Across central Canada and other northern regions, many of us are currently struggling to cope with what may be the coldest summer of the rest of our lives. How people of the future will marvel to know we of the northern hemisphere once enjoyed summers as frosty and frigid as 2024’s!
Of course, pondering people in colder circumstances is nothing new to science fiction and fantasy authors. Consider these five works.
Iceworld by Hal Clement (1953)
Science teacher Sallman Ken is an unlikely choice of undercover anti-narcotics investigator. Police hope that Sallman’s generalist skills will appeal to the purveyors of a dangerous new drug, who are having trouble with their production line.
Once recruited, Sallman learns about the production problem. The new drug—tobacco—comes from an alien world so cold that gases like sulfur and liquids like copper chloride are solids, so frigid that water is a liquid rather than a gas. Exposing tobacco to room temperature—500o F—vaporizes the tobacco. How to process tobacco so that users get that delicious hit? Perhaps Sallman could solve the problem…if he were to stay with gang rather than fleeing them.
Clement seems an odd choice to have written Breaking Bad IN SPACE! Among the many differences between his novel and modern narco-dramas is that he introduces many sympathetic characters, even including the human patsies who have no idea why aliens are willing to pay so much for just plain old tobacco.
Tiltangle by R.W. Mackelworth (1970)
Only a few ships full of refugees made it to White Mountain in time. Otherwise, humanity perished as the world suddenly fell into a global ice age. Within the shelter the survivors are safe and protected from the killing cold.
The catch? Certain vital supplies were stored in a different facility, close enough to reach, far enough that not every expedition that sets out returns. The official explanation blames the haste with which the refuge was established for the supplies issue…but the truth is darker.
The John Berkey cover promises naked women in ice cubes, something that the short novel fails to deliver. What readers will find is a short novel with more parallels to Fallout than I expected. No doubt independent invention, because I’ve never met anyone else who has read this obscure work by a now unknown author.
Pomegranates by Priya Sharma (2022)
Greek myth tells how Hades kidnapped Persephone, how her mother Demeter grieved, and what ensued. How the Greeks regarded this myth is probably not the way its central figures would tell the story. Theirs is a story of abuse and survival.
Author Priya Sharma refashions the myth with a modern sequel. Her Persephone is grieving and bereaved. Now as then, divine grief has real-world consequences. Can Persephone be convinced to alter her course? Or will the world finally perish under the ice?
Greek myths are often cruel and sad; Greek gods were not always kind to each other. Sharma’s tale is even darker. Darker, but well told.
The Sword and the Satchel by Elizabeth H. Boyer (1980)
The fearsome troll Surt will freeze the world if unchecked. To do nothing is suicide. To oppose Surt is also suicide. Thus, an Alfar arrives at a prudent solution: recruit a sufficiently overbold, expendable human by giving him a magic sword and an enticing prophecy. It is hoped that the human will survive long enough to stop Surt.
Young Kilgore pulls the magic sword Kildurin from an ancient oak and sets out on his quest. Kilgore is accompanied by the ancient wizard Skanderbeg and the warrior princess Asny. The trio’s prospects seem poor. Asny may be brave and experienced, but the boy is simply headstrong. As for their wizard pal? He soon loses the satchel on which his magic depends.
Cynics might comment impolitely on the close parallels between Boyer’s plot and a certain fantasy trilogy involving finger-mounted jewelry. However, the author distances her novel from the source material in three ways: her trio is very different from the Fellowship, the setting is inspired more directly by Norse mythology, and Boyer’s humor is a more central element here than in Tolkien’s story.
Helliconia Winter by Brian W. Aldiss (1985)
Earthlike Helliconia orbits the sunlike star Batalix, which in turn orbits the bright star Freyr1. When Batalix’s eccentric orbit brings Batalix close to Freyr, Helliconia enjoys centuries of spring and summer. Summer has just passed; Batalix is retreating from Freyr. Winter, to borrow a phrase, is coming.
The Oligarch of Sibornal has the power to do whatever is necessary to preserve Sibornal as the winter approaches. Aware that winter is preceded by the plague known as Fat Death, the Oligarch acts swiftly to eliminate every person who might be a vector for Fat Death. In his haste and ignorance, the Oligarch makes a terrible mistake: the plague is often lethal, but enduring the Fat Death is also the only way that humans will survive the coming winter.
Among other things, the trilogy of which this is the third volume is an exploration of Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. The series began as something like hard SF. This volume might be better described as full-blown woo-woo bordering on something that Rupert Sheldrake might have written.
While reading novels about frigid worlds during what may prove to be one of the coldest summers of the 21st century may seem counter-intuitive, no doubt some readers will enjoy some frigid distraction as they wilt in what will no doubt be seen as comparatively frosty temps in decades to come. If the five works I discussed above are not enough of a distraction, you may want to help out fellow readers by mentioning your own ice age favorites below. Please do NOT suggest Fallen Angels, which is a terrible novel.
- SF fans will instantly realize that a star as large as Freyr would be too short-lived for complex life to evolve on a planet in its system…if the planet were the same age as Freyr. As it happens, Helliconia and Batalix are much older than Freyr and were only recently captured by the giant star. ↩︎
