''Icerigger'' is a 1974
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by American writer
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts.
Career ''Star Wars''
Foster was the ghos ...
. Like many of Foster's science-fiction novels, ''Icerigger'' takes place within his
Humanx Commonwealth The Humanx Commonwealth is a fictional interstellar ethical/political entity featured in the science fiction novels of Alan Dean Foster.fictional universe
A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes may ...
. The book's two sequels are ''
Mission to Moulokin'' and ''
The Deluge Drivers.''
Plot
Following a criminal kidnapping gone wrong, Ethan Frome Fortune, a simple salesman and sophisticated interstellar traveler, finds himself stranded on the alien, deadly frozen world of Tran-Ky-Ky. With him are professional adventurer/soldier of fortune Skua September, the interstellar tycoon and his daughter who were the targets of the kidnapping, a vacationing schoolteacher, and the sole surviving kidnapper.
They survive the frigid conditions and indigenous flora and fauna in their wrecked lifeboat long enough to be rescued by representatives of the local feudal government – who are facing a crisis of their own. Their arrival, and the fantastic wealth represented by the worked metal of their lifeboat, has coincided with an upcoming visit of The Horde. This nomadic swarm descends on various city-states every one-to-two years, exacting tribute as the price for ''not'' destroying their community... while rampaging through it. This time, the locals have decided to put up a fight.
Fortune and his companions soon realize that their only hope of reaching the planet's sole interstellar outpost - a year's perilous journey away by local wind-driven ice-rafts - lies in actively supporting their hosts in their fight for survival.
References
External links
*
Alan Dean Foster homepage
1974 American novels
American science fiction novels
Humanx Commonwealth
Novels by Alan Dean Foster
1974 science fiction novels
Ballantine Books books
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