Ice Station Zebra – Book Review
Ice Station Zebra, written by Alistair Maclean and published in 1963, is a classic mystery/thriller set on a submarine in the Arctic.
Ice Station Zebra: Logline
When the British lose contact with their base in the Arctic, a US submarine takes a British spy to investigate. He must deal with sabotage, the harsh Arctic climate and murderous Soviet agents in order to discover the truth.
Ice Station Zebra: Plot Summary
Warning: Major spoilers are blacked out like this [blackout]secret[/blackout]. To view them, just select/highlight them.
A British doctor, Carpenter, arrives at the dock in Scotland where a nuclear submarine, the USS Dolphin, is preparing to sail. He has orders from the US Fleet commander that he is to be conveyed to Ice Station Zebra, a British research base in the Arctic.
The station has sent an SOS: an accident has left many of the scientists dead or injured. Without food or heat the survivors will die within days. Dolphin can travel under the icecap, look for a patch of ice near the base thin enough to break through and rescue the scientists.
Dolphin travels to the Arctic and breaks through the ice, first a hundred miles from the base, and second only five miles away. Carpenter and four of the submarine’s crew walk through the blizzard to the base.
At the Base
When they arrive at Ice Station Zebra it has been destroyed by fire. There are eleven injured survivors in one hut.
Carpenter returns to Dolphin and tells the Captain there’s thin ice near the base. Dolphin prepares to blow a hole in the ice with a torpedo, but someone has sabotaged the torpedo tube doors and seawater pours in. The submarine plummets into the ocean depths. The Captain halts the dive by pumping air into the fresh water and diesel tanks.
Dolphin breaks through the ice and rescues the scientists. Carpenter inspects the base. He discovers the fire was deliberate, and that three of the men were murdered before it started. He explains to the Captain that Soviet agents had infiltrated the base because it had clandestine missile warning equipment. They must be responsible for the murders and the fire and are likely to be amongst the survivors.
As the survivors are brought aboard Dolphin, the ship’s doctor falls and is knocked unconscious. An insecure hatch crushes Carpenter’s hand. The Soviet agents are on board the submarine and trying to cover their tracks…
The Return
Dolphin [blackout]sets off under the ice back to Britain, but during the night the saboteurs set the engine room on fire and the submarine fills with smoke. The crew nearly run out of oxygen but finally stop the fire and restart the engines.[/blackout]
Carpenter[blackout] gets the scientists together and reveals he is an MI6 agent and knows who the murderer is.[/blackout]
The reason for the murders and the sabotage was [blackout]that vital spy satellite film had landed near Ice Station Zebra. The Soviets ordered their agents to retrieve the film, and they killed the three scientists, who had become suspicious. They sabotaged Dolphin to give the Soviets time to retrieve them and the film.[/blackout]
Carpenter[blackout] tricks the Soviet agents into confessing and then arrests them.[/blackout]
Ice Station Zebra: Alternative Cover
I like the military style-font here, the hunched figures in the centre dwarfed by the submarine, which is itself lost in the ice and facing an oncoming blizzard.
Ice Station Zebra: Analysis
Ice Station Zebra has a Mystery plot (see Spy Novel Plots).
The ‘Mystery’ Plot
The Protagonist:
- Discovers a disaster perpetrated by an unknown Antagonist for unknown reasons (or is assigned to investigate by their Mentor).
- Makes a plan to investigate the tragedy and discover who the Antagonist is.
- Investigates and gathers clues suggesting who the Antagonist is.
- Is impeded by the Antagonist.
- Involves one or more Allies in their investigation (Optionally, there is a romance sub-plot with one of the Allies).
- Attempts to discover further clues to the identity of the Antagonist, dealing with further Allies and Enemies as they meet them.
- Is betrayed by an Ally or the Mentor (optionally).
- Discovers the identity of the Antagonist and the reasons for their actions and any wider plan.
- Is involved in a final confrontation with the Antagonist and stops (or fails to stop) them carrying out their plan.
There has been an accident, and people are dead. The detective figure, Carpenter, discovers the accident was murder. He investigates. And the novel ends in a ‘parlour scene’ that could be straight from a country-house murder-mystery.
What is missing is any real detecting. Carpenter finds a few clues, but there is barely any characterisation of the ‘suspects’. I guessed who the Soviet agent was long before the end, not because there were any pointers, but because he was the only person from the ice station who had more than a couple of lines.
Action Scenes
Instead, and Alistair Maclean is of course a thriller writer, there are action scenes (the walk through the blizzard) and disaster movie set-pieces (the torpedo tube flood and the fire in the engine room). Maclean describes these atmospherically, particularly the fire.
The spy element is rather limited. Carpenter is obviously a British spy from the start. The murderers are Soviet spies. Their motive is spy-related, but Maclean only reveals it in the second to last chapter and it’s a MacGuffin (e.g. it could be anything, it has no direct plot relevance). Maclean describes Carpenter as being in ‘MI6 counter espionage’. Of course, there is no such thing, as that’s the role of MI5.
Overall though, the plot hangs together. It’s the weak characters that let the novel down. Carpenter has no real character traits other than being cold, tough and unflappable. The half a dozen interchangeable American sailors are all equally tough and unflappable but a bit jollier. The ice station survivors are indistinguishable from each other.
This only leaves the ‘will they make it?’ factor of the action set-pieces to maintain interest, and they are of course excellent. Alistair Maclean’s strong point is his ability to evoke the tension and adrenalin of men facing seemingly impossible odds.
Ice Station Zebra: My Verdict
A straightforward book, part submarine techno-thriller and part murder mystery. The submarine thriller is the better part of the book.
Ice Station Zebra: The Movie
Ice Station Zebra the movie came out in 1968, directed by John Sturges and starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan and Ernest Borgnine. The movie is only loosely based on the novel, abandoning the murder mystery element. Instead, it’s a race-against-time between the Russians and US to the base (which is completely destroyed with no survivors) to pick up a downed satellite. The film ends in a military confrontation between the two sides.
I don’t recommend it.
Here’s the trailer:
Want to read it?
The novel is available on US Amazon here, and UK Amazon here.
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