#ice station

[scarecrow-and-huntsman]

[jodjuya]

Imma do @batmanisagatewaydrug's 2025 Book Bingo! 😁🥳

I think most of the things I read will hit multiple categories, so rather than struggling to decide which single box to fit any one particular book into, I'll just mark off every category it hits and then at the end of the year (or when I fully complete the board) I'll go through and do a retrospective to assign one individual book to each individual box.

Anyhow, first cab off the rank is Matthew Reilly's "Ice Station"!

Now Antarctica isn't really a country but it sure as heck is a place I've never been to.

Reilly is an Action author, that's his genre: Action-with-a-capital-'A'.

Ice Station is his second book, originally published in 1998, and his first book starring the Force Recon Marine, Lieutenant (later Captain) Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield.

The premise is "there are ice-core researchers in Antarctica. Their very very deep drilling into 100-million-year-old ice unexpectedly hit metal! Is it a spaceship buried in the ice??!! Oh no, most of the researchers died when they went down to investigate the spaceship??!! Quick, send in some American Gun Guys to figure out what's going on (and make sure nobody else from some different country tries to steal the spaceship)!!!!"

Hijinks. Ensue.

This book is some premium, high-grade, pulp fiction. If you like guns and explosions and over-the-top action, then Matthew Reilly is your man.

Ice Station is even relatively restrained compared to his later books, lmao.

For instance, right after I read this, I read the novella "Hell Island", which he wrote in 2005 for the 'Books Alive' promotion. (I got my physical copy of it for free with a Sunday newspaper back then lol)

That's the fourth book in the Scarecrow series and it reads like ludicrously over the top fan-fiction of his own guys. Especially so in that book, Reilly really comes across as just a little boy smashing his action figures against each other while spraying them down with spittle from never stopping making machine-gun sounds with his mouth. It is some GOOFY shit and you love to see it.

In the 2000s Ice Station had the reputation (and probably still does tbh) of being THE book that you give to teenage boys who don't like reading books.

And yeah, that is absolutely what it is. If there are teenage boys in your life, give 'em this book. It's good.

[lzzdolly]

I get good grades, I go to church, I'm a cheerleader!

[illneverbeapassenger]

Pressure ridges, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

October 2024.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

space sweepers but they're delivery people and are at no point on screen through the entire movie

[gleamer]

jane is on makeover #3 and im not mad abt it

[inonibird]

Why, I got lost at C̶̥̆ö̵̯́ṅ̸̬v̸̯̌e̴̲͘r̵͙̐g̶̑͜e̵̘͊n̵͐͜c̸̨̀è̶̡ ̷̟͊S̴͎̓t̵͎͂a̴̠͊t̵̟͝i̷͙̐o̴̖̓n̷͕̂, how are you?

[stimeria]

🍪 papa's scooperia stimboard ... ♡

credits: x x x | x o x | x x x

pro.ship please do not interact!

[erotic-meloncholy]

As @lertheblur wisely pointed out, the neighbor clocked House and Wilson in like 30 seconds. I'm SURE the rumors at their workplace were out of control.

[theofficialastronomy101]

Water on Mercury? 💦This view provides a look at Mercury's north pole. The yellow regions in many of the craters mark locations that show evidence for water ice, as detected by Earth-based radar observations from Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

[sergle]

anime and fantasy are beautiful bc you can make blonde men attractive

[perenial]

What are good books about explorers, if I may ask? I'd love to get into some harrowing survival (or just trying to survive) stories.

HI ok these are all heroic age antarctica-centric bc that's all i've had rattling around in my brain for a solid year and a half now so if anyone has non-polar recs pls feel free to throw em in the replies lmao

if we're talking harrowing survival there's nothing more fucked than shackleton's trans-imperial expedition aka endurance and the ross sea party. the classic here is endurance by alfred lansing (and ofc south by ol ernie shackles but i feel like his own account is less approachable to a first time reader) but i also highly recommend the lost men by kelly tyler-lewis for the ross sea party half of the story that often falls to the wayside.

and we can't talk abt shackleton without getting into scott & the terra nova & the race for the pole which WILL take over ur life if u get into it lol. the worst journey in the world by apsley cherry-garrard is required reading (and so is cherry by sara wheeler, possibly my fave biography of all time), and for a more general overview a first-rate tragedy by diana preston is the absolute gold standard. for amundsen ask @roaldamundsen there's the last viking by stephen r. brown which i haven't read yet but i've heard v good things about (nb: u may be recommended roland huntford's books when it comes to amundsen. read them if u want but he's got a Thing against scott which in turn distorts how he approaches amundsen but then again every polar biographer wants to make tender romantic love to their special little guy so)

OH and we can't forget the northern party aka six guys in a hole (NOT sexy) (well–). there are banger first-hand accounts (especially raymond priestley's) but weirdly enough my fave when it comes to this part of the terra nova story is a polar affair by lloyd spencer-davis, which is technically abt the sex lives of adélie penguins. it was the first book i read connected to terra nova and although it leans more popular history than rigorous biography or historical analysis it rly primes u to understand the fricative relationship between the expedition's two intertwined objectives – scientific advancement and imperialist glory – that were the root of most of their issues.

outside of endurance & terra nova i'd be remiss not to rec The gateway book to antarctic history, the madhouse at the end of the earth by julian sancton. i should have put this first bc this is genuinely one of my fave books of all time, polar-related or otherwise. it's a comedy it's a tragedy it's an adventure it's an insight into colonial ambition (although imo this aspect could have been pushed further) it's a romance for two specific guys it could easily be a musical it might be adapted into a tv show or movie in the near future?? it's an absolute trip i rec it to anyone who stands still enough to let me shove a copy in their hands. read madhouse NOW

finally i want to give a shout out to the australasian antarctic expedition which in comparison is less insane than everything else here but it's entirely possible the guy who was once on the australian $100 note ate his dog handler. so like. read alone on the ice by david roberts

(ps. for more boat books see @jesslovesboats's banger posts ✌️⛵️)

[lzzdolly]

This is me if you don't care ୨ৎ

[pinkblanc]

Charles Rabot, Whaling station, Murmansk, 1881

[not-equippedforthis]

why am i crying over space children. jake going against his father's orders just to teach nog how to read im bawling my eyes out. sisko being so proud of him at the end. oh my god.

[bambi-eyes444]

fuck the clean girl aesthetic.

I’m going for the 21 year old single mother of 2 in the 90s, that lives in a small flat complex, wears blue eyeshadow, smudged black eyeliner, and red nail polish, smokes Marlboro cigarettes, wears hair rollers all day, big hoop earrings, tramp stamp tattoo, low rise jeans, loves anything with leopard print, listens to Britney Spears and Madonna, and pours a shot of Vodka in her morning coffee