Ice Tomb [Paperback]

Deborah Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

The year is 2015. Deep within the Antarctic Ice Sheet a hotspot suddenly appears on satellite tracking. The US science team that is sent from McMurdo Station to investigate finds an icy graveyard. Minutes later, their transmission is cut off. The last sounds heard over the radio are their screams.

NASA lures volcanologist Erica Daniels to a conference in Houston by promising to consider her for their upcoming mission--establishing the first moon base. Instead, her archrival and ex-lover, David Marsh, gets the plum assignment, while she’s sent to Antarctica to lead a new team beneath the ice. Even worse, she’s sent in blind. They told her about the thermal signature, but not about the bodies. Where did they come from? They don’t belong to the missing investigative team, so what had become of her fellow scientists? Is the activity under the ice the remnants of an ancient civilization or is there a more sinister explanation? The answer could mean the very survival of the human race. To find out, Erica will have to join forces with the man she despises--a man who’s on the moon.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...it has all the earmarks of a tale written by a sci-fi master." -- Mike Gillespie, The Ottawa Citizen

"Ice Tomb opens like a whirlwind and then picks up speed." -- Michael Crawley, Novelist and Scriptwriter

'Ice Tomb' blends it all, including the fine details of establishing the first moon base. -- Michael Marta, Executive Director of Corporate Development Canada Science and Technology Museum Corporation

'Ice Tomb' opens like a whirlwind and then picks up speed. -- Michael Crawley, Novelist and Scriptwriter

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Invisible College Press, LLC (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931468192
• ISBN-13: 978-1931468190
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,801,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended Read, May 4, 2005

By 

N. Lessard "Canadian Reader" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice Tomb (Paperback)

You've all heard the old adage "don't judge a book by its cover;" but somehow, when a hard SF book that purports to be well researched, is set in Antarctica, but has a polar bear on the cover, one really begins to wonder.

Fortunately, the science inside the book, while at times highly speculative, seems pretty accurate. As a scientist myself I must admit that the author has captured the scientist mindset, and while a number of themes such as Atlantean super-technology, moon colonization and unscrupulous media-seeking scientists aren't anything new, they are employed in a well-coordinated, entertaining and -- for all the SF and fantasy that has been set in Antarctica -- fairly original manner.

In Ice Tomb a new hotspot develops in the Antarctic Ice Sheet, which isn't entirely odd since Antarctica is seismically and volcanically active, but when those who investigate the site disappear, it's time to send in someone who knows what they might be up against. Erica Daniels, a vulcanologist, is summoned by NASA, thinking she has been chosen as head geologist for an expedition seeking to prepare the colonisation of the moon. So when the ex-lover who betrayed her gets the job, she's assigned to the Antarctica hot spot project, and she's saddled with a media-hungry archæologist with a bent for finding Atlantis along with a bunch of gung-ho armed-to-the-teeth marines, she's not a happy camper. What she will find in the barrens of Antarctica will bring her and her ex back together, demonstrate there's something to that old Atlantean super-technology, and, oh yes, determine the fate of the human race in the face a massive impending meteor impact.

Stories of lost races (or their artefacts) in Antarctica go way back, Robert Paltock's The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751) being perhaps the earliest. Oddly enough, be it the author's avowed reading of much SF and fantasy informing her writing, or merely coincidence, one can find a number of parallels with the incidents in Ice Tomb and a number of older tales. For example, in Gustavus Pope's Journey to Mars (1894), Martians have a landing field in Antarctica, and are at risk when a meteor shower threatens to strip a moon away from their planet. Along those lines is José Moselli's "Le Messager de la Planète" (in L'Almanach Scientifique, 1925), where a pair of Norwegian explorers, one a geologist, discover an alien spacecraft which is melting the ice around it; before their sled dog kills the alien aboard, they are shown instant video linkup to his home planet, and a number of other nifty technologies. And of course, for people disappearing mysteriously in Antarctica, and the paranoia surrounding it, one cannot forget John W. Campbell, Jr's novella "Who Goes There?" (1938) [the basis of the films The Thing From Another World (1951) and more recently The Thing (1982)].

That said, Deborah Jackson does create believable characters, and manages to present the more esoteric technologies without great gobs of exposition. Jackson's handling of the consequences of all that happens is perhaps a bit terse considering the enormity of the events, and certainly one might expect those who live through it to be somewhat more traumatized, but perhaps -- I speculate -- this is all sequel-fodder. As for Ice Tomb I'm not saying the whole thing is entirely believable, even the parts which don't involve super-technologies, but a rapid pace and multi-dimensional characters who actually evolve make Ice Tomb eminently readable and any minor flaws easily ignored.

Georges T Dodds
SF Site
www.sfsite.com

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In quest of "hot spots", January 25, 2005

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ice Tomb (Paperback)

In 1929, a map of the New World dated 1513 CE was discovered. Highly detailed, the cartographer declared in his notes that he had drawn on many sources, some quite ancient, to produce the chart. The cartographer was a Turkish Admiral and the chart became known as the Piri Reis Map. Among its mysteries, it depicted a detailed shoreline of Antarctica.

