Land of Mist and Snow

by James D. Macdonald, Debra Doyle, James MacDonald

Called to duty at last, Lieutenant John Nevis faces his assignment with trepidation. Boarding the USS Nicodemus --a sloop of war built in a single night at the top of the world--Nevis wonders uneasily at its strange aura of power, its cannonballs of virgin brass . . . and its uncanny ability to glide swiftly through the waters without steam or sail. As great armies clash all around them, the mission of Lieutenant Nevis and the Nicodemus crew is shrouded...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060819197
• ISBN13: 9780060819194
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

The Commodore versus the Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny

This extraordinary alternate history novel turns on (in addition to the existence of magic of course) an alteration to the outcome of one the most remarkable forgotten events in US history: the private war between businessman "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt and filibustering General William Walker, the "Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny", over the fate of Nicaragua in the five years prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. The details of the real history are contained in an Author's Note at the end so suffice it to say that in his attempts at private war and conquest in Central America General Walker made the fatal mistake of conspiring to cheat Commodore Vanderbilt. Though one of the mostly unsung heroes of free market capitalism (an exception can be found here: The Myth of the Robber Barons) for making his fortune by taking on monopolists, price fixers, and subsidy receivers (and thus doing more good for the poor than all of his critics combined), as a human being, Cornelius was pond scum, and as an honest though ruthless businessman, not inclined to tolerate being cheated. Having promised to ruin his crooked former trustees and having subsequently bankrupted them, Vanderbilt next set his sights on ruining their coconspirator and ruler of Nicaragua, General Walker, and in our world managed to do so. However, in this world dark magic has allowed Walker's rule of Nicaragua to survive Vanderbilt's worst until 1863 so that he can offer his powers to help the Confederacy, and the Commodore's continued desire for revenge fund's Captain William R. Sharps' proposal for a magical counter weapon. (Think of Captain Sharps as the Gandalf of this story, except possessed of the people skills that made Captain Bligh such a success.) So we follow our two heroes: Lt. John Nevis and Columbia Abrams as they join their strange new vessel, the USS Nicodemus, he in charge of her virgin brass cannons, she as Ship's Vestal for want of a better term. The story is told entirely through written documents: narratives, diary entries, letters, etc., which worked a lot better than I expected it would. Along with these two we slowly learn the truth about the Nicodemus and his Confederate counterpart, the CSS Alecto, as they race towards their foreordained final battle while struggling with the moral question (both are devout Christians) of how much evil can be countenanced when fighting the greater evil of slavery. Frankly I had severe doubts about the premise, but I thoroughly enjoyed the result! The book is arguably a bit unfair to William Walker, an evil man no doubt, but one more in the line of a Napoleon or a Caesar than a Hitler or a Stalin. He supported slavery not genocide, and yes, there really is a difference. Note: a briefly mentioned "amusing story, worth telling over brandy and cigars, but not germane to my present communication" on page 15 was later expanded into the story "Philologos; or, A Murder in Bistrita" in the February 2008 issue of Fantasy

Wonderfully Gripping Tale!

My fist book by these authors, and I could not put it down! Very well constructed story and characters...kept me enthralled to the last page and I wasn't ready for it to end.

fine alternate history

When his ship burned, Lieutenant John Nevis files papers for the War Department while waiting to get a new seagoing assignment. In 1863 he is ordered to take possession of Rodman guns and take them to his new posting as head of the gunnery department of the USS Nicodemus. He is taken to the Naval Experimental shipyard in Thule near the Artic Circle, a place shrouded in secrecy. When he spots the Nicodemus he sees no energy source to make the ship move; yet it goes faster, and with more agility then any ship in the union. The captain William M. R. Sharp has found a way to bind an air elemental to his will so that it is what causes the ship to move at great speed and shift momentum at a moment's notice. The only woman on board the ship, Miss Columbia Abrams, acts as a conduit giving Nicodemus commands in the captain's name. Their mission is to catch the blockade runners and commence traders who want to destroy the union blockade of the Confederacy. However, the confederacy now has a similar ship the Alecto fueled by blood sacrifices and it is determined to destroy the Nicodemus but even though Nicodemus hates the captain for the enslavement it hates Alecto more; with Columbia and John's help the elemental will do its best to defeat evil personified. Combining Horatio Alger and the alternate history works of Harry Turtledove, readers will have a good idea what LAND OF MIST AND SNOW is all about. Magical ships run by bound elementals make this an exciting work full of action on the high seas. Although the romance between Johnny and Columbia seems to be a contrived subplot device to move the storyline in the direction the authors want it to go, the audience will thoroughly enjoy this original and entertaining tale. Harriet Klausner