Burning the Ice

Very high class space opera. :-) A few things stretched my boundaries of believability, like the idea that a hugely expensive interstellar ship would be put in the hands of some clearly psychopathic creche children. That part was like Anne McCaffrey's "The Ship that Sang" gone horribly wrong. But it was pretty clear from the beginning that these creche children were crazy as loons. I just couldn't see that happening. There were a few science things here and there, but it was mostly an excellent story, with an interesting alien. A few tweaky things, like a colony filled with cloned chemists who couldn't get any base stock for food production out of an oil refinery. The refinery wasn't explained either, nor the source of the oil on this nearly lifeless icebound planet. There was an odd bit about the colonists needing to hold back on terraforming, raising the planet's temperature. If the alien is 5 kilometers down, living on undersea lavaflows and vents that raise water temp to 200 degrees C, how is it going to be harmed by raising the surface temperature?

In a small colony of clones trying to eck out a living on a freezing moon in a distant star system, Mandy, a loner in a very clique-based society, pilots undersea waldoes to explore the world. The syntellect Ur-Carli leads her one day to a frozen room with the corpse of the colony's first leader, Carli, along with a telescope, console, and more, informing her that the ship carrying the crèche-born is still in orbit, not gone as everyone thought, and spying on them. Life went on otherwise... until a massive cave-in smashes important systems, disrupts the colony, and kills her sister.Strange discrepancies start to pop up, like one of Manda's waldos losing contact but still responding to signals, and when she takes proof of the crèche-born's presence to her elder siblings, they summarily erase it, explaining that their presence has been known but covered up in hopes they would leave. Next she's packing and off to check on that unresponsive waldo, and at the drill site she gets a minute of contact ? and a glimpse of native life! ? before all is black again. She and Jim, a sonar specialist she rapidly becomes close to, suspect outside interference.Now she wants to take a trip down for herself, in an old underwater vessel. From a pariah she becomes a hero, inspiring hope in the wake of tragedy. Under the ice Manda and Jim find that the crèche-born's control is much greater and more dangerous than they ever believed. Manda has to get back to warn the others, but even if that is possible, will it be in time?It does take a while to get moving; the first hundred pages are mostly angsty exposition and overexploration of the culture. In many ways it reselmbles a society based entirely on a high-school social culture, full of cliques, grudges, "coup" (owed favors, particularly political) that forms a barter system and family power, and petty jealousies. Manda is very excluded, and perhaps Mixon spends too much time showing us just how much. But the emotional troubles are real, painful to read, and after the cave-in and death she and her family seem more real. Though often at odds, they are all painted sympathetically, not an easy task. Family loyalty is a recurring theme; it may not be the strongest bond, but it is the most permanent. I didn't get quite enough sense of how old everyone was, though, not until near the end.Once the story does pick up, it takes off and never lets up. Throughout the explorations and ruminations is a strong undercurrent of confusion, distress, and haste, never settling into idleness. The feelings for Jim aren't as throughly explored, just because everyone's distracted by too much going on in the meantime. All of the people seem credible, each with their own faults and distictions and hearts. Even the schizophrentic crèche-born. Many things just plain don't make sense for a while, but all is slowly revealed, settling down to a satisfying conclusion. I highly recommend.This is a sequel to Proxies, but I'd have never known. I didn't

Burning the Ice starts slowly, but hang in there for this is one of those rare novels like Dune that is deep, true to it's heart, and worth savoring. The characters, world environment, political situation, and plot are delivered with excellent pacing, depth and richness of detail, and total integrity.Brimstone is an early find in extra-solar system space exploration settled by a group of clones fleeing from an early and controversial expedition from earth. It is a cold, harsh moon of a jovian-like planet habitable only for the desperate. Manda is a singleton clone ostracized in this society where everyone else thrives in pairs/triplets/etc. Her creative drive, ascerbic nature, and absolute unwillingness to quit drive a novel rich in detail and perfect in pace. The first contact is brilliantly conceived, the human interaction and dialogue rich and consistent, and you will find yourself wondering if this just might be a glimpse into the future.This may be the best hard SF novel of the year.

The clone colony desperately hung to life on an ice world. Denied the full technological advantages of its spaceship-borne cousins, the colony strives to teraform its planet--but one of the colonists, Manda, has discovered hints of intelligent life on the planet. Teraforming could save the colony, but at the cost of xenocide. Manda has her own problems--as a rare single clone, and barely fits the social norms of her colony. Still, she battles to make herself a place, to discover the secrets of her planet, and to protect both of her planet's life forms from the creche-born post-humans whose ship still circles their sun. Author Laura J. Mixon delivers an emotionally rich story. Manda's attempts to fit into her society, her growth as she discovers her own humanity and those of her clones and her friend Jim, and her physical struggles form a counterpoint to the fascinating story of a colony cut off from Earth's technological innovations and forced to confront the possibility of failure and the loss of all human life on the planet. Mixon's style is strong, yet approachable. BURNING THE ICE is a substantial book, but it pulls the reader in and delivers multiple payoffs. With a teriffic mix of world-building and detailed characters, BooksForABuck. com names Mixon's BURNING THE ICE as one of the best SF novels of the year.

Almost fifty light years from earth, Brimstone is an icy moon in which the inhabitants are descendants of clones of exiles who fled earth over a century ago. Struggling to survive on this hostile world, the colonists are trying to terraform this frozen orb into a more habitable locale as their equipment is beginning to fail.Since her twin died at birth, Manda is an acerbic loner in a world where everyone else has at least a twin and privacy is impossible. No one but a person like Manda would volunteer for the harsh role of observing from a sub the results of Project IceFlame, an endeavor to release heat and greenhouse gases trapped by frozen glaciers. However, Manda discovers more than she expected. Her data displays unexplained heat sources in the ocean under the ice that reflect intelligent life. For Manda the adventure has just begun, as her peers appear hostile towards her and her discovery and that the starship that dumped the original colonists on Brimstone hovers in the background.Renowned for her thought provoking science fiction novels (see PROXIES), Laura J. Mixon does it again with a complex book that hooks readers from start to finish. BURNING THE ICE is a sequel to PROXIES albeit a century later and ice bound as opposed to space bound, but it raises new issues inside a cerebral, fast-paced thriller. The key to the novel is Manda, an interesting lead protagonist who is the sun that the plot and other characters evolve around. Fans of terse outer space tales will appreciate Ms. Mixon's latest intelligent action packed triumph.Harriet Klausner