Apart from the submarine setting, which reads as very authentic, there is action on the Arctic (the eponymous Ice Station Zebra) and international intrigue afoot that is best read fresh.

However except the protagonist nobody knows that the rescue attempt is really a cover-up for one of the most desperate espionage missions of the Cold War. The overall atmosphere is not that different from John Carpenter's "The Thing" just with humans antagonists instead of extraterrestrial shapeshifters. This book was an uneven read for me - slow moving in parts, with a lot of Dialogue as an Explanation and a large caste of characters who often had similar speaking styles.The escalating production costs of this film, along with the poorly-received The Shoes of the Fisherman at the same time, led to the transfer of MGM President Robert O'Brien to chairman of the board, though he resigned that position in early 1969, after both films were released and failed to recoup their costs. Classic 60s Cold War era nuclear submarine adventure, filmed by MGM in 1968 starring Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan. He expressed disappointment that the special effects did not, in his opinion, live up to advance claims, comparing them unfavorably to the effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

On December 21, 1968, Renata Adler reviewed the film for The New York Times: "a fairly tight, exciting, Saturday night adventure story that suddenly goes all muddy in its crises. While the scientists immediately turn to cannibalism, the Sealab sub – led by a German crew resembling that from Das Boot – predictably fumbles the rescue. Ice Station Zebra the movie came out in 1968, directed by John Sturges and starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan and Ernest Borgnine. The crisp effectiveness of communication, the filtering of emotional drama, the need for the right action at the right time, and the urgency and weight of these actions are well brought out in his books.There are plenty of memorable characters to empathise with as they are thrown into intolerable situations that somehow keep getting worse. And that's when slowly and steadily, all hell begins to break loose and it comes to light that the accident at the station might not have been an accident afterall. The tale on the face of it is simple enough, there has been an accident at a British Antarctic Base and a US Navy Nuclear Submarine is dispatched to help. Their motive is spy-related, but Maclean only reveals it in the second to last chapter and it’s a MacGuffin (e.

Considering books with wartime themes, Alistair MacLean is one of the few authors who understands and brings about the wartime scenario very well in his books. When you are out at sea and your life depends on the guys around you, you quickly develop a family type relationship. One can only read "he said savagely," "he said gently," "he said admiringly," and so on in every paragraph before it gets annoying. The pacing is much better in the latter 75% and keeps a steady gait throughout, never slowing too much before something else happens, especially once the crew knows there’s a killer in their midst.

Jones finds another tracking device but is knocked out by Vaslov, a Soviet double-agent and the saboteur. The sequence of these events and the culprits of the massacre at Ice Station Zebra are unmasked, following the revelation of Dr Carpenter being a member of MI6, the British Intelligence wing, and the eventual clever frustration of the culprits' plans (and eventually saving the skins of the US- UK bloc). Ice Station Zebra is a 1968 American espionage thriller film directed by John Sturges and starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine, and Jim Brown. Attempts to discover further clues to the identity of the Antagonist, dealing with further Allies and Enemies as they meet them. Things get even trickier when Carpenter shares Ice Station Zebra’s real purpose and the fact that he suspects foul play.

Apart from the strongly drawn characters and tight plot, the other highlight is the mystery element at the end that doesn't feel tacked on as, from the outset, the narrator declares himself unreliable which gives the whole story an element of mystery. In 2006 the National Reconnaissance Office declassified information stating that "an individual formerly possessing CORONA access was the technical adviser to the movie" and admitted "the resemblance of the loss of the DISCOVERER II capsule, and its probable recovery by the Soviets" on Spitsbergen Island, to the book by Alistair MacLean. Dobré čítanie i napriek tomu, že tento román má svoj vek a udalosti sú stale s malými obmenami použiteľné aj dnes. One part Agatha Christie, one part Hunt for Red October, this ended up being better than I thought it would be, because I had some real doubts over the first 75 or so pages.

When the inner torpedo hatch is opened, seawater rushes in flooding the compartment causing the submarine to nose dive. Dustjacket generally good, small losses to top left and top right of rear of dj, tiny losses to bottom left spine and bottom right front of dj, some creasing. Alistair Maclean’s strong point is his ability to evoke the tension and adrenalin of men facing seemingly impossible odds.