Customer Reviews

The Ice Limit

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(61)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Lots of ice and plenty of farfetched suspense make for perfect summer escapism with Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's latest adventure thriller.

The book opens with a bang as a lone scientist on a desolate island just north of Antarctica makes the discovery of a lifetime, which promptly incinerates him. Cut to the seventh richest man in the world, American businessman Palmer Lloyd, who throws his financial weight around at a Christie's auction, much to the humbled participants' disgust and admiration, then flies off to the Kalahari to buy a prominent meteorite hunter.

Lloyd is building the world's greatest natural history museum and the meteorite hunter, Sam McFarlane, is going to help him acquire his centerpiece - the world's largest meteorite - found by Sam's former partner on that Chilean Antarctic island. Lloyd also acquires an engineer to plan the expedition, a humorless perfectionist who prides himself on his flawless success record. Eli Glinn plans for every contingency, human nature included. The party sets out on a state-of-the-art tanker, disguised as a rustbucket on an ore mining job. Like Glinn and McFarlane, its dignified female captain has been made wiser by a career-blighting error.

The expedition attracts the attention of a bitter and suspicious Chilean destroyer captain, whose powerlessness is matched by his tenacity. And then Glinn, who thinks of everything, allows Sam to bury his former partner's body without inspecting it. Uh oh. But the initial digging of the meteorite goes off without a hitch. Palmer Lloyd jumps down on the surprisingly red rock and presses his cheek to it without ill effect.

Still, the thing is strange. Its rich, ruby color is mesmerizing, its weight is mind-boggling and it's so hard it burns out a big diamondhead drill without giving up a fragment of itself. Its origins and properties stir up Sam's old obsession - interstellar meteorites. All previous meteorites have come from our own solar system and the possibility of an interstellar rock is a statistical impossibility, or so the scientists say.

And soon the problems begin. Though Glinn plans for everything, the rock (the heaviest object ever moved by humans) seems to have ideas of its own.

With increasing momentum, several suplots, budding romances, raging storms and sinsiter mysteries clash, collide and hurtle towards an explosive climax among the deadly ice islands of the Ice Limit surrounding Antarctica. The characters are more fleshed out than in previous books and the settings - the high-tech tanker, the forbidding island, the stormy sea - are well done. There are a few holes in the plot (no ship would be racing full speed through 100-foot seas, for one) but who cares? Mystery and suspense are what we are looking for and Preston and Childs ("Riptide," "The Relic," "Thunderhead") deliver.

Palmer Lloyd, eccentric billionaire and 7th richest man in the world is an obsessed collector of all sorts of museum quality specimens. He is presently building his own museum to overshadow all of the most famous museum collections. He learns of the discovery of what could be the largest meteorite ever found. He naturally will go to any expense to obtain this spectacular prize.

He assembles a team of experts to not only excavate but retrieve and transport what will be the heaviest load ever moved (5 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower). Unfortunately the location of the meteorite is the frigid, icy, inhospitable Isla Desolacion in the Cape Horn islands south of Tierra del Fuego. The price tag is 300 million dollars. Eli Glinn, head of Effective Engineering Solutions, a Mission Impossible like team of engineers, scientists and mercenaries heads the project. He is ably assisted by oil tanker captain Sally Britton and meteorite hunter and planetary geologist Sam MacFarlane. Together they endeavor to overcome incredulous physical obstacles along with a relentless commendante of a Chilean naval destroyer who is determined to thwart their efforts.

The novel is well thought out and extremely suspenseful but is spoiled by a very disappointing ending. The last page diminshed what was 400+ pages of an excellent story.

These boys did their homework. The Ice Limit is a complete work. The premise--an expedition to retrieve the world's largest meteorite from an inhospitable Chilean island near Tierra del Fuego for a billionaire's museum--is worthy. The plotting is above par. Plenty of twists and page-turning suspense. And the surprise ending, foreshadowed throughout but difficult to predict, is a special treat, ratcheting the tale up another notch on the Richter scale of excellence.

But two things make The Ice Limit a best-seller and sure candidate for a movie. One is the characterizations. With nearly ten major characters, it must have been a daunting task to keep them well-defined, easily identifiable, and fresh. Readers want characters, not caricatures. Child and Preston make their efforts look easy and transparent. My favorite was Eli Glinn, head of the engineering firm hired to scoop up the heaviest object ever moved by Man. He was unique, sort of a mixture of Roddenberry's Spock and Verne's Captain Nemo.

