Ark of Ice: Canadian Futurefiction

G. Nigel Leith is a computer engineer and freelance writer in Sudbury.

In this collection of specifically Canadian future fiction, the issues
of today (free trade, an increased Native suicide rate, police and
social violence, to name a few) have resounding impact on a future
Canada as depicted by the impressive list of writers. Choyce has
hand-picked some of English Canada’s most relevant and visionary
works, and proven that Canadian science fiction is literate, diverse,
and very much alive. Ark of Ice takes the reader on a delightful voyage
of discovery through future Canada. From crime-ridden Toronto to the
Maritimes (where people are arming to counterattack Upper Canada) and
from women’s issues taken to an extreme to a computer-jacked bounty
hunter, the future has never been put quite this way before. This is a
unique anthology in that the writers are well matched, and pacing
throughout the book is uniform.

As Judith Merrill so aptly points out in the afterword, “The Ark of
Ice doesn’t offer any solutions, fine visions or vistas; but it is
blessedly full of the seeds of discontent. While many of the stories are
SF ‘benchmarks’ which have been refined, there are others in the Ark
which expose raw nerves, bloody noses and a future that few have dared
to deal with. There are some serious decisions to make in Canada. Ark of
Ice, while not pointing the way, is a lovely catalyst for thought.”