Ice station

Matthew Reilly
Book review 3

The Book “Ice station” is written by Matthew Reilly. It is about a secret French research station that sends out a distress signal.  A team of American soldiers are sent in to the station being led by the commander scarecrow. Upon arriving at the base, they meet a group of French scientists who say that some of them went into a cavern and didn’t return and that using drilling, radar they found a strange metal object in the ice. When word of this gets out a team of advanced British forces come to take the base. This ends up being a battle for the base over a futuristic space craft.

A character that I fount interesting was Commander Scarecrow. He interested me by his choices and how he decided to react to situations. He is a calm and collective person and a great commander. An example of this was when he caught the killer of his solders, which was one of his own. Instead of killing him out of rage, he kept cool and chained him up. By doing this he was able to extract information from him and his reason for killing his own men and about the organization. Another example of this was when he saw his own men being hanged over the side and eaten by a pod of killer whales. Even through this was dis-hearting for him to watch he knew that if he revealed himself now then he would be putting the rest of his team and crew at risk. Further on he was able to get revenge on the solider and commander who killed his men. Overall scarecrow is one of the best commanders in the book and I feel that he says a good example of keeping calm and not raging out. In history many commanders have fallen by rage and the thought of revenge. This is dangerous, and you must keep calm to have the best chance of winning the situation.

The message I got from the book was never give up no matter how dim or dark the situation seems. Many times, scarecrow or his team could have given up and left. This was many points in the book where I would have given up to, but he carried up and did his job to the fullest without question. An example of this was when they were preparing and setting the defences up when the sense picked up a huge tactical British force closing in. Instead of surrendering to the huge forces he devised a plan that ended up taking out over half the British forces. This shows that there is always a way out of a situation no matter how tough or hard the situation is never giving up and try to your fullest. This relates back to my life where I am at school with homework, projects and daunting exams only around the corner. A lot of work and pressure is put onto students near the end of the year and to do good. I have only done my best in my work and exams and a motto I remember when I am low is that a job is only worth doing if It is done to the fullest. I incorporate this into everything I do.

I difficulties I found for scarecrow was trying to protect his own troops, base and the futuristic vehicle. He often had to decide between these. I quote that related to this from infinity war “The hardest choices require the strongest wills”. This perfectly describes the situation with scarecrow when he had to decide earther to protect the scientists with his soldiers and risk them getting hurt or the leave the base and have the solider safe but the scientist at danger. This puts huge pressure on him because this will be on his shoulders for the rest of his life and I believe at many points he was cornered when making these decisions. This relates back to the world where people are remembered by the decisions they make, and people generally say why didn’t he do this or that? People don’t know what was happening to these people, the pressure, the situation, environment and what is on their minds. I also believe that they cannot judge their decisions and the outcome of that.

One of the actions I questioned was snakes, he was a solider under scarecrows command. But he also worked for a secret military agency that keeps high military intel from soldiers and people. They have people in all tactical forces including scarecrows. He spends time with them and been through hell with them. But on orders he starts killing them. This is sad, I would never do something like this, no matter how much money. But this is a sad reality for soldiers, who are treated like numbers and not like people. In many parts in history people have been brutally murdered for no reason under orders, Like the many charges from the trench’s amount to little but lost lives. In ww2 if you disobeyed orders from you commander you can be shot. This Is a sad part in history and I believe that If now body question and disobeyed we would not have made any advancements we see today.

I rate this book 8/10. This was a great book with so many great characters and action. I could barely put the book down. I highly recommend this book if you are into big action and un-expected twists in the situation.