SBC's Reviews > Iceman

I didn't expect this to be very good, it looked like a budget edition SF, but it was really quite good, very unusual. I don't think I've ever read anything quite like it. I was surprised it was written in 1991; it had the feel of 70s or earlier SF, before major social changes with feminism.

It creates this far future society where some families still treat women like chattel, which was a little hard to believe in terms of the future esp since other organisations treated them normally (eg the Corps, which she joined). Everyone's racist and classist, too. Supposedly earthlings went off and started life on other planets and on ships, when Earth encountered a second ice age, but some survived and a long while later the civilised spacefarers come back and start taking over, making money out of the art and archaeological heritage under the ice while the icemen and their families starve and shiver. Some are thus patriots/terrorists. Everyone's only given so much of a chance depending who their families or sponsors are.

But I slowly got quite intrigued by the story. I expected it to be more of a romance, advertised as about their passionate relationship, but it was not really like that at all. An enjoyable read.