BUCKLE UP... This is going to be a hell of a ride! Jonathan Maberry - Bram Stoker Award winning author of The Wolfman (now a major motion picture).
Beneath the Dark Ice - Quickly paced, imaginatively detailed, and highly atmospheric, Beck's novel is an entertaining mix of thriller, horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Neal Wyatt, RA Crossroads, LIBRARY JOURNAL.
Beneath the Dark Ice has all the ingredients of a late night page-turner: a remote and dangerous setting, a rugged hero with an Achilles heel, a vicious and deadly villain, geopolitical intrigue and cutting-edge science. Throw in a feisty heroine and a band of elite soldiers, put them in the ruins of an ancient civilization and pit them against a mythological creature, and it’s a recipe for compulsive reading.
Beneath the Dark Ice plays with legends like the Kraken and Atlantis, and draws on elements of Mayan and Olmec archaeology. But how much is real, and how much is invention? What if there once had been a great civilization living in Antarctica? What if the thing that destroyed it was still there thousands of years later? And what if there were other deadly enemies as well? All these questions keep you turning the pages.
Beneath the Dark Ice leaves you gasping for more, but like the best thriller writers, Greig Beck leaves a few questions unresolved at the end. Just as well he’s working on the sequel.
Lachlan Jobbins, Good Reading Magazine http://www.goodreadingmagazine.com.au/index.cfm?page=55
Beneath the Dark Ice is a fast paced, fun and fantastic debut from a great new talent. Perfect escapism.
Paperchain Books.
It's good to meet a new writer, especially a new Australian writer, who is so fluently inventive. Beneath the Dark Ice- In a word: GRIPPING. Malcolm Tattersall, Townsville BULLETIN.
Beneath the dark Ice is an exciting read! A successful mix of spy thriller, psychological drama, and scientific primeval action novel - with just a touch of the Jules Verne. Anne Dickson, Rodney Libraries.
FIRST GERMAN REVIEW - An action thriller with Jurassic Park-like atmosphere – exciting from beginning to end. Rated 4/5 Stars - Lesevergnügen (Reading Pleasure). Eva Hüppen - Lesser-Welt, Das Literaturportal.
FIRST ITALIAN REVIEW - Ghiaccio Nero - From adventure Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne horror of the thing campbelliana memory (filtered by the vision of John Carpenter): all literary genres within these coordinates can be identified in the novel. The Australian Greig Beck, his literary debut, takes the reader on an exciting adventure above and below the ice of Antarctica, the idea of giving a lot of fun doing it! It is a breath of fresh air to find some 'golden age of sci-fi sound - no frills and various cerebral mechanism - merged with the adventure and action, not forgetting the horror and spy-story. A vitamin mix for a novel drink in one gulp. Thriller Magazine 4 Stars.
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DARK RISING / (aka return of the prophet) REVIEWS.
IT STARTS WITH A BANG!
Last year I discovered Australian author Greig Beck and his first book Beneath the Dark Ice. So it was with interest that I awaited the second adventure of Alex Hunter. It landed on my desk on Friday night.
His second story starts with a BANG! And it is a big one. We are talking Black Hole intensity. From there we are taken on a journey at break neck speed that meant I hardly put the book down all weekend. This book is set in the Middle East so you can envision the trigger happy warring nations, religious fanatics and competition to locate the technology that made such a bang. Throw in some science (which even I could follow), mythology and a touch of Dr Who (time travel, alternate universe, monsters) for an enthralling read. The characters, including the new ones, remain well drawn so that the conclusion is satisfying.
It can be hard to back up such an excellent debut and in the past I have often been disappointed by the second book. This is certainly not the case here. In fact I think expectations have been exceeded.
Anne Dickson, Rodney Libraries.
HAS ALL THE RIGHT STUFF. It starts with gamma radiation in Persepolis, progresses through the threat of nuclear war, an ancient curse and winds up with monsters from the dawn of time. What more could anyone want? IAN NICHOLS, The West Australian
THE PACE IS BREAKNECK! 4 Stars (highly recommended). Lachlan Jobbins. Good Reading Magazine.
One of the best proponents of the (Military SF) sub-genre is relative newcomer Greig Beck, whose beneath the dark ice we reviewed in TISF #15. Dark ice contained quite a few nice SF tropes and in beck’s latest –
In Dark Rising (Return of the prophet), the SF element is amped up even more. As demonstrated in Dark Ice, Beck has a strong grasp of the action genre. His work is exciting, fast-paced and cinematic in feel. He’s also good at appropriating from the real world and extrapolating into the very near future. So prophet takes Beck’s protagonist, super soldier Alex Hunter code-named the Arcadian, into a rogue Iranian state where an Islamic extremist prime minister is funding outlawed nuclear experimentation and twists that together with the widely reported and recent fears that CERN’s large Hadron Collider may create black holes capable of swallowing the earth.
