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This review does not represent the opinions of the general public. It reflects my personal thoughts and opinions on the book.
That said, on to the review!
Title: The Ice Limit
Author: Douglas Preston and Licoln Child
Publisher: Warner Books
Format: Paperback
Copyright Date: 2000
For the purpose of possessing the best of everything, business mogul Palmer Lloyd made millions. For the purpose of possessing the largest meterorite on earth, he's willing to spend it all. To find it, he enlists the help of meteorite hunter Sam McFarlane to both analyze and excavate it. It was Sam's former partner who originally found the meteorite on an island south of Chile, and it's something of an irony that Sam's the one who must take up where his partner left of. Because the man died suddenly and mysteriously, leaving behind nothing but a badly burned corpse. Now Sam must seek out the secrets to a meteorite that weighs in excessive of several thousand tons, all without touching it for fear that he might end up like his predecessor. And to complicate matters, there's a disillusioned and vengeful Chilean naval officer determined to stop the expedition, and a vast stretch of the roughest waters in the world between their enemy and safety. Will they recover the meteorite, and if they do, will the survive to see it safely home?
The Ice Limit, like the other books this team of authors has produced, is both frighteningly plausible and fantastically improbable. The wealth of factual and realistic details neatly balances out the greater improbability of such a story as this actually taking place in real life.
One allusion in the book, to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, caught me off guard. I read the book in college, and vaguely remembered the ending, which seemed very fantastic at the time, although in keeping with what I knew about Poe's works. Because of this, I wondered whether the book was going to head off into the realms of superstition and fantasy. Then, remembering these authors' penchant for rooting things firmly in fact and science, decided that it wouldn't after all. On the other hand, reading about the Screaming Sixties and its 200-foot waves and the Ice Limit and its ice islands did the same thing, even though I knew it was all factual. Go figure.
After you read The Ice Limit, be sure to check out the website mentioned in the back of the book. It may not seem important to you initially, but I think you'll find that it has great impact on your final analysis of the story, especially if you go to the website immediately after you've finished the book. So what are you waiting for? Get reading! (Note: if the website is unavailable, e-mail me below and I'll forward the site's contents to you.)
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