Cold As Ice is one of those novels which tantalizes its readers with the promise of a steel gauntlet masked behind a velvet glove. The prelude to this book tells of the ill fated and final voyage of the ship Pelagic and its unlucky inhabitants. Hunted down by a weapon they can neither outrun, outmanoeuvre or destroy the crew ejects nine life pods containing their offspring in a desperate measure. The ship is destroyed but the lifepods continue their inbound trajectories towards the inner system. Their distress calls are never heard or answered. For the rest of this novel this harrowing event, which took place at the end of the great war seems to be a non sequitur. The lives of three, young and gifted people are about to change. Jon Perry, Camille Hamilton and Wilsa Sheer are individuals who live somewhat isolated lives but whose work, whose vocation, whose sheltered lifestyles are unexpectedly interrupted. Behind the scenes theses three are nudged, cajoled, and blatantly manipulated to head to the Galilean moons of Jupiter. Sheffield handles this part of the early novel competently as he gives satisfactory characterizations to these highly motivated and driven beings. The books has a nice, even pace which gets the story up and running but gives away none of the plot that follows. On the moon of Ganymede we are introduced to Rustam Battachariya. A corpulent misanthrope, a gourmand for all that life has to offer, once it can be made available with in his stronghold - the Bat Cave. He excels at his position - a natural genius who sees and imagines what others dare not imagine. He along with another character, Cyrus Mobarak are the principal characters of this novel. Mobarak is a shadowy character who perfected the Fusion Engine, and is determined to bring human settlement to the ice moon Europa. He is seen as an unpopular man due to his efforts to possibly ruin the pristine environment of this ice/water world. This novel has a thin plot brimming with hints of a major and possible catastrophic event that only those in the upper echelons control. But that is it main downfall, we are teased with so many hints of possible plot twists, i.e. murders, unbelievable revelations and marvellous discoveries, only to be disappointed and thrown a somewhat deflated altered alternate. This is a well written novel where there are no visible evildoers or heroes, no tremendous technological weapon waiting to be unleashed-but mustn't, no radical group looking to destabilize a shaky and short lived peace. It falls uncomfortably between two stools. It has, as you would expect from an author who was an accomplished physicist, great detail and coherence in explaining how stuff actually works, but it fails to excite the senses. A better than average book that is easy to forget, it merely glances against the chin, failing to deliver a knockout punch.

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