I am not sure I can think of a more quintessentially 60’s novel than this. It is madcap, millennial (think Dr Strangelove), anarchic and at times plain weird. The plot, such as it is, involves a first person narrator who is researching a biography of the (fictional) inventor of the nuclear bomb, Felix Hoenikker. In this course of this investigation he finds out that Hoenikker stumbled across – out of pure academic curiosity – a way of converting water into a crystalline form – ice-nine. Ice-nine is an alternative structure of water that is solid at room temperature. When a crystal of ice-nine contacts liquid water, it becomes a seed crystal that makes the molecules of liquid water arrange themselves into the solid form, ice-nine. If ice-nine were to come into contact with a river or sea, all the world’s water would freeze in one shuddering bang. Continue reading →