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ICE TOMB is the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie - nonstop action set in exotic locales ranging from Antarctica to the moon. If you want adventure, drama, personal conflict, and sex, it's all here. Unfortunately, also just like a summer blockbuster, it's nonstop cliches depending on a complete lack of logic. Volcanologist Erica Daniels is lured to a NASA conference which she thinks will make her part of the first moon colony. When she gets there, she discovers that the job went to her ex-lover, whose qualifications consist of having stolen her doctoral thesis years ago. As a consolation prize, Erica is sent off to investigate a hot spot in Antarctica, although no one will explain to her why the rest of the team consists of an archeologist who opened the chamber under the Sphinx and a heavily-armed troop of Navy SEALS. The secret they're hiding is that previous exploratory teams have disappeared, their last messages ending in screams. Allan, the archeologist, thinks the hot spot was part of Atlantis. Erica isn't so sure, but before she can investigate what it is, she is distracted by calls for help from the moon mission. Calls that she can't answer because she has to stop the SEALS from starting World War III right here on earth. Although the book is set in 2015 it has an oddly retroactive feel, as if it had been written at some point in the late 60s and only given a perfunctory update. In the days of the manual typewriter it may have been possible to steal a thesis by taking the pages, but in the era of the computer there is no such concept as the only copy. Why Erica didn't just print another one, using her notes and her advisor to prove ownership is never addressed. Also, while sexism certainly exists, it takes a pre-feminist movement mindset for a someone to call a government conference specifically for the purpose of personally and professionally humiliating a woman. And what purpose does it serve to send a troop of SEALS into a Russian scientific camp, guns blazing, when spy satellites would gather all the information necessary? The theory is offered that elements in the Pentagon can't get past the Cold War. At the time this book was set, anyone under age 45 was a teenager when the Evil Empire fell and anyone 30 or under probably can't even remember it. The book ends with an author's note in which Ms. Jackson admits that she took "poetic license . . . in order to keep the fast-paced clip of the story." She is referring to the climax, but it is a statement that applies to every plot point in the book. Especially the other climax - a sex scene set in an Antarctic toilet minutes after a man got shot through the chest. So yes, ICE TOMB is a fast-paced story. It's just a totally illogical one and ends with so many echoes of Star Trek episodes that even the characters start making "Beam me up, Scotty" jokes.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, February 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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