Rating: 
Summary: Ice Hunt: James Rollins vision of the USA as the great satan
Review: This book is nothing but a complete disappointment. James Rollins makes a shameful portrayal of the US government as inclined towards secret human experimentation and ongoing abuse of it's citizens. Mr Rollins ends his amatuerish and unbelievable tale with, in his own words: "A partial list of historical abuses collated and copyrighted by the Health News Network" and proceeds to accuse the US government of numerous improprieties. I have really grown tired of people who seek nothing other than to degrade this great nation which has blessed it's citizens with more freedom, liberty and opportunity than any other country on earth. Left wing California writers [and hollywood moviemakers] roll out storyline after storyline with the US goverment as the mother of all evil; is this a juvenile attempt at furthering their failed political agenda or just a lack of creativity? I suspect a combination of both. In any case, this book ia a waste of your time & money. Well, perhaps fans of Michael Moorer would find some enjoyment in this novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Read
Review: I just wanted to let everyone know how good ALL OF ROLLINS books are. I discoverd Rollins about 2 months ago. Since then I have read all of his books. I am eagerly awaiting his next novel. Trust me on this one pick up any of his books and I think you will enjoy the ride. Just my 2 cents worth.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS THE ONE I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!
Review: I've been a reading fan of this man's novels since his first one - subterranean. But to my distress, the resulting next couple of books fell well short, but we're still good.
But I knew he had not reached his all-time high yet.
And here, James Rollins has finally raised the bar on his own writing, taking it to the next level in maximum entertainment.
Like his competition, Matthew Reilly, James Rollins gives us heart-stopping, non-stop action/adventure in the artic wastelands.
But unlike Reilly, James Rollins puts in more characterization to his main protagonists, making his readers actually feel for the main characters loss and redemption.
Matt Pike and his ex-wife were a thrill to read about. From their pained past to their slow and strange way of getting back together again, Rollins weaves a tale with so many twists and turns that it's virtually impossible to put the book down.
If you like wild romps through reading fast-paced adventure with everything thrown in - from monsters to Soviet and American Special Forces - and more inbetween, then this one's for you!
A must read for anyone who loves adventure and romance.
Thanks James for entertaining me to the utmost once again.
Looking forward to what you will bring us next...
Rating: 
Summary: Fairly dismal - Rollins writing for a movie, not the reader
Review: This book is shockingly mediocre. After reading the hype here and in other book reviews I was exciting to read some hokey fun, a scratch that has been dying to be itched ever since Clive Cussler and the rest have lost their touch.In fact, I wouldn't even rate it next to Cussler. Consider it Cussler-lite. At least ol' Clive injects some spirit and humor (as absurd as it is) into his works, something Ice Hunt is sorely lacking. I thought I was reading an early treatment for a film screenplay. There are way too many characters, all are so bland and indistinguishable that Rollins has to lay out their positions with a little index in the front of the book. The Grendels are rather uninteresting and unoriginal as far as monsters go. The combat is rendered clumsily and Rollins' refrains from giving us a concept of the enviroment...I'm always wondering where the bullets are coming from and in what direction when I read this book. It's almost as if Rollins is just letting the Director of Photography worry about such problems. Definitely not recommended. I give it 2 stars instead of just 1 because the cover art is cool and dorky in a 50's sci-fi way.
Rating:
Summary: Promise unfulfilled
Review: James Rollins' earlier novel, AMAZONIA, was a mixed blessing. The first half, a "lost worlds" novel, showed promise. The second half, presumably the book's resolution, was disappointing, a melange of magic behind the pseudo-scientific curtain. But AMAZONIA showed that the author could, when he stayed "on task," tell an interesting tale. ICE HUNT has, at least, the virtue of consistency. It is a storytelling failure from the opening to the end. Oh, you could say it is just your run of the mill monster-in-the-ice, Ruskies vs. the Good Guys, Nazis were really bad people, end of the world, submarine novel, but it's less than that. Three elements weigh against the reading experience: 1] ICE HUNT is so derivative as to suffer badly by comparison to its predecessors. ICE STATION ZEBRA did the important parts of ICE HUNT many years ago. THE THING did it at least twice on film years ago. Both [or all three, if THE THING counts twice] were far more entertaining, and they haunt ICE HUNT for any literate reader. And I am not counting Beowulf whose Grendel is a much more interesting fellow than any of Rollins's walking whales. 2] Rollins has no idea how to mix romance and action. Each time one of the "lovers" is about to act, s/he gets all weepy and revisits lost possibilities. Better that they get sliced into small pieces by the ice boat and fed to the Huskies, I say. 3] ICE HUNT is illustrative of the "BUT school of action and suspense. The "BUT" school functions something like this: Our stalwart hero has reached the end of the road, no doubt about it. There is no exit, no hope. The monster is heating our hero's next with his superheated breath, jaws open and teeth gnashing. No hope I say! A grizzly [one of the monsters but not the only one] death is at hand! BUT! something implausible occurs, and our hero escapes the monster's clutches. BUT! only to leap from the proverbial frying pan, etc., and, MY GOD! no hope! All is lost! BUT! something else implausible occurs. Recognize it? Sure you do. It can work once or twice, but this is no way to run a plot line or frighten the reader. We just read on through the horror, waiting for the next BUT. So, not a good outing for Mr. Rollins. One hopes he was well paid for dropping aspirations to write a novel in favor of treasure hunting for easy money.
