Harry Turtledove, Beyond the Gap

Beyond the Gap

Harry Turtledove

Tor, Feb 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0765317109

The Raumsdalian Empire has expanded slightly northward for centuries by occupying the tiny bits of land freed by the retreating great glacier. However, Bizogots' clan chieftain Trasamund comes to the capital Nidaros to report new phenomena. Apparently, for the first time as far as anyone knows, a narrow opening into what has always been a solid, unassailable mountain ice has occurred.

The city is excited with the news and the opportunity for courageous somewhat crazy risk-takers to explore the other side of the ice that legend insists leads to the Golden Shrine of the gods. Though normally the two cultures clash as one is urban and the other is nomadic, Count Hamnet Thyssen joins Trasamund to lead an expedition to trek through the crack in the ice cap to see what is there.

This is a fantastic Bronze Age saga that compares two rival cultures battling for supremacy yet united on the mission to see what is on the other side. The storyline is filled with action, but most importantly insures that the audience feel they are at a time just a couple of millennia since the Ice Age ended. The cast, especially the explorers (and not just the intrepid two leaders), is solid as they add to the sense of time and place. Fans of Harry Turtledove will enjoy this opening prehistorical thriller in which the anticipation is to learn what is on the other side.

Harriet Klausner