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Vostok Station - Point of
Impact.
Review Article by Richard Humby
About the Book
The ice continent of Antarctica has fascinated adventurers, explorers and scientists alike for its pristine natural beauty, which masks the deadly effects of one of the coldest places on Earth also underpinned by intriguing mysteries. As explorers of the recent past - such as Amundsen, Scott, Mawson and Shackleton found to their peril – isolation, privation and death are constant companions. Plowright’s first novel, Vostok Station- Point of Impact, centres on these features combined with a real-life mystery and the resultant crisis it creates. A few months ago, media articles aired on Cable TV featured the massive Lake Vostok – positioned on Australian Antarctic Territorial Claims - and voiced the perplexing question as to what might lay beneath it? Plowright explores this mystery to reveal a startling and deadly possibility, which creates a massive build up of US, Australian, Chinese and Russian forces to obtain at all costs, the newly discovered resource.
Plowright’s novel builds unbearable tension, placing unlikely heroes like the Australian Defence Force’s Brian and Lance Hamilton, at the epicentre of a mounting crisis that, after a combination of totally unexpected events, threatens to destroy the planet.
But while this frightening near-future scenario for the closing months of 2014 remain a central issue, Plowright poses other problems. The author explores other nagging questions that so far, have remained unanswered and untested: how legitimate are the current territorial Antarctic claims by countries such as Australia, which remain largely unrecognised by most other countries? And what could happen if a major resource find on that territory was to be tested by a resurgent Russian military machine and a resource-strapped China, arguably the next greatest military power of the 21st Century? As these formidable forces combine to exercise their newly found hegemony and test Australian claims, we are forced to admit that they may have a point and, by the way, how capable are our defence forces in terms of being able to prosecute a military response to such a test?
In examining these mounting conflicts, inextricably woven into this gripping story of intrigue, plots, assassination and likely human extinction, Plowright also examines the use of current and evolving military technologies and how they might be applied to near-future warfighting in this nightmare scenario. The Australian context provides a far-too-close-to-home picture of the ‘what if’ and what might or could happen, and explores those ‘what if’ questions most of us would choose to ignore, through the eyes of the Hamilton Brothers. We eagerly await his next novel.
About the Author
New Zealand-born Kerry Plowright spent his youth in an equally isolated place – the New Zealand territory of the Chatham Islands – a remote group that may well have given rise to his fascination for adventure. His subsequent stint as an Army Officer in the New Zealand Defence Forces (Army) saw him continue equally isolated and rewarding experiences training indigenous forces in Fiji, until his move to Australia in 1983 drove the thirst for knowledge, beyond the constraining borders of small islands, led him to find success in technology and its application, and seek to find the answers to such nagging questions as ‘what if’? His ability to undertake the lengthy, and often very lonely, process of detailed research for ‘Point of Impact’ had paid dividends in an international thriller, with far reaching consequences if his underlying questions remain unanswered. Perceptions and perspectives remain, for the beholders, very real and reasonable when viewed from either western or non-western standpoints: the Chinese desire for appropriate recognition may seem strange to us as indeed does their stance on Taiwan, but they are a people imbued with a cultural telescope, looking far beyond those issues we find current or relevant now. What if the situation changes? And what if, from a purely Sino-centric standpoint, these presently fictional events made perfect sense to a nation that has been the subject of military incursions since the Mongols? Indeed, what if Indonesia – a stone’s throw from our own littoral environment – experienced a radical change of government, and exercised their rights to control the Timor straights and extend their influence into Papua New Guinea? How would we, could we, as Australians deal with these issues?
Kerry Plowright goes a long way to test our emotions, knowledge and experiences in his first novel, dealing first with Russian and Chinese responses to disputed Antarctic claims, and hinting of worse to come. A portent of looming disaster, or a wake-up call? Let the reader decide!
Richard Humby is a former army officer, having commanded the regional force surveillance unit called NORFORCE in Darwin for two years, prior to concluding his full time military career as Assistant Defence Advisor for Australia to Papua New Guinea as a Lieutenant Colonel. He now writes full time, providing technical training and education manuals for the Australian Army and, when time permits in his Army Reserve capacity, conducts military operations planning training & instructional delivery for young military officers and warrant officers, at Canungra in South East Queensland. He now lives locally in Bilambil.
‘Vostok Station: Point of Impact’ is available from the author at $30:00 from Australian Windows Publishing Pty Ltd, 31 Highland Drive Terranora, 2486, or available from Angus & Robertson Bookshops locally.
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