- Paperback: 763 pages
- Publisher: Pan; 4 edition (9 Nov 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 033048995X
- ISBN-13: 978-0330489959
- Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 3.2 x 17.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 310,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Contest
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Product Description
Review
" Reilly hurls readers into an adrenaline-drenched thrill ride... impossible to put down."
-- "Orlando Sentinel"
""
" Swain is clever, resourceful, and quick. The action is non-stop... this slam-bang story is great, good fun, and thoroughly entertaining."
--"Tulsa World""" "Reilly...can inspire awe. Speed demons, take note. "
--"Publishers Weekly"
"Compared to Matthew Reilly's "Temple" and his intrepid academic hero, Professor William Race, Indiana Jones is a wimp and The Raiders of The Lost Ark a snooze fest. Reilly's book has adrenaline in super-sized quantities."
--"The Orlando Sentinel" on "Temple" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
-- "Orlando Sentinel"
""
" Swain is clever, resourceful, and quick. The action is non-stop... this slam-bang story is great, good fun, and thoroughly entertaining."
--"Tulsa World""" "Reilly...can inspire awe. Speed demons, take note. "
--"Publishers Weekly"
"Compared to Matthew Reilly's "Temple" and his intrepid academic hero, Professor William Race, Indiana Jones is a wimp and The Raiders of The Lost Ark a snooze fest. Reilly's book has adrenaline in super-sized quantities."
--"The Orlando Sentinel" on "Temple" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
The New York State Library looms as a silent sanctuary of knowledge: a hundred-year-old labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles, and spiral staircases. But for Dr Stephen Swain and his eight-year-old daughter Holly it is a place of nightmare. Because, for just one night, this historic building is to become the venue for a horrifying contest, a contest in which Swain must compete, whether he likes it or not.
The rules of the challenge are simple: seven contestants will enter, but only one will leave. With his daughter in his arms, Stephen Swain is plunged into a terrifying fight for survival. The stakes are high, the odds are brutal. He can choose to run, to hide, or to fight - but if he wants to live, he needs to win. For, in this particular contest, unless you leave as victor, you do not leave at all.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is most unusual,
By A Customer
This review is from: Contest (Paperback)
I suppose the genre for this book is Sci-fi but thriller would fit it too. I like thrillers and this is one of the fastest paced books I have read lately. The action takes place in the New York State Library and action there certainly is. Stephen Swain is a doctor, a radiologist, he is teleported from his Connecticut home to the library and told by a little man in white that he has been selected to represent Earth in a galactic, fight to the death, contest. To complicate matters Swain is holding his daughter, Holly, in his arms at the time of the transportation, so his killer instinct, not that he has one, is directed at protecting his daughter from the six other contestants and a few other ugly creatures along for the ride.Well-done Reilly I will look out for the rest of your novels.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely ou of this world, LITERALLY!,
By
This review is from: Contest (Paperback)
After this book i have nothing but praise and thanks for Matthew Reilly as this was the book that made me the avid reader i am today.This book is an action-packed cauldron of aliens, special effects and .. midgets. The basic plot involves Stephen Swain, a regular doctor, being thrust into the world that is Contest. A brutal, and at sometimes gory, battle to the death. After finding himself and his daughter telported into this monstrous battle, he must use his intelligence and his instincts to overcome these foes, whilst at the same time protecting his daughter. While at first trying to avoid every confrontation by running away, he finds out that in the end the only way to survive, is to fight. Prepare to enter the world of Matthew Reilly, you'll want to pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable, becuase once your there, you'll never want to leave.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slightly derivative, leave-your-brain-at-home thrills!,
By
This review is from: Contest (Paperback)
OK, so Contest may never be discussed in the same reverential tones as more profound and visionary sci-fi, penned by the likes of Iain Banks, Stephen Baxter or Jose Farmer, but it's certainly an entertaining read nonetheless. The adventures of our hero Stephen Swain, inadvertently and unwillingly enrolled in a form of alien gladiatorial combat, are more than competently described by Reilly and I'm sure most readers will devour this entertaining pot-boiler in a flurry of undemanding page-turning. In the appendix, the author pays tribute to Jurassic Park, and the influence of Crichton is clear in Contest. Indeed the stalking and confrontations set amongst a maze of bookcases are highly reminiscent of the velociraptors in the kitchen scene in JP. Reilly does, however, inject enough original touches to deflect any serious cries of plagiarism. In particular, the cheating alien called Bellos makes for an effectively evil villain and the bizarre creature referred to as Codex was both inventive and downright creepy. No Earth-shattering surprises or twists along the way, but the ending was suitably explosive and satisfying. So, nowhere near being a sci-fi classic, but it certainly does what it says on the tin and you could do a lot worse than spending a few hours in the New York State Library with Reilly's dramatis personae, in the somewhat lightweight but pretty damn entertaining world of Contest.
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