Lots of fast and furious action comes courtesy of 27 year old writer Matthew Reilly in his first military thriller novel: Ice Station.

The book stars heroic US marine Shane Schofield, as he fights for control of an Antarctic research station where a metal object has been discovered in a 100 million year old layer of ice.

The first 60-100 or so pages function like a prologue, then the ass-kicking starts. This is one of those books that adopts an action movie approach to things, throwing fight scene after fight scene at you in the good old Die Hard fashion.

It’s pretty silly, but very entertaining. Reilly has a snappy, hard-edged writing style that goes well with the action. Some guys (like Stephen King) let the language obstruct the flow of the plot sometimes, but there’s none of that here.

The book plays hard and fast with the laws of physics. There’s a scene late in the book that involves a plane and an iceberg that I doubt like hell would happen. It’s also established at one point that Schofield has broken a rib, yet he still displays ninja-like fighting abilities. What the hell, it’s all in good fun.

Recommended for Die Hard fans. It’s a counterintuitive idea that you’d write books for the sort of people who normally watch movies, but it seems to be working for Mr Reilly so far.