The Ice Limit

Infobox Book |
name = The Ice Limit


author = Lincoln Child
Douglas Preston
country = United States
language = English
genre = Technothriller
publisher = Grand Central Publishing
release_date = 18 July, 2000
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = 464 pp
isbn = ISBN 978-044-652-587-9
preceded_by = Thunderhead
followed_by = Beyond the Ice Limit (?)

"The Ice Limit" is a 2000 science fiction, adventure novel by authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

Plot summary

Billionaire Palmer Lloyd hires a team to acquire the largest meteorite on earth for his new museum. The ancient meteorite is buried on an inhospitable Chilean island, located south of the "Ice Limit", a section of ocean near Antarctica in which extremely rough seas, huge icebergs and much danger is the norm.

Eli Glinn, the president of Effective Engineering Solutions, Inc. (Glinn has appeared in other Douglas Preston/ Lincoln Child novels) puts together a team to accomplish this recovery. His team includes: a mathematician, Rachel Amira; an engineer, Manuel Garza; as well as a meteorite hunter, Sam McFarlane and a supertanker captain, Sally Britton.

The team travels to Isla Desolacion, near Cape Horn. The meteorite is found but weighs approximately 25,000 tons. It is made of material not known to exist in the solar system. In periodic table the material probably locates in so-called island of stability. This fact proves Sam McFarlane's theory of an interstellar meteorite.

As soon as they arrive at the island, they make an enemy of a disgraced Chilean navy officer. Eventually, the meteorite is excavated, and is moved onto the supertanker Rolvaag. The Chilean navy officer finds out their plot and tries to stop them, forcing them to go below the Ice Limit.

Potential sequel

The novel "Still Life with Crows" makes reference to a fictional Preston & Child book called "Beyond the Ice Limit", apparently a sequel to "The Ice Limit". The novel "Dance of Death" makes a reference to a second fictional sequel, "Ice Limit III: Return To Cape Horn."

Webilogue

Some time after "The Ice Limit" was published, the authors posted a semi-epilogue on their discussion forum as a nod to the readers: written as a short collection of fictional newspaper articles, it described the survivors of "The Ice Limit" setting off onto a new expedition into the Antarctic regions, in order to face the consequences of their actions in the original novel.