Customer Reviews

The Empire of Ice

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is just a great disaster story. If you like man vs. nature stories, or if you enjoyed the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" then you should pick this book up. An erupting volcano has drastically changed the weather patterns in the northern hemisphere and it's up to a geologist millionaire and a British biologist to save England. These guys get everything thrown at them, an erupting volcano, a runaway iceberg, a starving wolfpack, political backstabbers, and finally face an impending war. Sure, the science may be a little far-fetched, the charaterization may seem a little trite, and the goal at which our heroes are aiming for, the bioshpere mini-earth, seems a little weak, but the action and suspense kept me turning the pages. If you enjoy a good action tale, don't pass this one up.

The Empire of Ice is non-stop, providing vivid thrills that will make your teeth chatter. When Mother Nature isn't throwing cataclysm after cataclysm at our heros, they have to deal with the increasing tensions between Ireland and Britain, fascist politicans, and a pack of starving, man-eating wolves. I found the book taut, terse, scary, and immensely readable.

This book seems to have it all. The characters are rich and detailed, and the requisite thriller-style macho hero seems missing in action (a relief if you ask me). The two main characters -- Drs. Benjamin Meade and Marjorie Glynn -- are human and interesting. To explain what I mean in the second sentence, let me mention that Dr. Meade is a recovering alcoholic. The plot is intriguing -- a mid-Atlantic volcano erupts, plunging the Northern Hemisphere into a new ice age, while leaving the Southern half of the globe alone. There's only one problem: at page 200, Mr. Moran must have suddenly noticed the looming deadline and said, "Oh my gosh, I've got to finish this ---!" Benjamin Mead pulls a rabbit out of his geyser (er, hat) and stops the invading Irish army. Whoops. Moral of the story: If you like this book, you'll love Earth Winter. If you haven't read it, you probably shouldn't bother.

I thoroughly enjoy this type of book. Richard Moran has taken the idea of nature fighting back against humans in a believable and totally plausible scenario. "El Nino" that we are experiencing now is a subtle hint of what can come later if humans don't pay attention to nature's warnings.

The characters were believable, situation very possible, and consequences real. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys this genre of book.

Empire of Ice is interesting in light of the recent wave of disaster films and mini-series coming out of Hollywood. The premise is intriguing and there are some interesting science factoids in the novel (although I can't vouch for their accuracy), but ulitmately, the book suffers from some weak characters. The two leads inevitably fall in love (why do books of this type *have* to have a romantic subplot?) and they both inevitably pit themselves against "bad guys" (and why do the antagonists who stand in the heroes' way always get killed by the disaster in question). But the characterizations take a back seat to the disaster (a common thing in these books/movies) and so I never really found myself caring very much about them. This is an interesting, mildly entertaining and quick read, but it's definitely eye candy -- not much of substance to stay with you past the last chapter

what we have here is an interesting scenario, what if a volcanoe erupted and caused volcanic winter throughout the northern hemisphere. and to top it off there is some severe tensions between england and ireland. pretty good book.