Really enjoyed this ice bound world fantasy by Michael Moorcock. Found it in just the right mood for a trip to another world and time that felt a bit like ours but with just enough of a distance to feel "thank God I dont live there!" It felt pulpy and girthy, with enough meat on the bones to wolf down.
"Across the frozen wastes of Earth lay the mantle of the new ice age. a mantle cut by the knife edged runners of the mighty Ice Schooners majestic relics of a dying epoc.."Is what it says on the inner dust jacket and that should be more than enough to draw in anyone in search of adventure. Think Mad Max on ice, think of a refridgerated Damnation Alley, and then think about your warmest clothing and a matching set of furry gloves and boots, then you will be just about ready.The Ice Schooner was first published by Sphere Books in 1969 but had actually been serialised much earlier, in SF Impulse magazine.And it has the energy of a serialised pulpy yarn whilst retaining a frission of modernity, like so much of Michael Moorcock's speculative adventures.You knew where they came from, you knew where they are and you know where they are going, thanks to the prose offerred. Theres a nice Doctor Who and The Ice Warriors/Moby Dick vibe to proceedings. With the great white ghost of a whale becoming the great lost city of New York. The influence of Melville scuds across the face of the narrative, much like the great ice schooners over the frozen plains of a sleeping Earth. Life above the ice is full of hard work and suffering, with a total abscence of luxury beliefs that come with pampered societies. Life is hard and fast and death comes quickly to the weak. Geographically and atmospherically the Ice Schooner draws the reader along at a cracking pace, its even grimmer up north when the whole world is north.
Konrad Arflane, what a great name, is a grizzled salty ice dog of a man in search of a ship to call his own. Circumstances lead him to just such an eventuality in the shape of the mighty vessel; The Ice Spirit. In order to gain this position he, and his crew, must complete a quest for a mythical city, which no man had seen and returned from, until now.
Take the King's shilling. All aboard, New York here we come.
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