Imagine James Bond sprinting at top speed along the edge of a cliff with a sheer ten thousand feet-drop on the one-side & a crack team of the world’s best assassins, their high-tech firearms blazing in full fury, closing in on him from the other. Tied to Bond’s wrist is a remote-controlled device set to detonate a nuclear bomb hidden beneath White House set to go off in exactly 99 seconds. A handful of military copters & fighter jets belonging to hostile countries are hovering above him & a few dozen army jeeps with mounted machine guns spewing fire behind. The cliff drops to a lagoon infested by only a few hundreds of sharks, crocodiles & killer whales, & 50 yards in front of him is a group of the fiercest, deadliest aliens in the universe. He’s just run on to a stretch of quicksand, the girl accompanying him is bleeding, his gun has just dried up & an enemy Destroyer out in the sea, a short distance from the coast, has just launched a missile aimed at the spot where Bond is standing.
Imagined that? Ok. Now make Bond a United States Marine Corps & make him undergo similar situations & worse ones for 600 pages in a row. That should give you some idea about Matthew Reilly’s novels.
Alistair MacLean & Jack Higgins are 2 writers I’ve considered to be the twin Gods of action/adventure/crime fiction [when it comes to detective stories, it’s Dame Christie all the way, of course]. However, 3 years ago, when I was staying in Pune, my cousins got me hooked to Matthew Reilly, & over the last 3 years, I’ve grudgingly given in to the fact that the world of the aforementioned category of popular fiction has, in fact, 3 Gods, Reilly being the 3rd.
Over a period of 12 years beginning in 1996, Reilly, a native of Australia, has written 9 novels. These are:
1. Contest,
2. Ice Station,
3. Temple,
4. Area 7,
5. Scarecrow,
6. Hover Car Racer,
7. Seven Ancient Wonders,
8. Hell Island,
9. The Six Sacred Stones.
Of these, I am yet to read Temple & Hell Island. Reilly has penned a few short stories as well, which can be downloaded for free from his site.
Reilly’s writing comes across more as novelized versions of films than as original novels. However, this cannot be held against him; it is his own style of movie-making, wherein the movie is played out not on a celluloid screen, but on the pages of a novel. Like the Harry Potter books, Reilly’s writing literally drives the reader’s imagination over the edge with a never-ending bullet train of explosive action in page after page after page.
Reilly, by his own confession, is an action/adventure movie/novel freak. His thoughts are occupied by Jurassic Park, Jaws, Alien, Predator, The Terminator, Indiana Jones & James Bond. In fact, his narrative is strewn with elements used in these films & books. Indeed, his first three novels, Contest, Ice Station & Temple come across as split-in-unequal-parts episodes from the Alien Vs. Predator movie series. His fascination with James Bond comes to the forefront in Area 7, in which the scenes set in space are straight out of the Roger Moore-starrer 007 movie Moonraker. There's a fair bit of repetition too in plot premises & outlines. For example, Area 7 comes across as a better-fleshed-out version of Ice Station.
Reilly’s prime success, however, lies in creating one of the best actions heroes the sphere of popular fiction with an international reach has ever seen, or will ever see: Shane Schofield. Ian Fleming created the immortal James Bond; Robert Ludlum came up with Jason Bourne [notice the common initials & the similar-sounding name], a darker alter-ego of 007 with a sinister, mysterious, half-lost past; Higgins created the delightful Liam Devlin & Sean Dillon. Reilly has Schofield, a USMC Captain [Reilly’s other major hero, Jack West Jr., is similar to Schofield, but is yet to reach such dizzying heights of popularity as Schofield already has] with the call-sign ‘Scarecrow’, resulting from the 2 hideous scars running down from his forehead across his eyes to his cheeks.
