Like everyone else in the tiny, struggling human colony on the isolated ice planet Brimstone, Manda is a clone--yet she is unique, and outcast, because she's a singleton. All the colonists are twins or triplets--and so is Manda, but her twin brother died at birth. Alien to her own kind, Manda prefers to work alone, exploring the sea bottoms with remote equipment. When she discovers evidence of intelligent alien life in the sea, she isn't surprised that her finding creates discord in the colony, which is on the verge of terraforming Brimstone. But she doesn't expect her surveillance of the aliens to be mysteriously cut off, she doesn't expect to fall in love, and she never dreams that the supposedly long-gone starship that placed the colonists on Brimstone might be monitoring all communications, and its crew carrying out their own malign, decades-old designs on both the colonists and natives. --Cynthia Ward


From Publishers Weekly
In this gripping and ingenious SF novel, Mixon (Astro Pilots) takes us some two centuries from now to Brimstone, a planet many light-years from Earth and settled by clones from the starship Exodus, who are trying to terraform the ice-covered world. In the forefront of this effort is Manda, a singleton (one whose cloned twin is dead), restless, inquiring and by local standards something of a sociopath. Enter a rockfall that kills the rest of her siblings and threatens to wipe out the colony from starvation. Also enter one Jim LuisMichael, friend, ally, lover and fellow explorer of the remote reaches of Brimstone. There Jim and Manda discover intelligent alien life, in the form of a gigantic organic computer, as well as a deadly plot against both the aliens and Brimstone by the remaining Exodus crew members. To keep the terraforming going, the "croche-born" in space are prepared to destroy the aliens, whom Jim and Manda foil at nearly the cost of their own lives. Then only a split in the croche-born's ranks and the heroic resistance of the colonists keep the croche-born from winning an outright war. While hardly short of action or fascinating scenes of alien contact, the novel's real strength lies in the author's depiction of the future society, with its complex system of degrees of kinship, social obligations and controls, sexual mores and even appropriate pronouns. The ending may be a little rushed, but the vivid storytelling and a high level of imagination mark this as perhaps Mixon's best work to date.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The colony of clone family groups laboring to terraform the ice-bound planet Brimstone into a habitable world includes outcast Manda CarliPablo, left alone when her clone sibling died at their birth. A series of suspicious accidents leads her to a pair of discoveries that could mean either the transformation of the colony or its ultimate destruction. The author of Glass Houses and Proxies explores the essential nature of humanity and its relationship to individuality and free will in a novel that is part coming-of-age story and part sf suspense. Recommended for most sf collections.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Burning the Ice is already packed, what with first contact, internal conflict, and a violent clash between colonizing clones and their progenitors, the creche-born, aboard Exodus, the original colonizing ship. Yet in the midst of what is quite a ride, Mixon places vital and intense characters. Manda, the only singleton clone in her colony, rubs everyone else the wrong way with trying to do three things at once. Since she likes working alone, she has been put in charge of the search for warm spots in the oceans of the planet that the iced-over moon the colonists inhabit orbits, and for indigenous life-forms. With a friendly geologist's help, discover warm spots she does, and an impressive native creature, too. As a result of a plan to begin warming the iced-over moon, an earthquake strikes, massively damaging the colony, at which point the colonists learn that Exodus is still hanging around. The novel's first-contact scenario, threatening destruction of colonizers and indigenes alike, is splendidly realized, and its engaging portrayal of interhuman conflict is even better. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
"A brilliantly conceived and executed novel, filled with technology and genuine human warmth. Mixon asks important questions here, about what it means to be human and the sacrifices we must make to retain that humanity."--Brian Herbert, co-author of Dune: House Atreides

"Laura Mixon's technical knowledge is superb, and her handling of the not-quite-humans who live and die in the terraforming colonies is heartfelt and insightful. This is a not-to-be-missed novel for those who love modern science fiction." --Frank M. Robinson, author of Waiting

"A truly epic struggle, across a truly alien world."--Fred Saberhagen, author of the Books of Lost Swords



Book Description
More than a hundred years after a small band of humans stole an antimatter-fueled starship and headed away at near-lightspeed, a colony of those renegades' descendants are now struggling to survive on Brimstone, a barely-habitable world of ice and bitter cold four dozen light-years from Earth.

