.com 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 AdamsFrom Publishers WeeklyAs 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. The action just keeps on coming...Michael Crichton meets Indiana Jones. Kirkus sReilly has a gift for sustaining momentum that never lets up. Publishers WeeklyAs good as it gets when it comes to action thrillers...brilliant. The Charleston Post Courier what goes into making a website Temple
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Completely RidiculousBy TracyI decided to try Matthew Reilly because he was recommended based on the fact that I read books by James Rollins. In the beginning, the book seemed intriguing and entertaining. Unfortunately, this did not last. While I am willing to suspended some belief this book asked for far too much suspension. As the book progressed, the main character, who was a professor no less, seemed to get out of situations that were so over the top it was like watching Indian Jones saving himself from an atomic blast by hiding in a refrigerator. Eventually, this book culminated into a final battle that was so over the top when it was over I just rolled my eyes and realized I had wasted a lot of time reading a book that even teenagers would find hard to believe.Honestly, I cannot believe that Reilly could have written this book with a straight face. After this book, I am not inclined to read another by him.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Great novel, but . . .By BluebeamThis book is one of the best novels I've ever read and I've read a lot. I think this is the best of what he has written. The reason I only gave it a three star rating is because of the amount of punctuation errors in the book. I've never read a book with this many errors. The biggest error is the number of missing periods, at least three dozen. Then there is the lack of un-capitalized proper first names (will instead of Will), incomplete quotation markings, and misspellings. These errors are not unique to this book alone. With the use of spell and grammar checkers, which are still fallible, I've seen quite an increase in bad punctuation and grammar in all sorts of books, thus dropping their quality. If Mr. Reilly would implement these corrections, the Temple would be a perfect, exciting read.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. like the author and his writing but the story line is really, really unbelievable.By SEAL DadMatthew Reilly is a great writer and I have enjoyed his adventure novels very much but not this one. It was an OK read but just too unrealistic as Professor Race escapes certain death so many times because of amazing and fortuitous circumstances which are unbelievable in the extreme. Professor race escapes death in a nuclear explosion and then again when falling from the sky in a M4 Abrams tank which was pushed out of a plane, whilst at the same time disarming a "supernova" earth killer bomb prior to the tank crashing into the ground.... and he survives. All in all, requires a major suspension of belief and just go with the flow. Mr. Reilly's novels are so good, guess this was a fluke. By the way,there were so many spelling errors, not sure if it was just the kindle edition or the proof reading of the manuscript was "amateur hour"