The other bonus was the science. I almost thought they had overdone it at times, but by book end I was simply left impressed. And it's not the depth of their understanding of one particular subject; it's all the subjects. They researched everything. Meteorites, Chile, Antarctica, navigation, oil tankers, periodic charts, meteorology, structural engineering, naval ordnance, electronics, and on and on. They don't necessarily beat you upside the head with it. But they do prove that they're two smart guys. Bravo! --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

I am 12 years old. I just finished one of the greatest books of all time! The Ice Limit is worth reading for the last four pages. It really gets good when Palmer Lloyd wants the largest metorite in the world in his grand new museum. He fuels the money for a expedition that consists of Eli Glinn, a brilliant engineer, and Sam McFarlane, the metorite hunter. They go to the end of the world to retreive the heaviest object known to man. It well keep you spellbound all the way to the shocking end. Interesting enough to keep even a twelve year old reading. A beautifully written book that is Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child at their very best.

At this point, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have refined their formula for writing bestsellers: (1) an sometimes eccentric, usually obsessive person (2) wants to achieve some goal (3) which requires that a team of highly skilled professionals (4) equipped with super high-tech toys (5) and brimming with (over)confidence (6) go into the wild and face Mother Nature, one another, and Big Science, (7) and although every contingency should be planned for, (8) things go wrong.

"Mount Dragon" was about microbiologists dealing with a killer virus, "Riptide" was about treasure hunters, "Thunderhead" was about archeaologists, and "The Ice Limit" is about engineers and a geologist on a meteor hunting expedition.

Preston and Child actually care enough about the characters to imbue them with more characterization than usual for thrillers, although the breakdown in one of the central characters isn't hard to predict. There's some science of meteorites, a naval skirmish, something of a love affair, and a lot about engineering. The gore level is relatively low, although there are a number of deaths. Like "Riptide," there is a mystery buried within the adventure story, and the reader is kept guessing to the last page.

Among their books, I would rate "The Ice Limit" on a par with "Riptide," just below "Mount Dragon," and above "Thunderhead" and "Reliquary."

...anyone who is looking for an absorbing, fun, thrill-a-minute vacationtime page-turner should certainly enjoy the book. Preston and Child have developed a winning formula for science-and-myth-based thrillers, and this may be the best one they've released so far.

Yes, the story IS formulaic, with some of the plot developments being forseeable right from the beginning. There also are elements (such as a deranged Chilean destroyer captain) that strain credulity and ask the reader for a "suspension of disbelief." Despite this, however, there are enough twists, turns, and surprises to keep readers riveted. The characters tend toward stereotype, but they do exhibit enough reflectiveness and personality to render them adequately believable. Finally, the quality of the writing itself is far better than one finds in most potboiler "thrillers."

As always with Preston and Child's efforts, one can certainly envision this book as a Hollywood production someday. If *The Ice Limit* ever appears on the silver screen, I'll certainly buy a ticket.

This is not the fastest page-turner the authors have produced, but it is just as well crafted as their best.

A multi-billionaire with too much money has been buying up the treasures of the world for a personal museum greater than any other in the world.

His newest passion is a meteorite that defies description. It is larger by far than any known meteorite and by rights should not exist. Obtaining it will be an engineering feat of the grandest scale. The rock weighs as much as five Eiffel towers and would be the heaviest object ever moved by humanity.

The rock lies on a small island in Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. Freezing weather, unforseen circumstances, engineering on the grandest scale, international politics, and an obsessive destroyer captain all come together to make this a true thriller.

Of course, it would not be Preston and Child if there were not some very curious details about the rock itself (you'll have too read it to find out as I won't spoil the surprise). It then all culminates in a satisfying ending with an unpredictable twist.

Fans of science thrillers will definitely want to read this one.

"The Ice Limit" is an astounding book, one that leaves you haunted and mesmerized. The team of Preston and Child have written some great stories, and ironically, this one is the most "different" of their tales. The concept is typical Child/Preston: give us a huge cast of characters; a seemingly impossible challenge; a truly nasty villain; and some breathtaking moments of action and suspense. The story is fairly simple: a huge meteorite has been discovered on the Isla' Delacion, near the end of the world (Antarctica). Fanatical billionaire/trillionaire Palmer Lloyd wants the meteorite in his own private museum, and so hires a remarkable team of specialists to transport the humongous meteorite back to New York City. Wow, what a challenge! The pacing of this book is much more deliberate and methodical than previous Child/Preston books; and that's not negative in the least. We're given some complex characters, human and imperfect. The scenes in the little village of Puerto William are awesome in their descriptive power. Never has a book so enthralled me with its ability to transport me into a world I will probably never see, but find fascinating and spellbinding. The scenes depicted on the stormy and icy seas are truly nervewrecking and draining.

