Review: Contest - Matthew Reilly

Title Contest
Author Matthew Reilly
Year 1996
Stand Alone or Series Stand Alone
Pages 448
Reading Time 8 days. From 17 a 23 October 2012

Review 

** spoiler alert ** 
This book was the first Reilly wrote but unfortunally wasn't able to sell it to a company. After the sucess of Area 7 and Temple he remade Contest and sold it... This is not unique, look at Dan Brown books. Two of them weren't published until the sucess he had with the Da Vinci Code.

In this fast paced thriller we accompany a human, Dr. Stephen Swain, with his daughter battle against 6 aliens species. Some more aliens than others I think. Unfortunally there are people that were already there and are trapped with them. Besides the 6 opponents there are another big scary monster who will kill any opponents.

So the rules are these...
7 aliens (including an human) accompanied by 7 guides (the creators of the game, a presence to help the contestant only) must battle and only one will survive.

The place? The New York State Library.

Of course opposing these are the NSA, altought they can't enter the Library due to a electric field surrounding the library.

Of course, and some Deus Ex Machina in the middle we are thrown alongside the main characters... And this is why I don't like about thrillers. Small chapters with an undending action/narrative where the goodguys almost always win, with no sequelae involved. Everything is fine when it's fine... something like that.

But if you like thrillers mixed with sci-fi then try this one. 7/10

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