The Piri Reis Map becomes a key element in Deborah Jackson's adventurous tale of scientists confronting bizarre mysteries in harsh conditions. Erica Daniels is a mountain climber. She's a vulcanologist and the mountains she climbs are capable of ejecting her from their slopes - along with tons of rock, ash and lava. Erica has had more than mountains to conquer. The machinations of ambitious men have been as severe a hazard as any pyroclastic flow. In university, her career well planned and ready to be undertaken, her lover decamps with her thesis to initiate his own success.

As a result, David Marsh becomes a noted geologist. He's crafty and ambitious, rising to be chosen to investigate craters on the moon for water and minerals. Chance observations of our neighbour in space have indicated the possibility that Luna may not be as dead as is thought. If the moon has geological activity, it will have serious implications for any colony. NASA has already taken the first step with a HAB base constructed only nine years from now. In Jackson's story, the year 2015 will be portentious. Relations with China will have improved to the point where an astronaut from there will be joining Marsh on his expedition. There are interesting lunar features to explore and Marsh is the best researcher available. Or is he?

Although Daniels and Marsh carry abrasive memories of their past relationship, Jackson's story keeps them interacting at several levels. Erica has been called away from an Alaskan climb that threatened to extinguish her abilities - along with herself - to journey to the other Pole. From a "hotspot" atop an Alaskan mountain, she's been asked to cross the globe to Antarctica. Another "hotspot" - one that shouldn't exist - has been reported on the southernmost continent. Worse, it seems to have been gobbling up people. On her way, Erica encounters archaeologist Allan Rocheford. Inexplicably, this desert digger is also interested in the Antarctic hotspot. He has an idea of why it's there and what it implies. He's found something in a dig in Egypt that relates to the evidence given by the Piri Reis map - Antarctica hasn't always enjoyed the conditions there now. Is the "hotspot" under the ice an alien artefact? Or something even more profound?

Marsh arrives on the moon and begins exploring one of the mysterious "rilles" - deep ravines that stretch over the moonscape. He encounters wholly unexpected conditions. "Lava tubes" are a phenomenon of some Earth volcanoes. They are the result of quick surface cooling of molten magma leaving the interior still fluid and flowing. The result is a long cylinder of stone, easily adaptable to conversion into a habitat. On the moon the much-reduced force of gravity could leave such structures much larger than found here. What might such a stone configuration contain? With his Russian companion, Vochenkov, Marsh seeks understanding of this most bizarre of lunar secrets. Is the moon still an active world? What will that mean for the extension of the habitat? Marsh's explorations indicate he needs more expertise to resolve the riddles. Who better to supply that extra knowledge than Erica Daniels? The link between the mysterious structures on the moon and the enigma under Antarctic ice reveals the deepest mystery of all.

Jackson's book is a good reason why speculative fiction should shed its stigma of "fantasy based on research". Set in the immediate future, and based on a wealth of research, there is little here that couldn't be achieved in this story. Nor are the speculations wholly invalid. The Piri Reis Map was assessed by cartographers who deemed most of its displayed landforms as conforming to modern configurations. Jackson builds her story with care, staffing it with people we might encounter in any academic or government research facility. There are petty jealousies, intense emotion both attractive and repellent. The scientist's dedication to revealing the underlying elements of what appears to be fantastic is admirably displayed. Erica Daniels may appear a bit explosive, but what other characteristics is one to expect from a vulcanologist? David Marsh plunders a thesis, but competition among scientists has bred unsavoury conduct before. In short, this is an adventuresome tale in a realistic setting. It's something to take up when you seek excitement. You won't be disappointed. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Powerful/Fast-Paced!, May 22, 2005

By 

Noreen Violetta (Burnstown, Ontario) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice Tomb (Paperback)

ICE TOMB
By Deborah Jackson (The Invisible College Press ISBN 1-931468-19-2; $24.95)

A gripping page-turner for sci-fi buffs. But others just may be converted after reading this debut novel from Ottawa's Deborah Jackson.

From the bone-chilling ice caps of Antarctica to the strange ecosystem on the moon, Jackson takes the reader on a whirlwind ride that includes ancient earth mysteries and futuristic technology tossed in with a sensual interlude and a jaded romance. Jackson's characters move through this novel like a thunder storm on a hot afternoon-fast, powerful and captivating.

"...It wasn't until strange things started happening down here that NASA and the Pentagon became interested in those coordinates."

"Strange as in thermal activity or strange as in people disappearing?"

Erica Daniels heads up a scientific investigation, which leads to some unexpected findings and a surprise finale.

Jackson has researched well for this one; too bad the publishers didn't do the same, placing a polar bear in a purposed Antarctic landscape on the cover! Ah-well! Go with the old adage; "Don't judge a book by its cover." This one's worth opening up!