Literary Significance and Criticism
Ice highlights the Christianity of many Apollo astronauts (one of them wrote the foreword to this work). It touches on several themes at once: the history of Project Apollo, how the nation would have handled what would have been an appallingly demoralizing disaster, the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation of the earth in modern or ancient times, and speculation about the Flood.
Ice attracted little notice beyond the Christian readership to which Johnson directed it, and it is now out-of-print. He had intended a sequel to this novel, titled Fire, based on a similar encounter on the planet Mars. But at last report, the publisher canceled that project.
Read more about this topic: Ice (Johnson Novel)
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
“There are in me, in literary terms, two distinct characters: one who is taken with roaring, with lyricism, with soaring aloft, with all the sonorities of phrase and summits of thought; and the other who digs and scratches for truth all he can, who is as interested in the little facts as the big ones, who would like to make you feel materially the things he reproduces.”
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
“To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.”
—Marlon Brando (b. 1924)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)