Terminal Freeze

Terminal Freeze
by Lincoln Child

Terminal Freeze
List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $1.00
You Save: $23.95 (96%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Lincoln Child
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-24
ISBN: 0385515510
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Doubleday

Book Reviews of Terminal Freeze

Book Review: Does not fail to entertain
Summary: 4 Stars

Terminal freeze, or flash freezing, is a phenomenon whereby, in the case presented in this novel, a biological sample subjected to temperatures well below water's melting/freezing point will freeze so fast that large ice crystals cannot form and damage the sample. TERMINAL FREEZE is the title of bestselling author Lincoln Child's latest thriller, and it reads like a cross between one of his earliest works, THE RELIC (co-authored with Douglas Preston), and John W. Campbell's classic WHO GOES THERE? (the basis for the film The Thing).

The novel opens with a prologue featuring a group of Tunits, a small Native American tribe and branch of the ancient Inuits. The shaman and tribal leader Usuguk notices a strange color pattern in the sky that is different from the typical Northern Lights. It is distinctly red, and Usuguk recognizes it as a sign that the natural order was out of balance and one of their gods --- Kuuk'juag the Hunter --- has been angered. Usuguk has seen this happen before and realizes it can only mean that disaster will befall those who have broken the ancient rules.

North of the Arctic Circle in Alaska, paleoecologist Evan Marshall is leading an expedition of fellow scientists who are studying the effects of global warming on sub-arctic environments, particularly glaciers. Their home base during this time is Fear Base, originally an early warning station designed to guard against a preemptive Russian nuclear attack that was decommissioned in the late 1950s. While conducting research on a glacier near Fear Base, Marshall and his team come upon a staggering discovery --- two eyeballs peeking out at them from the icy encasement of one of the glacier's volcanic caves. Could this specimen be a frozen beast that perished thousands of years earlier?

Fear Base is manned year-round by a skeleton crew of U.S. military personnel. Once word of Marshall's find is received by the medial conglomerate that is funding and sponsoring the research expedition, things take a surprising turn. Fear Base is almost immediately infiltrated by a large group made of both corporate executives and a full documentary film crew. Their intervention, much to the surprise of Marshall and his team, involves a plan to bring the ice-encased animal specimen to the Base and thaw it out on live television. Marshall and company are obviously concerned about this from a scientific standpoint but are bullied into submission by their corporate sponsors.

Leading the film team is award-winning documentary filmmaker Emilio Conti (a character who reminded me of real-life documentarian Werner Herzog in his recent film, Encounters at the End of the World). Conti and his team will stop at nothing to document this historic scientific event and interject themselves rudely into the process by claiming rights to all the scientific research Marshall's crew has uncovered. Since this is a Lincoln Child thriller, the reader just knows something will go tragically wrong.

Prior to the film team arriving, the residents of Fear Base were visited by a small group of Tunits led by Usuguk. They warn that the ancient gods have been angered and that the wrath of the beast known as Kurrshuq, the Devourer of Souls, will be put upon them unless they leave immediately. The old shaman further warns them with the incantation, "Their wrath paints the sky with blood. The heaven cries out with the pain." The team and military personnel do not know what to make of this, and they watch the Tunit group leave in haste. Could Usuguk's warning have been an explanation for the strange, red spectral patterns that have been filling the Northern sky at night?

No one is able to make any connection to the Tunit warning and the discovery except for one individual, Jeremy Logan, who arrived with the semi-truck that brought the film crew's equipment and trailer. Logan is much more than an "ice trucker," revealing himself to be a professor of medieval history at Yale. Dr. Logan has done some research on Fear Base and tells Marshall's team about a report filed away by a former base commander about a scientific team that died abruptly over a two-day period in April 1958. Only one person from that ill-fated group was said to have made it out alive, and Logan has plans to find the truth behind that expedition.

As expected, the live telecast of the specimen's thawing never happens because it has suddenly disappeared. Conti and his corporate sponsors immediately feel that this was an act of sabotage and turn their suspicion to the scientific team. Their suspicions are soon thwarted as members of the Fear Base group begin to disappear themselves --- only to have their bloody remains found by others. Their worst fears have not been realized, as the specimen is somehow alive and hunting them. The beast is of unknown origin and a two-ton killing machine with horrific features and razor-sharp mandibles. Marshall heads out to the Tunit camp to find Usuguk and bring him back to Fear Base in an attempt to help them understand and stop this ancient beast from killing everyone.

It is at this point that the novel becomes a non-stop thrill ride as the group's number is reduced one by one by this seemingly unstoppable beast. Lincoln Child, on his own and as co-author with Douglas Preston, has consistently turned out engaging thrillers that are well-researched and grounded in some scientific or historical premise. I found TERMINAL FREEZE to be a little less intensive than some of his previous work and, despite the title, felt it was a quick read better suited as a "beach book." In any event, the novel does not fail to entertain and hopefully will be given the Hollywood film treatment like his first bestseller, THE RELIC.

--- Reviewed by Ray Palen

Summary of Terminal Freeze

A breathtaking discovery at the top of the world . . .
A terrifying collision between modern science and Native American legend . . .
An electrifying new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lincoln Child.


Two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle lies Alaska?s Federal Wildlife Zone, one of the most remote and inhospitable places on Earth. But for paleoecologist Evan Marshall and a small group of fellow scientists, an expedition to the Zone represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study the effects of global warming.

Everything about the expedition changes, however, with an astonishing find. On a routine exploration of a glacial ice cave, the group discovers an enormous ancient animal, encased in solid ice. The media conglomerate sponsoring their research immediately intervenes and arranges the ultimate spectacle?the creature will be cut from the ice, thawed, and revealed live on television. Despite dire warnings from the local Native American village, and the scientific concerns of Marshall and his team, the ?docudrama? plows ahead . . . until the scientists make one more horrifying discovery. The beast is no regular specimen?it may be an ancient killing machine. And they may be premature in believing it dead.

