Earth Winter

Picking up where they left off in The Empire of Ice, geologist Ben Meade and his fiancee, genetics researcher Marjorie Glynn, attempt to save the northern hemisphere from a 15-year-long winter even as they struggle to salvage their relationship from its own frost in this fast-moving but poorly focused thriller. Set in 2001, after the eruption of a volcano in the middle of the Atlantic has chilled the earth's climate north of the equator, the novel envisions a U.S. whose farmlands are frozen and worthless. (It's also a U.S. with a woman president, inspiring such sentences as, ``The President crossed one well-shaped leg over the other.'') Until the biospheres developed by Marjorie can be set up across the country, the nation has to buy all its food from southern hemisphere countries with agricultural economies--which is why Argentina is now a world power. To ensure that things stay that way, Argentinian strongman General Ramon de Urquiza arranges to purchase a long-hidden nuclear submarine from the government of Ukraine. The general plans to use the sub to stop Ben, who has come up with a way to harness the Gulf Stream to correct the world's climate. Because Moran concentrates on only a few key characters, his narrative ends up feeling cramped rather than epic. If you're going to destroy the world, it's wise to describe the world that's destroyed; but, aside from scattered vignettes and some longer descriptions of anti-immigrant riots in San Francisco, Moran keeps the focus close to Ben and Marjorie, giving his tale the feel of a 1950s science fiction movie in which one or two determined people with the right ideas can save the world and fall in love at the same time. Nevertheless, the novel is smoothly written and builds on several exciting set pieces to a tense and riveting climax. (Mar.)