofield’s team with orders to kill everyone so that spacecraft’s location will remain a secret. A fabulous Hovercraft chase ensues, followed by even more spectacular movie-style stunts (with a genuine cliff-hanger, just for fun). Alistair MacLean meets the X-Files, in a first novel by Australian writer Reilly that’s as silly and satisfying as a wide-screen Hollywood blockbuster.