Book Review: Monster in the Arctic in Lincoln Child's "Terminal Freeze"

I like monster stories and this is a pip. By monster stories, I'm referring to the supernatural type. My taste does not run to maniac killers. I've always felt that's too close to home.

Scientists in Arctic Alaska examining a glacier for evidence of global warming find a cave entrance hidden by the crumbling glacier. In it is a creature that is frozen. The cable science network that is funding their research suddenly takes over, rushes in a film crew, a creative director not overly concerned with the facts or even the potential danger, and a network bimbo to provide the adorable good looks and narration.

Then the ice the creature is frozen into thaws unexpectedly. It's right out of John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", filmed by Howard Hawks as The Thing and remade by John Carpenter who used more of the story than Hawks could with early 1950's technology, although Carpenter then takes the ending a step too far. (In fact, the tentacles around the mouth on the creature suggest the alien of Campbell's story. Perhaps intentional?)

In Child's book as in Campbell's story, the results are unpleasant. The members of the film and science expedition fill the role of kibble for the thawed creature. Maybe Child was inspired by this, maybe not. It's not the most original concept ever done. It's just that John W. Campbell did it so well. The similarity is only cursory.

Serial killers, psycho killers, those twisted individuals are too close to home. They may be next door. That was Robert Bloch's theme in "Psycho." As an aside, when I read "The Caine Mutiny," I recognized that my dad was Captain Queeg, except that instead of strawberries, my dad got fixated on who used the last razor blade, having forgotten that he used it himself. This invariably ended badly.

On the other hand, having read Bloch's "Psycho," I picked up on the motel clerk marveling over the Incan empire described in one of the many books he passed his time with at the front desk and recognized I was Norman Bates. (Aside from dressing in mom's clothes and stabbing to death a naked, nubile young woman in her shower. There aren't enough shrinks in the world to deal with that and thank Shiva that's not among my hang-ups.) (Bloch later said with all the people who told him they quit taking showers after seeing Hitchcock's movie of his book, it was a good thing he didn't kill the girl off while sitting on the throne.)

I've always felt my interest in supernatural horror, especially monster stories, stems from these being at a safe distance. Kind of like little kids with dinosaurs...scary and really, really dead.

On the other hand, supernatural horror also does deal in a handful of fresh concepts within the context of the story. Admittedly, it's just a fraction of what one of my other favorites genres, science fiction, tends to deal with.

"Terminal Freeze" offers a scientific setting for a good old-fashioned monster story. It's a nice contrast to the horror tales whose motivations are often Christian-based, like possession, vampires, witchcraft, end-of worlders, satanic robokillers, demons, devils, Killer Cultists With Powers, and some ghost stories.

Child's characters find themselves trying to figure out how the creature got loose, what it might be, what it wants, and not least, how to destroy it before it destroys them, if that is its intention. (Perhaps I'm a little too coy. We know that's exactly what it wants to do or we wouldn't be reading the book, true?) They gather what information they can, even consult with a local shaman, and do what they can to deal with the creature. Just to complicate the matter is the film crew and the film director who sees in this the pinacle of his career.

I've tried to give you an idea what it's about without giving you the unexpected twists while playing fair. (Don't you hate the books...this is not one...where they assume you like the author enough they don't feel they have to tell you anything about the book, just run a couple pages of testimonials? Testimonial tallies leave me testy.)

Check it out. This is a nicely executed piece of work.