In this riveting new thriller, Lincoln Child weaves together a stunning Arctic landscape, a terrifying mythic creature, and a pervasive mood of chaos?and fear. With Terminal Freeze, Child demonstrates why he has become a major bestselling author, and why his novels electrify and enthrall so many.
Book Description
A breathtaking discovery at the top of the world...
A terrifying collision between modern science and Native American legend...
An electrifying new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lincoln Child.

Two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle lies Alaska?s Federal Wildlife Zone, one of the most remote and inhospitable places on Earth. But for paleoecologist Evan Marshall and a small group of fellow scientists, an expedition to the Zone represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study the effects of global warming.

Everything about the expedition changes, however, with an astonishing find. On a routine exploration of a glacial ice cave, the group discovers an enormous ancient animal, encased in solid ice. The media conglomerate sponsoring their research immediately intervenes and arranges the ultimate spectacle--the creature will be cut from the ice, thawed, and revealed live on television. Despite dire warnings from the local Native American village, and the scientific concerns of Marshall and his team, the ?docudrama? plows ahead... until the scientists make one more horrifying discovery. The beast is no regular specimen--it may be an ancient killing machine. And they may be premature in believing it dead.

In this riveting new thriller, Lincoln Child weaves together a stunning Arctic landscape, a terrifying mythic creature, and a pervasive mood of chaos--and fear. With Terminal Freeze, Child demonstrates why he has become a major bestselling author, and why his novels electrify and enthrall so many.

Amazon Exclusive: An Essay by Lincoln Child

When people ask why I write thrillers, I frequently give this answer: when I was in nursery school, my parents once gave me an empty notebook. As you might expect, I filled the first few pages with childish scrawls. But then I turned to the last page and drew something so frightening, I could never ever bring myself to look at it again.

That?s basically what I?ve been trying to do ever since: write a story so scary, even I wouldn?t dare read it.

Whether I?ve accomplished that in Terminal Freeze is your call to make. But while putting the novel together, I was careful to choose elements that increased my personal uneasiness factor. A forbidding and dangerous landscape, far from the safety and comfort of civilization. A deserted army base, unused for half a century, full of dead-ends and dark forgotten corners. And that most atavistic of terrors: a vicious enemy, as deadly as it is mysterious, that stalks and kills with impunity--and an apparently limitless appetite for death.

So I hope you?ll consider Terminal Freeze my contribution to that time-honored literary genre, the Campfire Tale From Hell. We?ve all heard them: the Thing hiding in the bedroom closet; the hook-wielding lover?s lane murderer. They tend to stay with you into the cold light of day, and they can be damnably hard to forget. If I?ve managed to even approach the level of fear that kind of story evokes, then I?ve done my job as a storyteller.

That childhood notebook of mine is now long gone. And yet I often think of it still, and wonder if--even today--I might have a little difficulty turning over that final page.

(Photo © Kramer Images)

United States Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in United States Books
Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor ImageMirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor
by Michael J. Rosen
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2000-02-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $15.95
The Gifts of the Body ImageThe Gifts of the Body
by Rebecca Brown
Harper Perennial; Published: 1995-08-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.92
Price in other shops: $12.00
Love and Lies ImageLove and Lies
by Kimberla Lawson Roby
William Morrow; Published: 2007-01-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.96
Price in other shops: $23.95
Blues Dancing: A Novel ImageBlues Dancing: A Novel
by Diane Mckinney-Whetstone
HarperTorch; Published: 2005-03-29; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Red, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong ImageRed, White & Liberal: How Left Is Right & Right Is Wrong
by Alan Colmes
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2004-10-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $14.95
Hunger Point: A Novel ImageHunger Point: A Novel
by Jillian Medoff
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops: $24.00
The Price of Blood ImageThe Price of Blood
by Chuck Logan
Harpercollins; Published: 1997-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.99
Blue Hour: Poems ImageBlue Hour: Poems
by Carolyn Forche
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops: $13.99
Blue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir ImageBlue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir
by Laurie Albanese
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-03-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops: $12.99
The Kindness of Strangers: A Novel ImageThe Kindness of Strangers: A Novel
by Katrina Kittle
William Morrow; Published: 2006-01-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.49
Price in other shops: $24.95
Similar Books and other products
Thunderhead ImageThunderhead
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 1999-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.38
Price in other shops: $42.00
The Codex ImageThe Codex
by Douglas Preston
Forge Books; Published: 2003-12-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.42
Price in other shops: $24.95
Riptide ImageRiptide
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 1998-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.17
Price in other shops: $32.00
Blasphemy ImageBlasphemy
by Douglas Preston
Forge Books; Published: 2008-01-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.67
Price in other shops: $25.95
Impact ImageImpact
by Douglas Preston
Forge Books; Published: 2010-01-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $1.85
Price in other shops: $25.99
Gideon's Sword ImageGideon's Sword
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2011-02-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.29
Price in other shops: $26.99
Utopia: A Thriller ImageUtopia: A Thriller
by Lincoln Child
Doubleday; Published: 2002-12-24; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.99
Price in other shops: $24.95
Fever Dream ImageFever Dream
by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 2010-05-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops: $26.99
Death Match: A Novel (Child, Lincoln) ImageDeath Match: A Novel (Child, Lincoln)
by Lincoln Child
Doubleday; Published: 2004-05-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.65
Price in other shops: $24.95
Deep Storm: A Novel ImageDeep Storm: A Novel
by Lincoln Child
Doubleday; Published: 2007-01-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $0.75
Price in other shops: $24.95