Novels about icebergs

Marian Perera · Sep 20, 2013

Are there any?

My next WIP involves a passenger ship and a very large iceberg that's drifting through shipping lanes, so I was curious about what's been done before along these lines. I think Dean Koontz's Prison of Ice is about scientists trapped on ice broken away from the Antarctic continent. And, of course, there's the film Titanic. I'll probably rent that and fast-forward to the point where the berg hits. Nothing else came to mind, though.

Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions?

dpaterso · Sep 20, 2013

Clive Cussler's Iceberg (Wiki spoilers) springs to mind, from the '70s, I think he wrote this before the movie-spinning Raise The Titanic. Mystery action adventure.

-Derek

alleycat · Sep 20, 2013

I can't recall the name of it offhand, but there was a novel published a couple of years before the Titanic sank that was eerily similar to what actually happened. The ship in the novel and named something like the Titan.

Re: Iceberg by Cussler. I tried to read it a few years ago; maybe I just wasn't in the mood at the time, but I couldn't finish it. It seems like there were an awful lot of mysterious happenings at the beginning of the book that finally got tiresome.

And then there's the famous A Night to Remember about the Titanic voyage.

Marian Perera · Sep 20, 2013

dpaterso said:
Clive Cussler's Iceberg

Thanks, Derek, going to read that now. I'm planning a romantic fantasy, but I'll take any genre just to see what's been done and maybe get some ideas or cautions.

mrsmig · Sep 20, 2013

alleycat said:
I can't recall the name of it offhand, but there was a novel published a couple of years before the Titanic sank that was eerily similar to what actually happened. The ship in the novel and named something like the Titan.

Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan, a novella by Morgan Robertson. It was written in 1898, fourteen years before the Titanic went down.

thothguard51 · Sep 20, 2013

Wasn't the Titan a real ship that went down...

thothguard51 · Sep 20, 2013

The thing to remember about Ice Bergs, is that there is more underneath the surface than what someone would see above the surface. They can be dirty in color or have veins of a soft blue running through them. Also, you wont find them surviving to the mid atlantic shipping routes. So most shipping that encounters icebergs are located in the far northern or southern hemispheres.

mrsmig · Sep 20, 2013

thothguard51 said:
Wasn't the Titan a real ship that went down...

Could be - Titan wouldn't be an unusual name for a big boat - but I think seagoing superstition would keep people from naming any post-Titanic vessel anything similar.

Titan Salvage has been featured on the news recently as the company has been involved with raising and righting the Costa Concordia.

(And by the way, you can read Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan for free at www.gutenberg.org.)

alleycat · Sep 20, 2013

One thing to also keep in mind, the steel used on modern ships is considerably better than the steel that was used on the Titanic.

Off-topic . . . one of the saddest things about the Titanic was the guy who died when it was launched. There were a number of deaths during the building of the ship; that was typical and expected, but one guy got tangled in cables or something right as the ship was launched. It was probably a proud moment for him, watching the ship he had helped build go to sea . . . it was also his last moment.

Marian Perera · Sep 20, 2013

alleycat said:
One thing to also keep in mind, the steel used on modern ships is considerably better than the steel that was used on the Titanic.

Oh, this ship is wooden.

Marian Perera · Sep 20, 2013

thothguard51 said:
The thing to remember about Ice Bergs, is that there is more underneath the surface than what someone would see above the surface. They can be dirty in color or have veins of a soft blue running through them.

Ooh, I like that description. I should definitely look for more pictures of them.

The iceberg in question is huge, btw, like a tiny island. because I want a colony of people to be living on it in an ice fortress set inland. They cause it to drift into the shipping lanes.

alleycat · Sep 20, 2013

Queen of Swords said:
Oh, this ship is wooden.

Well, the wood nowadays is much worse than the wood they used to use . . .

Just kidding.

OJCade · Sep 20, 2013

Louis Nowra wrote "Ice", in which an iceberg is towed into Sydney Harbour.

thothguard51 · Sep 20, 2013

Queen of Swords said:
The iceberg in question is huge, btw, like a tiny island. because I want a colony of people to be living on it in an ice fortress set inland. They cause it to drift into the shipping lanes.

I will assume that magic is used to keep the iceberg from melting in order to have a sustainable colony located within the interior of the berg. Otherwise, even cold salt water is going to melt the berg from the edges and underneath while the sun works on everything exposed above water line.

ishtar'sgate · Sep 20, 2013

Freezing Point, Karen Dionne's debut novel.

Marian Perera · Sep 20, 2013

thothguard51 said:
I will assume that magic is used to keep the iceberg from melting in order to have a sustainable colony located within the interior of the berg.

I was going to have the story set in winter to make the berg last as long as possible, but the people also have a limited level of magic and could use this to stave off melting for as long as possible. Thanks for the tip!

Novels about icebergs

Marian Perera

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mrsmig

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thothguard51

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thothguard51

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mrsmig

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Marian Perera

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Marian Perera

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alleycat

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thothguard51

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ishtar'sgate

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Marian Perera

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