What makes the book work, however, is its characters. First and foremost is the fascinating Eli Glinn; not a villaint/not a hero, just a perfectionist whose brilliance is unmatched. It is his inability to accept failure that makes him such a tragic character; Rachel is a beautifully drawn female character, with definite hangups and frailties, but she's marvelous; Sally Britton, the indomitable captain with her own history of failure, is likewise remarkably drawn. The Chilean Villain (nice rhyme?) is despicable and you can't wait for him to meet his just desserts. His manic drive to revenge the death of his first mate, so to speak (no plot giveaways here), is frustrating and unnerving, because you can't believe how close he comes to his goal.

In reading the book, it was amazing. I wanted the team to succeed; sure we have our typical crazy wealthy man sacrificing human life for his own needs, but the characters are so committed to making it work, that I felt like I was right there with them.

It's amazing: Preston/Child give away the novel's "secret ending" early on in the book, but you don't know it until you reach the end. And, oh what an ending. I should have known----it needs a sequel! They can't just leave us hanging, can they? Let's hope not.

"The Ice Limit" is unique in its exploration of human drive, determination, and refusal to give up. Although tragedy certainly results and some memorable people are gone, the spirit of success and adventure far outweigh the greed and manipulation.

Read this for an interesting change of pace.

This book teases the reader with allusions to legends of horrific ice monsters feasting on unwitting sailors, but quickly resolves into an extremely interesting novel of the engineering feats required to find, excavate, and transport a meteor of immense mass and unknown dangers.

The characters are generally interesting and mostly likable, with an interesting mix of quirks and strengths. The plot seems largely believable, or at least sufficiently entertaining to allow willing suspension of disbelief (with one glaring exception, noted below.)

Unfortunately, all of this begins to unravel during the book's final act. After watching a main character carefully analyze, plan, and prepare for every contingency, we are suddenly asked to believe he could not guess the motives of the key antagonist (motives that are all-too-clear to the reader), opening himself and his team to terrible dangers. To make matters worse, he apparently enjoys making mistakes (or is perhaps making up for a lifetime of NOT making mistakes), since he begins channelling Bob Denver's Gilligan for the remaining dozen pages causing problem after problem, dragging other characters in after him, until the final moments of the book. I think the worst moment consists of a strange reference to the "2001:A Space Odyssey" ending that is too short to add much meaning to the story, but too long to have been accidentally left in the book by careless editing.

The plot device of the all-knowing hero who becomes a befuddled, bumbling fool to keep the plot moving is endlessly frustrating, and degrades the rest of this otherwise excellent story.

I'm not totally sorry I read it, but I do feel a bit let down by the closing moments of the story.

Of course, the last few sentences *almost* make up for it.

But not quite.

I have been a longtime fan of Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child ever since I read their incredibly fun 'Relic' (which still ranks for me as their best release-to-date) I am always excited when I see their next book on the shelf...and after finishing up 'Thunderhead' I just couldn't WAIT to read 'The Ice Limit' although I had my doubts that they could exceed the fantastic adventure I had just finished. Well not only is 'The Ice Limit' better (in MY opinion), they have come up with probably the most surprising ending since the 'The Sixth Sense'.

Preston & Child have come up with another winner of a plot, this time we're at the very bottom of the world trying to recover the largest meteorite ever discovered. In fact, it turns out to be MUCH bigger than anyone predicted, making it by far the most valuable item of its kind in history. The problem now is finding a way to transport something so large from the Southern Hemisphere to the East coast of America...Enter Effective Engineering Solutions (EES) a company so certain of their success they actually GUARANTEE they will be able to pull off this amazing stunt. Herein lies the seeds of an incredible adventure which captured me literally from page ONE. I like a book that can seize my interest this way, and Preston & Child seem to have a knack for being able to do it in each of their books. From the eccentric Billionaire who wants the meteorite (Palmer Lloyd) to the mastermind behind moving it (Eli Glinn) and

then we have the mysterious Sam McFarlane, who is tapped to help find this massive rock and assist Eli in figuring out all the details of how to move the largest item in history so far. Now if this wasn't action enough (trust me, it is) factor into the situation the Argentinian Navy which has a ship with a renegade captain who is determined--at ANY cost--to see to it that the arrogant Americans NEVER retrieve whatever it is they are looking for (because he doesn't know for sure himself).

Preston & Child have once again served up an incredible action/adventure/thriller that keeps the pages turning as well as gives you an amazing surprise at the end--but PLEASE do NOT read ahead and spoil the surprise, trust me, it'll ruin the end if you do, but WOW!! What a GREAT ending! If you are a fan of these two fantastic and creative authors, do NOT hesitate, run out and grab this book and FORGET waiting until it comes out in paperback--this is worth EVERY PENNY in hardback (for the ending alone). Highly recommended.