Ice Cap and The Rift

The Ice Cap & The Rift is written by Marshall Chamberlain and is book 2 in the Ancestor Series. This book picks up where the first book (Mountain Place of Knowledge) left off. The main character of Dr. John Henry Morgan is still the main player of the story with a new event revolving around a combo-quake that has made a huge split in Iceland, exposing a huge rift and possible caves.

The pace of this book is a lot faster than the initial book with the Chinese, CIA, and UN all vying to be in charge of anything that may have been exposed. There is of course a return in alien technology to include alien mobile craft.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ancestor part of the story as well as the descriptions of the newly found environment. Unfortunately I wanted more time to be spent in the environment exploring, and to have a better sense of the size of the found area that was entered.
This book has a main focus on the red tape, and political movement fight that is trying to stay one step ahead of the Chinese and trying to negotiate with the CIA and Americans while appeasing the UN and not compromising the upper hand.

There was definitely a LOT of nail biting action and it was great to see Dr. Morgan take a stand. His ignorance at the feelings between Dr. Mary Ellen Rollins and himself is so frustrating at times. I had moments of wanting to reach through the book and slap some sense into him for her.

Chamberlain does a superb job of making identifiable characters. I had many moments of feeling like if this book was a tv show that I would be yelling at the characters to connect the dots and see what was right in front of them. I love the Triad connection, and found it highly interesting and entirely plausible.

If you know your current events in world powers, this book is definitely an intriguing and exciting look at how all of the players in the game for “power” line up and contend with one another, while trying to save face for the press. As a computer/intel geek I loved the set up at the underground work space and the brilliant descriptions.

Overall I give this book 5/5 stars as it is very well written and comes from a brilliant mind. The Ice Cap & The Rift definitely takes a different tone than the original book, but it is still the ongoing cat and mouse game. I hope to see more of the Ancestors and the exploration of the Alien Technology in the next book, and maybe we can FINALLY get a jump on the Chinese before the end is here. If you are into suspense, adventure, sci-fi, fiction, political, action, espionage, etc.

*I received this book for free in exchange for a fair and honest review.