In the long run, they hope to slowly terraform Brimstone, making it, if not Earthlike, at least bearable. In the short run-well, life is hard, and everyone lives in everyone else's laps. Not easy for anyone. Particularly hard if, like Manda, you just aren't cut out to get along with others in conditions of constant crowding and zero privacy.

Most people wouldn't be eager to get away from the main colony and work on a scientific project in the howling frozen wastes. For Manda, it's a deliverance. But news of the intelligent life she discovers in Brimstone's depths will change everything-if she can bring the news back to her fellows alive. For, it turns out, there are political plots and counterplots still active in the colony, dangerous twists tracing back to Earth itself...and outward to the stars.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"More than a hundred years after a small band of humans stole an antimatter-fueled starship and headed away at near-lightspeed, a colony of those renegades' descendants are now struggling to survive on Brimstone, a barely habitable world of ice and bitter cold four dozen light-years from Earth." "In the long run, they hope to slowly terraform Brimstone, making it, if not Earthlike, at least bearable. In the short run - well, life is hard, and everyone lives in everyone else's lap. Not easy for anyone. Particularly hard if, like Manda, you just aren't cut out to get along with others in conditions of constant crowding and zero privacy." Most people wouldn't be eager to get away from the main colony and work on a scientific project in the howling frozen wastes. For Manda, it's a deliverance. But news of the intelligent life she discovers in Brimstone's depths will change everything - if she can bring the news back to her fellows alive. For, it turns out, there are political plots and counterplots still active in the colony, dangerous twists tracing back to Earth itself...and outward to the stars.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this gripping and ingenious SF novel, Mixon (Astro Pilots) takes us some two centuries from now to Brimstone, a planet many light-years from Earth and settled by clones from the starship Exodus, who are trying to terraform the ice-covered world. In the forefront of this effort is Manda, a singleton (one whose cloned twin is dead), restless, inquiring and by local standards something of a sociopath. Enter a rockfall that kills the rest of her siblings and threatens to wipe out the colony from starvation. Also enter one Jim LuisMichael, friend, ally, lover and fellow explorer of the remote reaches of Brimstone. There Jim and Manda discover intelligent alien life, in the form of a gigantic organic computer, as well as a deadly plot against both the aliens and Brimstone by the remaining Exodus crew members. To keep the terraforming going, the "croche-born" in space are prepared to destroy the aliens, whom Jim and Manda foil at nearly the cost of their own lives. Then only a split in the croche-born's ranks and the heroic resistance of the colonists keep the croche-born from winning an outright war. While hardly short of action or fascinating scenes of alien contact, the novel's real strength lies in the author's depiction of the future society, with its complex system of degrees of kinship, social obligations and controls, sexual mores and even appropriate pronouns. The ending may be a little rushed, but the vivid storytelling and a high level of imagination mark this as perhaps Mixon's best work to date. (Aug. 22) Forecast: Blurbs from Brian Herbert, Frank M. Robinson, Fred Saberhagen and Jack McDevitt will help attract SF fans who go for alien societies in the classic Dune tradition.

Library Journal

The colony of clone family groups laboring to terraform the ice-bound planet Brimstone into a habitable world includes outcast Manda CarliPablo, left alone when her clone sibling died at their birth. A series of suspicious accidents leads her to a pair of discoveries that could mean either the transformation of the colony or its ultimate destruction. The author of Glass Houses and Proxies explores the essential nature of humanity and its relationship to individuality and free will in a novel that is part coming-of-age story and part sf suspense. Recommended for most sf collections. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews