The Ice People (Barjavel novel)

"The Ice People" ( _fr. La Nuit des temps) is a 1968 French science fiction novel by René Barjavel.

Plot

When a French expedition in Antarctica reveals the ruins of a 900,000 year old civilization, scientists from all over the world flock to the site to help explore and understand. The entire planet watches via global satellite television, mesmerized, as the explorers uncover a chamber in which a man and a woman have been in suspended animation since, as the French title suggests, 'the night of time'. The woman, Eléa, is awakened, and through a translating machine she tells the story of her world, herself and her husband Paikan, and how war destroyed her civilization. She also hints at an incredibly advanced knowledge that her still-dormant companion possesses, knowledge that could give energy and food to all humans at no cost. But the superpowers of the world are not ready to let Eléa's secrets spread, and show that, 900,000 years and an apocalypse later, mankind has not grown up and is ready to make the same mistakes again.

"Ils sont là ! Ils sont nous ! Ils ont repeuplé le monde, et ils sont aussi cons qu'avant, et prêts à faire de nouveau sauter la baraque. C'est pas beau, ça ? C'est l'homme !"

Publication

First published in 1968 by Les Presses de la Cité.

It was translated into English by C L Markham and a number of companies published "The Ice People" in the early 1970s.

Inspiration

The novel was clearly inspired by one of the last groundbreaking works of Henry Rider Haggard, "gutenberg|no=1368|name=When the World Shook (1919)". There are several similarities between the stories: a couple that is found in suspended animation with both , female and male, being survivors of ancient lost civilizations that possessed great technological advancements superior to the current stage of our world [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE4DF1F39E13ABC4953DFB0668382609EDE&scp=1&sq=When+the+World+Shook&st=p WHAT HAPPENED "WHEN THE WORLD SHOOK"; A Romance of Adventure in Which ... - Article Preview - The New York Times ] ] Both novels fit within the literary genre of Lost World stories.

Barjavel was also writing in the context of political unrest, especially among the youth of France, that led to mass protests that year similar to those depicted in the novel, see Protests of 1968 and May 1968 in France.

Notes