Rating: 
Summary: Thar She Blows?
Review: Rollins, a favorite author of mine, has written some pretty amazing books. That said, "Ice Hunt" is not one of his best. While it has its moments, I had a sense of deja vu while reading it. In a sense, I felt like I was reading "Ice Station" by Matthew Reilly again. I love both authors but their choices can be a bit "odd" at times. Rollins has chosen as his monster a pack of walking whales. Below (or is it above) that is a plot about human experimentation in cryogenics. So...we have our civilian heroes struggling between American black ops, Russian troops, and some kind of Moby Dick on land. (Land Shark anyone?) Rollins has done better work. I'm a sucker for a polar story but this one left me cold.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly Entertaining Action!
Review: I have been a Rollins fan for years, and this book just makes me an even bigger fan. Nonstop action, intriguing plots and subplots, fascinating mix of fact and fiction. I could not put this book down! Rollins' writing seems to be improving with each new novel, the pieces of the story pulling together more tightly, and Ice Hunt really grabbed me by the collar and took me for a wild, adventurous ride. Wow! I highly recommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: Good just got better
Review: I have read all of James Rollins books and have considered them good especially with so few adventure stories out there. But Ice Hunt is the best of the rest. This ranks up there with Cussler, Matt Reilly,and David Dunn. He has developed the characters more than any other of his books. I read this book in one sitting and now will have to wait impatiently for the next one. No, I think I will read this one again and again. Thank you Mr. Rollins.
Rating:
Summary: Great way to chill off during hot Texas summer
Review: James Rollins has done it again. He took us below the ice in the Artic with his newest thriller. The action was non-stop right from the beginning and I found that I was quickly immersed in the characters' predicaments. Once again, James Rollins creates a book that mixes the strange truth of science with a twist of the imagination. I just love this combination! I highly recommend this book. You will enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: ICE ONE, HUNT ZERO
Review: For fans of Irwin Allen's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, James Rollins ICE HUNT pays loving tribute to the style, tone and form of the film, mixed with similar types of action, pacing and storytelling. It's a throwback kind of thriller, pulpy, but fused with current technology and hard science...and if you like what you've read there, then stop reading here, because ICE HUNT is for you, but if you're looking for something more, something that bucks the standard cut and paste techno/adventure/science/submarine/thriller/monster hunt/spy vs. spy/cold war/science shocker/adventure, then ICE HUNT fails on all levels. To be blunt, the book is just plain boring. It has a rich idea, and Rollins does manage to mine some promise from the storyline at times (and if the book had been more geared towards the horror/thriller side of publishing, then ICE HUNT would have fared much better), but for the most part the book is dragged down by too much cardboard, mind numbing backstory (no one is happy in this book, at all, about anything, and it seems NO ONE had a happy childhood, marriage or career... and Rollins isn't content just to give his characters one or two problems, but EVERY problem he can imagine...the leads, Matt and Jenny, alone in the book suffer through a host of problems that most people don't suffer in two lifetimes, let alone one, and all in the space of 394 pages), "one thing after another" action and repeative exposition (Rollins often repeats action from the previous chapter to remind readers of what has happened early on in the book, and by the end he has it repeated sometimes from paragrpah to paragraph), dialouge, and overly clipped and metaphor heavy writing (although to give Rollins credit, there are only so many ways you can write about snow and ice, and Rollins uses them all here, by the close of the book we've moved from the hard science of ice and snow down into Middle Earth where everything looks like dragons bones, teeth and claws). This book really seems less written for the reader, and more written for the small screen. It's a treatment, nothing more. Fused with all the bells and whistles a television mini-series craves for sweeps, if sold, I'm sure will be a big hit. But as a book, ICE HUNT doesn't reward you for the effort put into it. A bigger book for Rollins, some better ideas found inside, but still not a breakthrough... be brave, James, fear not, the fans will follow you even if you break with tradition and blaze a new trail.
|
