Novels about Iceland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Iceland has been mentioned in many foreign books and novels. Both as the main area of interest and as a side show. Here on this page you can find references to the novels and books that mention Iceland in one way or the other.
[edit] Origin
Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland (Icelandic: Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland; IPA: [ˈliðvɛltɪð ˈislant]) is a country of northwestern Europe, comprising the island of Iceland and its outlying islets in the North Atlantic Ocean between Greenland, Norway, the British Isles, and the Faroe Islands. [2] As of December 2006, it had a population of 307.672. Its capital and largest city is Reykjavík.
Iceland has a history of habitation since about the year 874 when, according to Landnámabók, the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfur Arnarson became the first permanent Norwegian settler on the island. Others had visited the island earlier and stayed over winter. Over the next centuries, people of Nordic and Gaelic origin settled in Iceland. Until the 20th century, the Icelandic population relied on fisheries and agriculture, and was from 1262 to 1944 a part of the Norwegian and later the Danish monarchies.
Today, Iceland is a highly developed country, the world's fifth and second in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and human development respectively. Iceland is a member of the UN, NATO, EEA, and OECD.
[edit] Novels
| Novel | Author | Icelandic Referral | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Running Blind | Desmond Bagley | This must be one of the best cold-war spy thrillers ever written. The ingenuity of the plot is splendid. The main premise - which is misinformation - is surrounded by two sub plots. One concerns the flushing out of a mole within the British secret services, and the other - survival against the odds out in the wilds of Iceland.. | The story starts off with a killing at the hand of the hero, Alan Stewart, who then back-tracks to explain how he's ended up in the situation. From virtually that moment on you're riding a deadly roller-coaster around the island, exploring the scenery as you battle against good and bad, not knowing who you can trust.
The author's fondness for Land Rover comes to the fore again as Stewart lives in one while on the run, and uses it to go where no-one sensible has gone before. (Note: this was written before he time when Icelanders made a national sport of 4x4 off-road racing.) The British aren't the only ones interested in what's happening in Iceland, there are Americans and Russians too. Not forgetting the native Icelanders who aren't very happy that their homeland is being used in a deadly international game of chess. In this story is a villain who appears in the next book, The Freedom Trap, which although not quite a follow-on, does use his presence to take off on another adventure. To find out who and why you'll have to read the book! |
| The Plot Against America | Philip Roth | Lindbergh meets with Hitler in Reykjavík. | The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as anti-Semitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels. The narrator and central character in the novel is the young Philip, and the care with which his confusion and terror are rendered makes the novel as much about the mysteries of growing up as about American politics as a spokesman for the America First Committee and his own experiences growing up in Newark, New Jersey. |
| Sacred Stone | Clive Cussler | The Discovery of a radioactive meteorite in Greenland sends Juan Cabrillo and the crew of his hi-tech ship Oregon - in Iceland to seize a nuclear weapon from terrorists - on a second rescue mission. | In the remote wastes of Greenland, a young scientist has unearthed an artifact hidden in a cave for a millennium: a 50,000 year-old meteorite known as the Sacred Stone - which he soon discovers possesses potentially catastrophic radioactive power. But the astounding find places him in the crosshairs of two opposing terrorist groups who seek the stone for themselves. |
| The Bourne Legacy | Eric Van Lustbader | Spalko intends to release a bacteriological weapon during peace negotiations between many World Leaders to be held at the Oskjuhlid Hotel in Reykjavík, Iceland, using the terrorists he is cultivating as a diversion.
The book charts Bourne's course from the United States, to France and then to Budapest in Hungary where he learns the final thing he needs to do - to stop Spalko's attack in Iceland. |
With the climactic events of The Bourne Ultimatum behind him, Jason Bourne is able to once again become David Webb, now professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. However, this serenity does not last for long and, when a silenced gunshot narrowly misses Webb's head, the Bourne Persona reawakens in him yet again.
Bourne's first objective is to get to his long time friend and handler at the CIA, Alex Conklin. However, unbeknownst (as yet) to Bourne, a Hungarian by the name of Stepan Spalko has now drawn Jason into a web - one which he cannot escape as easily as his professorial façade. |
| Red Storm Rising | Tom Clancy | One of the Soviet Union’s opening moves in the war is its seizure of Iceland, capturing the NATO air station at Keflavík. | Red Storm Rising is a 1986 techno-thriller novel by Tom Clancy and Larry Bond about a Third World War in Europe between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, set around the mid-1980s, probably in 1986 or 1987. Though there are other novels dealing with a fictional World War III, this one is notable for the way in which numerous settings for the action—from Atlantic convoy duty to shooting down reconnaissance satellites to tank battles in Germany—all have an integral part to play on the outcome. This is one of two novels that has no association with Clancy’s others, as it does not fall in the Ryanverse. |
