Techno-Thrillers discussion

Ice/Water Challenge: Read any techno-thriller where ice or deep water figures prominently.

They found it buried in the ice ... the premise of Deception Point by Dan Brown, our December 2025 Book of the Month.


This premise actually goes back to 1938, ... some very early sci-fi writing called Who Goes There? that ultimately inspired the movie The Thing.


That novella was kind of like the Murderbot Diaries in that it started as a sci-fi magazine submission called The Thing from Another Planet ... which is a long version of the movie title that doesn't spoil the plot immediately. I may have to go back and read these.

In 2024, a couple of us did a Buddy Read on Ice Station, another book with the same premise, ... and about the most action-packed book I've ever read.


You've no doubt heard of Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean. It seems Alistair was really the innovator of the proto-techno-thriller. He put down the core premises that keep on giving. Premises sounds like a better word than tropes.


Then there's The Ice Limit by another techno-thriller author.


Some editions of Lincoln Child listed as co-author. They do often work together as in The Relic. Child has some ice-themed books too. The premise that keeps on giving.

Simply post a list of what you've read here, and come back and edit your post later as you read more. Disregard the group Challenge page, which was impractically tedious. Just post your reads on this thread.

Please feel free to rate and rank the books on these lists too.

Techno-thriller lists:
  • Technothrillers: Best of All Time
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 20th Century
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 21st Century
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 1960s
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 1970s
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 1980s
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 1990s
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 2000s
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 2010s
  • Technothrillers: Best of the 2020s
  • Technothrillers: Favorite Authors

My ice/water techno-thrillers list:



✓ (1938) Who Goes There? by John Campbell
✓ (1987) Sphere by Michael Crichton
✓ (1998) Ice Station by Matthew Reilly
✓ (2001) Deception Point by Dan Brown
✓ (2007) Deep Storm by Lincoln Child

Some other ice-related ones:

Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler
Ice Hunt by James Rollins
Iceberg by Clive Cussler
Raising Atlantis by Thomas Greanias


The Ice Limit (by Preston & Child) had a sequel, Beyond the Ice Limit. I didn't like it as much as the first one and it's not as "icy."

Nice. Which did you like best?
I thought, I’ll go check his ratings, but then saw you had 1000+ books read. Wow! I’ll have to come back another time.

You guys gotta try Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck! Antarctica, very intense. Beneath the Dark Ice

Jed wrote: "You guys gotta try Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck! Antarctica, very intense. Beneath the Dark Ice
"

Sounds like a nomination waiting to happen, and a theme for the next BOTM.

Ice Hunt is great. Very twisty. Atlantis Found is really good too but if you've read Cussler's other stuff you know how it works.