Bookworm Speaks!- Icebreaker by Lian Tanner
Bookworm Speaks!
Icebreaker
by Lian Tanner
****
Acquired: Barnes and Noble Booksellers
Series: The Icebreaker Trilogy (Book 1)
Publisher: Square Fish (August 16, 2016)
Paperback: 304 Pages
Language: English
****
The Story: Twelve-year-old Petrel is an outcast, living on an ancient icebreaker that has been following the same ocean course for three hundred years. The ship's crew has forgotten its original purpose and has broken into three warring tribes. Everyone has a tribe except Petrel, whose parents were thrown overboard for alleged crimes. She has survived by living in the dark corners of the ship, and speaking to no one except two large rats, Mister Smoke and Mrs. Slink.
When a boy is discovered on a frozen iceberg, the crew is immediately on alert. Petrel hides him on board, hoping he'll be her friend. What she doesn't know is that the ship guards a secret, held down deep in its belly, and the boy has been sent to seek and destroy it.
Icebreaker by Lian Tanner is a lush fantasy and thrilling adventure story, with an unforgettable friendship at its heart.
The Review: Ships and sailors. What provokes more romanticism than those words? The ocean holds a primeval place in the human consciousness. Some say the sea was where our species began. Ships have longed served a critical role in civilization and have long been honored as such. Like a lot of romantic notions, the reality of a life at sea is contradictory to to ideal and thankfully the author of this novel, does not shy away from the harshness of life on board an icebreaker, particularly one thats been sailing for three hundred years.
The Oyster feels like a real place. The author really did their homework on this one. She did a good job at balancing the feel and factual. A common problem faced with writers, particularly fiction, is that they get so bogged down in the details for the sake of realism, that ultimately, they make glaring errors or they sacrifice story for trying to get the nitty-gritty right.
In this book, almost all of the action takes place in Petrel and Fin’s heads. Petrel grew up on the ship and Fin has no idea what anything is, so we rarely see what the nautical terms for the lightbulbs or whatever are and it makes the story more relatable for us landlubbers. The author wisely focused more on how the Oyster feels and sounds rather than the jargon, which is greatly to the book’s benefit. When the characters are out on deck, the reader can feel how cold it is and when they are below they can smell the fish oil.
Remember, they’re writing a story, not a textbook. That may seem like a cop-out but it is the truth.
On the topic of plausibility, another thing that feels real but not a good way is the rise of the Anti-Machinists. Anyone who spends time on the internet can attest that the world is filled with crazy and because of the internet they can get their message to the world more easily than ever.
The ‘selfie generation’ has long been criticized and as it seems like the world becomes more and more unhinged, it is not to big of a stretch to think that people will turn to violence in order to restore some measure of order to their lives and what has longer been criticized than the internet has been machines and technology, with the belief that they diminish humanity. Also considering the anti-science climate that stubbornly sticking around, the Anti-Machinists of Petrel and Fin’s world don’t seem to be so implausible.
As Bookworm gets older…he is finding more and more that these stories of teens and tweens saving the world is becoming more and more ludicrous. As he passes the High School on the way to work sometimes and he sees the students outside, Bookworm thinks: “These twerps ruling a planet or leading an army?” Books like that can be very good if written well but at the same time they do seem like adolescent wish fulfillment.
Be that as it may, the main protagonist Petrel is still a good character even though she does fall into the “orphan outcast” cliche. Seriously, what is it about orphans? Anyway, Petrel (a name for a seabird) is balanced enough that the reader may able to forgive her cliched origin story. She is very strong and very capable but at times she is also vulnerable, there are times when she fails in the book. Of course she gets out of it but the struggle feels authentic.
Fin also had a rough upbringing, raised under what we can assume is a theocratic despotism. The author did a good job in not giving too much away about the inner workings of the Anti-Macninist order. We often don’t think about the exact nature of how the society that we are raised in actually functioned. Not at least until we reach young-adulthood. It also provides hints making the reader more eager for the sequel.
No spoilers but there is also a lingering plot thread that was never fully addressed. It was only briefly mentioned in one or two sentences that could easily be overlooked.
Final Verdict: Icebreaker is a refreshing change in the world of dystopic young adult fiction, for its grounded setting and its heartfelt characterization. While it does have a lot of cliches of the aforementioned
Four petrels out of Five
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