Anti-Ice as a neat parallel for nuclear power with a trip to the moon thrown into the mix. ( )

I finally read a book by *Stephen Baxter*! **Anti-Ice** seems like it should be very much down my road: Victorians! In space! Science! Alternate history!

… yeah, about that.

Spoilers up ahead.

Anti-Ice features a young ~anti-hero~ privileged idiot as protagonist. His character was one-dimensional, and served pretty well to tell the story, and also to invite info dumps. While the book wants you to believe that there was character development, there was none. He also falls in love with an **obvious French saboteur** after talking to her twice. Seriously. It's so obvious other characters comment on it. He never gets over it.

We also get the scientist with a conscience, the British patriot, the British butler, the French patriot, and we just about escaped having a Prussian cardboard cut-out.

Sadly, we don't get a plot. Well, except if you accept "Idiot goes to space by accident, discovers moon monsters, returns". Actually, that part of the story was *fun*, in a pulp-y sort of way. Like, there is no plot, but there are detailed descriptions of Victorians in space, which seems like a Jules Verne thing to do, and a lot of fun. Though Jules Verne would've been more realistic about things, seriously. Building a rocket that lives through both liftoff and re-entry? And air filtering, food, etc? Just like that, really? My suspension of disbelief took a big hit there, *and I don't even know all that much about rockets*.

Sadly, the book did not end there. We get another ~20% of info dumping on how the world developed after that. How the French and the Prussians concluded their war, how Europe evolved consequently. Sometimes characters go out of their way to explain how some Mr Dickens or Mr Disraeli are *really* not well-known because something derailed their career. Totally natural.

Anti-Ice itself is such a heavy-handed metaphor for nuclear power that it doesn't really bear mention. Includes all of methods of transport, missiles, destroying cities and armies, a cold war, etc. Pretty uninspired, I thought, because **this has been done**. In real life. Give me at least some "alternate" with my alternate history, please.

So, yeah. If you like steampunk, go ahead! Parts of it are really enjoyable! You won't get character development or a good plot, but the world-building is well done, so if you enjoy novels like that on occasion (I know I do, no judgement implied) – go ahead! I don't think I'll be returning to Baxter any time soon, though: My theory is that Victorians are somewhat tedious, and Baxter is a tedious writer, so they brought out the best in him. ( )

Just not engaging. When I was a young teen I probably would have loved it, with the neat alternate-history concepts and technology. But now, decades later, I need more. For example, characters.

In the year 1720, a comet enters Earth orbit and remains there as the "Little Moon". However, a chunk of the comet ends up in the Antarctic where it is found by Ross the polar explorer. It's no ordinary chunk of cometary ice, it's anti-ice. Rather like anti-matter, it reacts explosively with ordinary matter - but only above a certain temperature threshhold. Using its condensed power, the British Empire embarks on an age of vast technological innovation and world dominance.

Politically, though, things don't immediately change. British political history certainly deviates from our experience with many 19th century reforms not undertaken and Manchester as the capital and not London. But Continental politics only begin to change after England uses an anti-ice weapon to end the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War.

It is at Sebastopol the novel begins, its destruction recounted by the narrator's brother. Then we jump to 1870, and the eve of the Franco-Prussian war. Our hero, self-described as a man of shallow character and shallow intellect, makes the acquaintance of Josiah Traveller, the engineering genius who has developed most of the anti-ice technologies. He also develops an infatuation for Francois, a French woman who is not only politically ardent but also unusually knowledgeable about anti-ice engineering.

The novel echoes Verne and Wells and nowhere more deliberately than a voyage to the moon. Five men -- the narrator, Traveller, his butler, an English journalist, and a saboteur - inhabit a small spaceship. But the narrator discovers more than the depth of Traveller's ingenuity and life on the moon. He undergoes a political awakening about the new order being shaped back on Earth and the true nature of his love Francois.

This is a fun work of steampunk, a nice homage to Verne and Wells. As long as you don't mind your alternate histories built on more outre premises, Baxter presents an interesting divergence of European history. And, though it's relatively brief at the end, he makes a serious point about the limitations of even well-intentioned imperialism. ( )

Synopsis:
In the heart of the industrial revolution an English expedition discovers anti-ice - a fuel source that gives the Victorian age England access to anti-matter power. They head for the moon, all the while smoking cigars and drinking spheres of finest brandy.

Comments:
All in all an enjoyable read, an amusing idea. As long as you take it as a bit of fun, otherwise too much depends on this single genius Traveller - I had real problems with this one guy inventing everything from the anti-matter based rockets to the air reclamation system, to the guidance clockwork. Still it is very amusing to hear the description of how they'd do a space suit with Victorian technology.
An early Stephen Baxter and it shows, but this is a positive thing in many ways - always good to see the genesis of authors. ( )