We Push Ice. It’s What We Do
In my latest reading binge, I picked up Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. Set years into the future, mankind has begun to mine comets for ice. Instead of breaking chunks off and dismantling these comets, the miners rig up mass driver equipment to steer the comets back to Earth for processing, hence the term “pushing ice.”
One such mining vessel, called the Rockhopper, and its crew are conducting an operation on a comet when they receive a request to drop what they’re doing and follow the Jupiter moon Janus as it has inexplicably left its orbit and begun an acceleration out of the solar system. Well, the speed and direction of the not-moon is such that the Rockhopper has a very slim window of catching up with it, getting any data from it and returning to Earth. Are they able to do it? Will they discover why Janus has sped out of its orbit and will they find out to whom the not-moon is heading to?
Besides being a pretty involved space drama, the technology in the book is pretty nifty. There are items, like a page of paper, that operates as a computer terminal, diagnostics tool and control panel. It also recharges its batteries off the body heat of its owner. Part organic, they have a limited lifespan but still, they last for quite a while. Pushing Ice is a fun read, although I did have some problems with a couple of characters and their developments. The stress of their job and the possibility of never getting back home may be a strong influential source, I still think some of them changed their attitudes and personalities a little too easily. Still, it’s worth a read and I’ve begun to re-read it again as I’m almost done with Spook Country.