The Iranian’s in Dark Rising stumble on more than nuclear fission. They manage to create an event that opens a channel through to another dimension, a doorway that allows things that shouldn’t exist to come to our world, and a means for already fanatical prime minister to hasten the end of the world as foretold in the Koran. Alex hunter and his crack team of HAWC special forces, armed with the type of advanced military materiel that would make James Bond’s ‘Q’ green with envy are dispatched to take out the threat. The action is beautifully choreographed, and the characters are well rounded - in particular Alex Hunter himself. Hunter’s powers are still growing in ways that not even his own commanding officer is entirely comfortable with and this adds an extra element of complexity to an already engaging character. Beck continues to provide strong female characters in this second Alex Hunter outing with MOSAD captain Adira Senesh who is more than a match for Hunter’s HAWCs. And he’s not bad at monsters either. The descriptions of the ‘thing’ that emerges from that other dimension are particularly effective, creating visual and auditory images of the creature that will stay with me for a long time.
Dark Rising is a lot of fun and clearly there’s more work for hunter to do. That is if his enemies or his own side don’t kill him first. He’s been under the Antarctic ice and in the Iranian desert. My bet is next outing he’ll be in outer space. Perhaps the international space station is under attack. But whatever it is, I’ll be alongside him for the ride. Four stars.
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Keith Stevenson Writer, publisher, editor www.keithstevenson.com Read coeur de lion books — www.coeurdelion.com.au. Listen to the terra incognita podcast – www.tisf.com.au and on itunes.
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This Green Hell REVIEWS:
Publishing sensation Greig Beck is back - This Green Hell is a magnificent thriller with all the right elements. The author cleverly plays on subtle fears, with layers of suspense. BK Richmond, The Daily Examiner.
This Green Hell: STEAMY - Danger, disappearances and contagion follow Dr Aimee Weir’s important discovery in the Paraguayan jungle. Author Beck piles on the action and suspense. In a word: steamy! Gold Coast Bulletin.
What a delight it is to see top sci-fi / horror coming out of this fair city -- the plot moves along at breakneck speed. Bring on the next one. VERDICT: Page-turning thrills and spills. The Daily Telegraph, book of the week. Chris Hook
This Green Hell – Greig Beck is Clive Cussler meets Matthew Reilly – Violent, visceral and very, very good fun. South Coast Register.
This Green Hell is the third book by author Greig Beck, but the first one I’ve read by him. Always a real treat to pick up a book by an author you haven’t heard of before and read with no preconceived ideas about the writing style or formula of writing. It’s even more of a treat when you find a new author to add to your favourite list, as I’ve done with Greig Beck.
This Green Hell is set in South America, Paraguay. We are given a background to the setting with the Jesuit missionaries around the late 1600’s and the disappearance of these people. The story then shoots back to present day where an expedition of scientists have discovered a new micro-organism that may just be the alternate to gas. Unfortunately, the discovery has catastrophic results, infecting any human or animal that comes in contact with it.
This is where the action really begins with the introduction of the rescue team, with all of their high tech weapons and scientific methods. Overall, the plot was excellent and fast paced. The characters were well developed and crafted, as was the dialogue.
THE FRINGE MAGAZINE. Review by Scott Wilson.
This Month's Book Review: This Green Hell - The Alex Hunter novels are a lot of fun. The first two – Beneath The Dark Ice and Return of the Prophet – were reviewed in earlier episodes of TISF and book three, This Green Hell, picks up where we left off with super soldier Captain Alex Hunter experiencing more and deeper rages as the powers he’s inherited through the Arcadian Project continue to grow in unpredictable ways. Things are getting decidedly dicey for Alex with the R and D boys pressing his commanding officer Colonel Jack Hammerson to order Hunter onto the dissecting table. Luckily there’s another emergency which brings into play Alex’s one time lover, Aimee Weir, who he saved in Book One. It seems there’s something nasty lurking down in a South American jungle – think ebola virus times – oh – a million, and people are dying in ways too horrible to mention, but don’t worry there’s plenty of description to help you get the picture. Alex and his team are deployed after a group of Green Berets on mission down there get fragged, but there’s more to this virus than meets the suppurating, discoloured eye which leaves Alex Hunter fighting not only for his own life but for the life of those he holds most dear in his hands. Greig Beck returns to the world of Alex Hunter with great gusto. As with the other books there’s fantastic research woven into the story and it seems Greig really loves to throw together facts from all over the place and mix them with a generous dollop of action and what-if. It’s a winning combination. But over and above the action and the current threat there’s the continuing story of Alex’s development, the ‘interest’ Mossad has in him, and Alex’s own untenable position with the very secret project that spawned his amazing powers. That’s what gives this story real depth and interest long after the current threat is put to rest, and it’s what will make me rush out to get book four. This Green Hell is a smart, delightful read with a big heart. Four stars. Keith Stevenson, Publisher & Editor Coeur de Lion Books. www.keithstevenson.com — www.coeurdelion.com.au