I love reading, & have always been a voracious reader, known to have finished 700-page-long books in one day [or one night, which is more often the case]. In fact, if it’s written either in English or Bengali, is a piece of fiction [classic or contemporary] & comes in the form of a book, chances are that I’ll probably read it. Despite the downside of all-night marathon reading sessions like bloated electricity bills & sleepwalking, zombie-like, thru the following day, finishing off a good book at one go gives me the euphoric feeling of winning a battle, no less. But there was a time during my college years when I’d drifted away from this highly addictive, richly productive & deeply satisfying passion. The Harry Potter books, of which I’m an undying fan, brought me back to the world of books. Now, Matthew Reilly has got me hooked & cooked. Keep’em coming, mate!!!
Imagined that? Ok. Now make Bond a United States Marine Corps & make him undergo similar situations & worse ones for 600 pages in a row. That should give you some idea about Matthew Reilly’s novels.
Alistair MacLean & Jack Higgins are 2 writers I’ve considered to be the twin Gods of action/adventure/crime fiction [when it comes to detective stories, it’s Dame Christie all the way, of course]. However, 3 years ago, when I was staying in Pune, my cousins got me hooked to Matthew Reilly, & over the last 3 years, I’ve grudgingly given in to the fact that the world of the aforementioned category of popular fiction has, in fact, 3 Gods, Reilly being the 3rd.
Over a period of 12 years beginning in 1996, Reilly, a native of Australia, has written 9 novels. These are:
1. Contest,
2. Ice Station,
3. Temple,
4. Area 7,
5. Scarecrow,
6. Hover Car Racer,
7. Seven Ancient Wonders,
8. Hell Island,
9. The Six Sacred Stones.
Of these, I am yet to read Temple & Hell Island. Reilly has penned a few short stories as well, which can be downloaded for free from his site.
Reilly’s writing comes across more as novelized versions of films than as original novels. However, this cannot be held against him; it is his own style of movie-making, wherein the movie is played out not on a celluloid screen, but on the pages of a novel. Like the Harry Potter books, Reilly’s writing literally drives the reader’s imagination over the edge with a never-ending bullet train of explosive action in page after page after page.
Reilly, by his own confession, is an action/adventure movie/novel freak. His thoughts are occupied by Jurassic Park, Jaws, Alien, Predator, The Terminator, Indiana Jones & James Bond. In fact, his narrative is strewn with elements used in these films & books. Indeed, his first three novels, Contest, Ice Station & Temple come across as split-in-unequal-parts episodes from the Alien Vs. Predator movie series. His fascination with James Bond comes to the forefront in Area 7, in which the scenes set in space are straight out of the Roger Moore-starrer 007 movie Moonraker. There's a fair bit of repetition too in plot premises & outlines. For example, Area 7 comes across as a better-fleshed-out version of Ice Station.
Reilly’s prime success, however, lies in creating one of the best actions heroes the sphere of popular fiction with an international reach has ever seen, or will ever see: Shane Schofield. Ian Fleming created the immortal James Bond; Robert Ludlum came up with Jason Bourne [notice the common initials & the similar-sounding name], a darker alter-ego of 007 with a sinister, mysterious, half-lost past; Higgins created the delightful Liam Devlin & Sean Dillon. Reilly has Schofield, a USMC Captain [Reilly’s other major hero, Jack West Jr., is similar to Schofield, but is yet to reach such dizzying heights of popularity as Schofield already has] with the call-sign ‘Scarecrow’, resulting from the 2 hideous scars running down from his forehead across his eyes to his cheeks.
I love reading, & have always been a voracious reader, known to have finished 700-page-long books in one day [or one night, which is more often the case]. In fact, if it’s written either in English or Bengali, is a piece of fiction [classic or contemporary] & comes in the form of a book, chances are that I’ll probably read it. Despite the downside of all-night marathon reading sessions like bloated electricity bills & sleepwalking, zombie-like, thru the following day, finishing off a good book at one go gives me the euphoric feeling of winning a battle, no less. But there was a time during my college years when I’d drifted away from this highly addictive, richly productive & deeply satisfying passion. The Harry Potter books, of which I’m an undying fan, brought me back to the world of books. Now, Matthew Reilly has got me hooked & cooked. Keep’em coming, mate!!!
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