Ice Song [Paperback]

Kirsten Imani Kasai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 2009

There are secrets beneath her skin.

Sorykah Minuit is a scholar, an engineer, and the sole woman aboard an ice-drilling submarine in the frozen land of the Sigue. What no one knows is that she is also a Trader: one who can switch genders suddenly, a rare corporeal deviance universally met with fascination and superstition and all too often punished by harassment or death.

Sorykah’s infant twins, Leander and Ayeda, have inherited their mother’s Trader genes. When a wealthy, reclusive madman known as the Collector abducts the babies to use in his dreadful experiments, Sorykah and her male alter-ego, Soryk, must cross icy wastes and a primeval forest to get them back. Complicating the dangerous journey is the fact that Sorykah and Soryk do not share memories: Each disorienting transformation is like awakening with a jolt from a deep and dreamless sleep.

The world through which the alternating lives of Sorykah and Soryk travel is both familiar and surreal. Environmental degradation and genetic mutation run amok; humans have been distorted into animals and animal bodies cloak a wild humanity. But it is also a world of unexpected beauty and wonder, where kindness and love endure amid the ruins. Alluring, intense, and gorgeously rendered, Ice Song is a remarkable debut by a fiercely original new writer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kasai's strikingly original but uneven debut posits a world where DNA has gone wild, producing Traders with amazing abilities and somatics with a mix of animal and human genes. Sorykah Minuit, a gender-switching Trader, arrives in the dirty, dangerous polar town of Ostara to meet her twin children and their nursemaid. She encounters an octopus-woman who tells her the children have been abducted by the Trader-torturing Collector. Passages of stunning imagery veer abruptly into purple prose as Sorykah heads into the perilous, icy wilderness, only to pause her maternal quest for an extended romp at an isolated pleasure-house. After a brush with death, she abruptly becomes a man with no memory of female life. Kasai's imaginative reach exceeds her grasp, and she squeezes in numerous intriguing ideas that languish only partially explored. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Somewhere, somewhen, human DNA mutates radically. Some humans, called somatics, develop wings, fur, or other physical traits of animals. Others, like Soryk/Sorykah, are "traders," humans with the ability to shift back and forth, physically and emotionally, between sexes. Objects of curiosity and scorn, somatics and traders hide their mutations to blend into "normal" human society. Far in the wilderness, however, lives a researcher obsessed with finding a way to reverse the mutations, and he has the money and the power to pursue his goal ruthlessly. When he kidnaps Sorykah's twin infants, who are also traders, to use in one of his brutal vivisectionist experiments, she sets out to rescue them and to destroy him and his laboratory. The journey takes Sorykah/Soryk from barren ice fields to an underground city of somatics, and on to a pleasure palace beyond the sea. To succeed in rescuing the children, Sorykah and Soryk must learn to live as a single person rather than as two individuals inhabiting the same body. Told in a quiet, sometimes almost dreamlike style reminiscent of fairy tales (though at times disturbing ones), Ice Song will appeal to teens interested in questions of identity and difference.—Sandy Schmitz, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey (May 19, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345508815
• ISBN-13: 978-0345508812
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,259,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kirsten Imani Kasai is the author of the fantasy novel "Ice Song" and its sequel, "Tattoo." A native of Denver, Colorado, Kirsten has lived on both coasts and spent time in the Netherlands, Greece and the UK. She resides in California with her family and is writing further adventures of her gender-swapping, single mom heroine and the half-human denizens of the frozen Sigue. Visit her at Facebook.com/kirstenimanikasai or www.icesong.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I want more than one visit to this magical world., May 20, 2009

By 

Detra Fitch "Always hunting good books." (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice Song (Paperback)

Sorykah Minuit is an ice miner, an engineer and a doctor of ecology. She is also a Trader. A Trader is a shifter. She can turn into a man, Soryk. But when either shifts into the other, memories are shared.

Sorykah gave birth to twins six or seven months ago. The girl's name is Ayeda. The boy's name is Leander. The children inherited the Trader ability. In a world where somatics (human hybrids with mixed genetics and strange deformities) roam, Sorykah tries to keep their Trader abilities secret. Work takes her away from her children for a bit of time, but their nanny, Nels, cares for them in her absence. Nels is the only one who knows the children are Traders. But when Nels and the twins do not show up at the train station to meet her, Sorykah fears the worse. It soon becomes apparent that the twins and their nanny have been abducted by Matuk the Collector, an egomaniacal sadist with a large somatic zoo within his fortress. Stories abound of the horrible cruelties and experiments Matuk does to those in his collection. Sorykah/Soryk must cross icy wastes and a primeval forest filled with unimaginable dangers in hopes of locating and rescuing Nels and the twins.

*** THREE STARS! Sorykah/Soryk meets many interesting characters during the adventure, each more unique than the last, and those encounters seems to be the best parts of the story. The Trader ability is a wonderful idea and the plot is sound; however, the story does not seem to flow smoothly. Of course, that is only in my opinion. The male alter-ego does not have as much time in the spot light as I would have liked either. Though this is a stand-alone story, I sincerely hope that the author will write more adventures featuring somatics and Traders, even if not with these same characters. Kasai's fantasy world is just too rich and fascinating for only one visit. ***

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deliciously dark first novel, June 8, 2009

By 

Steven M. Klotz "mentatjack" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice Song (Paperback)

On the surface Ice Song is about a mother (Sorykah) in search of her kidnapped infant twins and that story definitely defines the arc of the novel. On a deeper level we have a harshly realistic description of fearing the other. On a third level we have a family drama-A wealthy family that manages to meddle in the affairs of almost every other character in the story. The 2nd and 3rd levels are what really stick with me after reading the book.

There's a lack of consistency with respect to point of view. In general point of view changes with a chapter or section break, but there are occasional bouts of hopping from point of view character to point of view character in rapid succession. This is a bit jarring since every character sees the world drastically different. Overall, this and occasional lapses into future tense manage to add to the lyrical prose instead of taking away from it.

For a first novel, I'm impressed with Ice Song. A rich world has been created. In the end, I was quite impressed by how it grew in my mind in the wake of Sorykah's quest. Heavy and dark, this is unquestionably a good novel, but not one that everyone will find easy to get through.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, August 5, 2010

By 

D. Martin (CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice Song (Paperback)

My wife recommended this book and I'm glad I took her up on it. This book takes you places you have never been before. Wonderful, compelling story that takes place in a richly created magical world.