Ice!

I found this book in my parents' stash of old paperbacks back in the mid-90s, when I was still in high school. I loved it. I shirked homework to read it. It was exciting in that morbid, distastrous, gruesome sort of way that teenagers inevitably find so intriguing. Fast forward to the 21st century. I admit that I haven't seen "The Day After Tomorrow" yet, but even from the trailers the similarities are frighteningly obvious. The only literary credits in the film, however, go to another, much later book. I'm disappointed. It's clear that much of the plot was derived from "Ice!" I've been avoiding seeing the film because of it. The book was so good; why ruin it with a cheesy rip-off excuse for special effects?

I also thought of this book after watching the movie. The similarities are somewhat striking. Both are based around the effects of a sudden Ice Age on New York City. Also, both focus on the rebel climatologists that first deduce what is happening. Further, they both use the father-son relationship of the rebel climatologists as the key theme of the story. Finally, they both have a separate climatologist that is based a continent away from the action who is the one that really figures out what is going on. All in all, it seems a bit coincidental not to have some connection.

I read this book back then and was really impressed with it. It was an excellent piece of speculative fiction. I'll never forget the main character, Mark, modelling the long term effects of climate change only to realize that a 'rubberband effect' was due at any time to snap the warming trend right around into the next ice age. I may be wrong, not having seen the movie yet, but the trailer for The Day After Tomorrow looks like it is straight out of this book. The cover even had a great wraparound picture that looks a lot like the movie trailers final scene of New York city trapped in ice. Of course in the book it is glaciers revved up to top speed...translated to Cinema they would have to do it differently. I think this book had a 'soon to be a major motion picture' claim, but it never made it back then. It will be interesting to see if the similarities warrant credit or result in a lawsuit.Oddly the speculative part is more possible than ever with the knowledge we have today about how the earth rapidly reverses the polarity of its magnetic field every couple hundred thousand years...I dont think this was a factor in the book, but it could be in reality.

Two young people in love, Mark and Karen, battle to survive in a world that has become hell frozen over...New York buried under the New Ice Age...The Big Freeze swirling wild, dangerous winds across the Artic oceans...acros the Humbolt Glacier...In a flash it grows, creeps outward, gathers force, becomes gigantic, imperils the world. How long can people survive? Is this the way the world ends...buried in Ice?