Temple

Features

• Cover Type: Mass Market Paperback with 560 pages
• Published by: St. Martin's Paperbacks February 18, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0312981260
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0312981266
• Book Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.4 inches
• Weighs: 8.8 ounces

Product Review
William Race, a mild-mannered professor, is impressed into the U.S. army on a bizarre mission: to retrieve a centuries-old Incan idol revered by a Peruvian Indian tribe. The idol, carved out of a meteorite, is the missing ingredient in a so-called "planet-killer," a weapon long sought not only by the U.S. government, but also by a neo-Nazi group whose scientists, linguists, and anthropologists seem to be one step ahead of the Americans. Only Race can translate the legendary manuscript that holds the key to the idol's location high in the Andes in a temple guarded by huge, man-eating panthers, on a moat seething with equally carnivorous crocodiles.

It's a preposterous setup of the Crichton/Cook variety, but Matt Reilly, author of Ice Station, takes it to the max, with plenty of improbable feats of physical strength, an arsenal of weapons that would give Tom Clancy pause, and a breathtaking conclusion. There's also a sneaky little internecine war going on among various branches of the American military just to keep the tension ratcheted up. It's not too long on character development, but it's a fast-paced read, with plenty of cliffhangers (literal as well as metaphorical), lots of firepower, and enough villains for a whole other adventure. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
As aggressive as an avalancheAand often with the same graceAReilly's second pulp-fiction adventure hurtles into the Peruvian jungle, where competing factions search for a precious Incan idol, the "Spirit of the People." The U.S. Army leads the pack. Like the others, the army wants the relic because it is made out of thyrium-261, a rare material, found only in meteorites, that can be used to create a fearsome weapon of mass destruction. The idolAa carved snarling jaguar headAis hidden in a stone temple and guarded by a pack of fearsome rapas, huge cats that can tear the best-trained warrior limb from limb. If the rapas aren't enough, 22-foot crocodiles also lurk nearby. The army group is led by unlikely hero William Race, a linguist brought along on the journey to translate the 400-year-old manuscript revealing the location of the idol. Race and the soldiers manage to fight off the rapas and retrieve the precious statuette, only to have a latterday Nazi paramilitary group, the Stormtroopers, crash the scene and take it away. However, the Stormtroopers can't hold the idol for long. U.S. Navy Seals swoop in to grab it, then lose it to a terrorist outfit from Texas. The mad chaseAfought on land, water and in the airAhurtles through ancient ruins, abandoned gold mines and tribal villages. The action, punctuated by regular bursts of superhuman feats and other absurdities, careens along at a breakneck pace. Australian Reilly (Ice Station) has a gift for sustaining momentum that never lets up. His writing may be crude at points, his characters cartoonish and his humor inelegant, but his story delivers all the excitement it promises. (Jan. 19)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
I must admit that reviewing Temple isn't easy for me. My usual reviewing style is to pan a book for minor inconsistencies in the plot or for unrealistic characters or for a lack of accuracy in information presented as being historically correct. By these standards Temple deserves one star (at most). But here I am giving Temple four stars despite it being the most blatantly unrealistic and totally improbable book I've ever read! The operative words here are BLATANTLY unrealistic. And FUN. Reading a book by Matthew Reilly is like going to a liars convention, where the person who tells the most outlandish, unbelievable, crazy, entertaining story is the winner. William Race, the hero of Temple, spends approximately 750 pages in constant action, fighting for his life, running for his life, dodging bullets and surviving one disaster after another, always at the very last "nanosecond" (one of Mr. Reilly's favorite words). William Race does things that are not just improbable but totally impossible. He cheats death every 10th page and spends the next nine pages getting into a situation that has only one possible outcome: certain death! Several other reviewers have characterized Matthew Reilly's books as "comic books in words". Exactly! They can also be compared to the old Batman TV shows, where the screen explodes with a "POW" when one of the characters punches another character. Here's an example of Matthew Reilly's prose (page 434 in the paperback edition I read): "Race hit him again, and again, and again - yelling with each punch as the Nazi staggered backwards. 'Get -' Punch. '- off -' Punch. '- my -' Punch. '- boat!'" In conclusion, totally unrealistic, totally improbable and 100% entertaining! At the end of the paperback edition I read there's an 11-page interview with Matthew Reilly that I found quite interesting. Mr. Reilly is very up-front about writing books that attempt to pack as much action as possible between the covers, and he also describes how he became an author: "What led you to self-publish Contest (Matthew Reilly's first book)?" "Simple. I offered it to every major publisher in Sydney and they all rejected it!" Sounds like something so improbable that it could be straight out of a Matthew Reilly book. :-) Rennie Petersen