Beyond The Ice Limit is a techno-thriller novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book is a sequel to their 2000 book The Ice Limit and was published on May 17, 2016 by Grand Central Publishing. It is the fourth book in Preston and Child's Gideon Crew series.
Five years before the events of the book, master engineer Eli Glinn led a team to retrieve a massive meteorite from Chile. The combination of a storm, an attack by a rogue Chilean naval captain, and the meteorite's strange behavior itself led to their ship's destruction in Antarctic waters, sending the meteorite to the ocean floor. Its strange behavior led some of the team to conclude it was a spore for an alien lifeform (the panspermia theory).
Having barely survived and miraculously recovered, Glinn recruits a team including master thief and nuclear physicist Gideon Crew to seek and destroy this lifeform. Traveling to the site of the previous sinking, the team discovers that the "spore" has sprouted into a massive structure that they nickname the Baobab, simultaneously reaching toward the ocean surface and burrowing through the earth. Glinn concludes that because of the spore's extreme density, the only way it could be launched into space is through the destruction of a planet; the Baobab appears to be literally tearing the planet apart.
Crew begins a love affair with a scientist named Alex Lispenard, but it is tragically cut short when the Baobab absorbs her mini-submersible; Crew hears her mysteriously speak through the Baobab shortly after her death. Inspecting the wreckage later, the team's doctor discovers that it has taken only her brain. The team also detects what seems to be whale song from the creature, which they roughly translate as saying "Kill Me." Having previously detected a brain-like structure in Baobab, the team concludes that the structure somehow keeps alive and uses the brains of alien forms to guide its growth, which are then launched into space as new "spores" to infect new planets.
With another mini-submersible, Crew brings a sample of the Baobab on board for analysis, but this plan goes awry when pieces of the material break off and burrow into the brains of team members, making them serve the Baobab's purposes. Glinn and Crew, now joined by meteorite hunter Sam McFarlane from the previous novel, race against time to destroy the Baobab with a nuclear warhead before the entire team is enslaved by the Baobab's "worms." Crew, who is dying, is selected for the suicide mission, but is miraculously saved by the impact of another submersible piloted by a mind-controlled scientist. The warhead detonates and destroys the Baobab, killing all those already infected with worms but sparing the uninfected. The novel concludes with the team listening to a farewell message from the alien brain originally imprisoned within the Baobab, a song of unearthly beauty.
The Associated Press wrote of the book that "Preston & Child take all of the various elements from classic horror and sci-fi films and novels and spin them together to write what begins as an action adventure, but soon delves into paranoid terror. Readers who enjoyed The Ice Limit will love this follow-up, and those unfamiliar with the original novel will have no problem with this story or the situations. Beyond the Ice Limit is a lot of scary good fun." [1] Kirkus Reviews called it "relentless mayhem, another thrill-a-minute read" but criticized the "less than memorable supporting cast." [2] The New York Journal of Books wrote that "no writing team equals Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child at creating a spine-chilling, page-turning suspense story" and offered "[k]udos to Preston and Child for another story that will keep the reader up past bedtime." [3] Publishers Weekly wrote, "The bestselling authors maintain suspense throughout, and they throw in some original ideas that offset some familiar action tropes." [4] Jacqueline Cutler of NJ.com wrote, "Preston & Child are incredibly smart writers; technically they are perfect. There's never an errant word or situation. It moves fast but with purpose and you know that everything is precisely researched from the shifts in the ocean currents to the plutonium in a bomb." [5]
Foundation and Earth is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series. It was published in 1986, four years after the first sequel to the Foundation trilogy, which is titled Foundation's Edge.
Lincoln Child is an American author of techno-thriller and horror novels. Though he is most well known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston, he has also written seven solo novels, including the Jeremy Logan series. Over twenty of the collaborative novels and most of his solo novels have become New York Times bestsellers, some reaching the #1 position. Child and Preston's first novel together, Relic, was adapted into a feature film. Their books are notable for their thorough research and scientific accuracy.
