The Elder Ice: A Harry Stubbs Adventure

By: David Hambling

Narrated by: Brian J. Gill

In this novella set in 1924 London, ex-boxer Harry Stubbs is on the trail of a mysterious legacy. A polar explorer has died, leaving huge debts and hints of a priceless find. His informants seem to be talking in riddles, and Harry soon finds he isn't the only one on the trail - and what he's looking for is as lethal as it is valuable. The key to the enigma lies in an ancient Arabian book and it leads to something stranger and more horrifying than Harry could ever imagine.

Harry may not be an educated man, but he has an open mind, the bulldog persistence and fists like pile drivers - useful assets when you're boxing the darkest of shadows.

The story of mystery and horror draws on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and is inspired by Ernest Shackleton's incredible real-life adventures.

©2014 David Hambling (P)2016 David Hambling

Humorous, action packed listen

I really enjoyed this story. It's full of action, adventure and humor. The narration is excellent. I received a review copy at my request and voluntarily reviewed.

Great short story

Nice Cthulhu-esque short story. I hope the rest of the series are this well done.

A Great Lovecraftian Adventure

I’m a big fan of Lovecraftian horror books, so this (with its great cover artwork) piqued my interest. I’m glad I took a chance on it as I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

The action scenes were probably my favorite part of the book. I’m usually picky about how the action scenes are described and portrayed as it can make or break a book for me, but thankfully, the author David Hambling did a great job depicting the fights that Harry Stubs finds himself partaking in.

I also found the story’s progression and pacing to be well executed. The buildup of the characters and their backstories lead to a great final chapter that was well worth it. The only criticism I could think of was it was too short. Hopefully its future books expand on the story, and the main character Harry Stubs, even further.

I found Brian J. Gill’s performance to be very good. He exceled at the different accents between characters and made it a joy to listen to. I’ll be adding him to my list of Narrators to consider when making future purchases.

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

The best Cthulhu adventure in years

THE ELDER ICE is a short investigative novel which is either set in the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft or somewhere very similar. It's very much like a Call of Cthulhu tabletop adventure with the premise of a solictor finding out about a man's possible occult encounters from his estate relics. In this case, I was genuinely surprised to find out it was set in the Cthulhu Mythos and kind of feel bad for bringing it up except I think it will encourage people who wouldn't read the novel normally to give it a shot.

The novel doesn't waste much time and doesn't deal with much actual occult content but deals, more, with the implications of it. Basically, this is a novel about an expedition to Antarctica which never actually gets to Antarctica. It might be resolved in future volumes but I felt a little disappointment there. On the other hand, I liked the Maltese Falcon-esque quest between multiple factions to determine if there's anything worth actually going to Antarctica for.

Harry is an enjoyable everyman protagonist who isn't quite educated enough in theology, biology, physics, or other matters to understand the implications of what he's encountering. He's too "normal" of a person to be effected by it the way a hardened scientist or warrior might be. Still, he's likable enough and I want to pick up the rest of the series because of it.

I appreciated the research done into concepts like the search for the North Pole and the horrific human cost involved in exploring Antarctica. I also like the serious question over whether the man who "might" have found the city of the Elder Things (which might not actually be the Elder Things but an entirely different race which inspired H.P. Lovecraft's writings) was just delusional or even the subject of a fantasy by his own investors desperate to recoup their losses by believing he found more than he did. The ambiguity works well and I liken it to a man who has a fragment of a UFO or a piece of the Holy Grail...or might not.

If I had any complaints, it's that this really does feel like the first half of a larger novel and it's instead more of an intimate journey rather than something big and epic. Sort of like how the Five Orange Pips ended not with Sherlock Holmes going out to fight the Ku Klux Klan in America but all of his enemies dying in a shipwreck.

The audio is excellent in this one and I appreciated the narrator's flourishes to make Harry come alive. No complaints whatsoever.

9/10

Great listen!

Well then. This was a very short audiobook (only coming in at about 3 hours) so this review is probably going to be pretty short as well!

This follows the exploits of Harry Stubbs, a former boxer and now solicitor who specializes in collecting on debts. He ends up following quite a mystery after investigating a rumor that Ernest Shackleton, despite being very much in debt at the time of his death, had found and brought back something priceless on one of his earlier Antarctic expeditions. Dun… dun…. duuuuuuuuuuunnnnn.

The prose was quite well done, and the story was well written. A fair amount of historical research regarding Shackleton’s expeditions went into this story, which was nice. A fair bit of boxing knowledge was in there too. I think it could have been a tad longer, but at the same time, I don’t mind a short audiobook to accompany an afternoon of work, and the story did wrap itself up before the end of the book. It wasn’t too short, I just wish it was longer is all.

This audiobook is narrated by Brian J. Gill, and I will tell you that if he didn’t do the introduction to the audiobook in his natural accent, I would have had no clue that he wasn’t British. He performed this one absolutely beautifully, making each character unique and bringing them all to life with really great accents. Very entertaining, at any rate. Doctor Evans, the tardigrade doctor was my favorite character. So excited about tardigrades! So, so excited.

It’s refreshing when you get a self-published audiobook that has such great narration. I listen to many of them, and have found many with such good narration, but there were also quite a lot that weren’t so good, so I’m always curious when I pick up one where it’ll fall on that spectrum. This one is on the really good side, so hooray! :D

All told I had a really good 3 hours with this one. It was quite an entertaining listen, with some really interesting and unique ideas that were presented really well. All and all, I think I can safely say that I had 4/5 stars of a good time with this one.

*This honest review is based on a free review copy of the audiobook.