Strange Cargo by Jeffrey E. Barlough
01/08/2004 . Source: Paul Hanley 

pub: Ace. 481 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.95 (US), $22.50 (CAN). ISBN: 0-441-01160-8).

Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK.

check out website: www.penguin.com

This is a fantasy story set in a Victorian style era but where the Ice Age never ended, so civilisation necessarily clings to a narrow strip of habitable coastline and rubs shoulders with sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths.

This book is a mystery composed of a number of tales of different characters whose stories gradually come together. The story proper opens with a will reading and, as is all too common, the relatives are at loggerheads over the deceased's estate.

In particular, two female beneficiaries are incensed that the dead man has left a quarter of his wealth to someone they have never heard of. When the lawyer, Liffey, proposes to travel to the far north to locate this unknown beneficiary, they insist on accompanying him together with the chief beneficiary who is the husband of one of these female viragoes and the nephew of the deceased.

The party set off by ship and other characters join them, including a mysterious girl with a pet monkey. The journey made ever more unpleasant by the viragoes, Mrs Cargo and Miss Veal. Gradually, they make their way to the distant northern port of Nantle where they interact with the other characters we have encountered such as the learned vicar, the Rev. Giddeus Pinches, Mr. Threadneedle and Tim Christmas who have constructed a flying house. The mysteries are gradually revealed such as the reason why the bequest was made and what the monkey lady keeps in her luggage.

One criticism I do have is that whilst the concept of Victorian technology and culture set in an everlasting Ice Age might have thrown up all sorts of problems and interesting scenarios, this is at best a very peripheral aspect of the story.

A few woolly mammoths are used for transport and the odd sabre-tooth hunts humans for food, but otherwise the backdrop is much like any other Victorian setting and the perpetual Ice Age setting trumpeted in the book's 'blurb' is in practice virtually ignored.

This is not a book of much daring-do with characters being chopped to death in sword fights.

The element of fantasy is also somewhat limited, although the young lady with the parrot conceals a secret in this vein. It does however hold one's interest and is certainly worth a read and possibly makes a change from the more violent fantasy book offerings.

Paul Hanley