Alien Planet is a 2005 docufiction TV special created for the Discovery Channel. Based on the 1990 book Expedition by the artist and writer Wayne Barlowe, Alien Planet explores the imagined extraterrestrial life of the fictional planet Darwin IV in the style of a nature documentary. Although closely following Barlowe's depiction of Darwin IV, Alien Planet features a team of scientists and science fiction figures discussing Darwin IV as if it had actually been discovered. Among the people featured are Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking, Jack Horner, James B. Garvin and George Lucas.
Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV is a 1990 speculative evolution and science fiction book written and illustrated by the American artist and writer Wayne Barlowe. Written as a first-person account of a 24th-century crewed expedition to the fictional planet of Darwin IV, Expedition describes and discusses an imaginary extraterrestrial ecosystem as if it were real.
Douglas Jerome Preston is an American journalist and author. Although he is best known for his thrillers in collaboration with Lincoln Child, he has also written six solo novels, including the Wyman Ford series and a novel entitled Jennie, which was made into a movie by Disney. He has authored a half-dozen nonfiction books on science and exploration and writes occasionally for The New Yorker, Smithsonian, and other magazines.
Starro is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #28, and was created by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky.
Camelot 30K is a hard science fiction novel written by the United States physicist Robert L. Forward. It was published in 1993 by Tor Books. The story mainly deals with the concept of human contact and interaction with a kingdom of intelligent alien life that dwells on a frozen world where the ambient temperature is only 30 K or −240 °C. In Camelot 30K, Forward uses exotic low-temperature chemistry to explain the aliens' unique biology and anatomy.
The Book of the Dead is a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child published on July 1, 2007, by Warner Books. This is the seventh book in the Special Agent Pendergast series. Also, it is the third and final installment to the trilogy concentrating on Pendergast and his relationship with Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta in their pursuit to stop Pendergast's brother, Diogenes.
Needle is a 1950 science fiction novel by American writer Hal Clement, originally published the previous year in Astounding Science Fiction magazine. The book was notable in that it broke new ground in the science fiction field by postulating an alien lifeform, not hostile, which could live within the human body. Also published as From Outer Space, the book would, in 1978, spark the sequel Through the Eye of a Needle.
Riptide is a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, published in 1998 by Warner Books.
Blasphemy is a novel by Douglas Preston that was released on January 8, 2008, by Forge Books. It is the second book in the Wyman Ford series, exploring philosophical and theological ideas.
The Ice Limit is a techno-thriller novel by American authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was published on July 18, 2000 by Grand Central Publishing.
Aloysius Xingu Leng Pendergast is a fictional character appearing in novels by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. He first appeared as a supporting character in their first novel, Relic (1995), and in its 1997 sequel Reliquary, before assuming the protagonist role in the 2002 novel The Cabinet of Curiosities.
Gideon's Sword is a novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was released on February 22, 2011 by Grand Central Publishing. The book is the first installment in the Gideon Crew series.
Gideon's Corpse is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on January 10, 2012, by Grand Central Publishing. The book centers around Gideon Crew and is a sequel to Gideon's Sword. The plot focuses on a nuclear scare, the federal reaction, and Gideon's attempts to unravel the mystery.
Blue Labyrinth is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on November 11, 2014, by Grand Central Publishing. This is the fourteenth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series.
The Kraken Project is a thriller novel by American writer Douglas Preston. The book was published on May 13, 2014 by Forge Books. It is the fourth installment in the Wyman Ford series.
City of Endless Night is a thriller novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The book was released on January 16, 2018, by Grand Central Publishing. This is the seventeenth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series.
Verses for the Dead is a 2018 mystery novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This is the eighteenth book in the Special Agent Pendergast series. It tells the story of FBI special agent Aloysius Pendergast as he investigates a serial killer in Miami Beach.
Ice Planet Barbarians is a series of science fantasy romance/erotica novels by Ruby Dixon. The series began with the novel Ice Planet Barbarians, which Dixon originally self-published in April 2015. The novel was re-published in print by Berkley Books on November 30, 2021. The Ice Planet Barbarians series contains over twenty books in the same setting, several of which have been or will be re-published by Berkley Books. A print special edition of Barbarian Alien, the second book in the series, was released by Berkley Books on January 25, 2022. The series concluded in 2021.