Guest post written by Cold Burn author A. J. Landau
A. J. LANDAU is the pseudonym for two authors, Jon Land, the award-winning, bestselling author and co-author of more than fifty books, and Jeff Ayers, reviewer, former-librarian, and author. Land lives in Providence, Rhode Island, and Jeff Ayers lives in Seattle, Washington.
Climate change plays a significant role in COLD BURN, the second thriller we (Jon Land and Jeff Ayers, writing as A. J. Landau) have written in our National Parks series after last year’s LEAVE NO TRACE. Thanks to very real and dangerous phenomena of melting glaciers and ice shelves, in COLD BURN (coming April 28 from Minotaur) a long-frozen wooly mammoth thaws out, unleashing a deadly prehistoric microbe on humanity. Because of that, we wanted to explore other instances in pop culture where climate, or the weather in general, played a key role in the plot:
ICE STATION ZEBRA: In one of the best Cold War thrillers ever, directed by John Sturges from the terrific book by Alistair MacLean, the contents of a spy satellite worth killing over lands near an arctic research station amid a killer blizzard. Unable to reach Ice Station Zebra by traditional means, the military dispatches the USS Tiger Fish, a submarine, to travel under the arctic ice to get ahead of the Soviet Union. Intrigue, spy craft, and subterfuge abound, leading to a thrilling climax in which the storm clears just in time for Soviet commandos to battle Rock Hudson’s intrepid crew members for something that can change the balance of power.
KEY LARGO: The 1948 Humphrey Bogart-Edward G. Robinson classic, directed by the great John Huston, serves up a climactic hurricane in superb counterpoint to the storm winds blowing in the roiled lives of the would-be survivors marooned at the Hotel Largo. The closer the winds and rains get, the more their very beings deconstruct to the point where even if they survive, we know they are hopelessly lost. Bogie, as army vet Frank McCloud, is the solitary hotel guest of strong spine left to wipe out the thugs working for Robinson’s gangster Johnny Rocco in the same way he ultimately steers the rest of the cast to safety so Lauren Bacall can peel back the shutters to reveal the sun. “Key Largo” remains an exceptionally brilliant exploration of the nature of evil where man trumps nature every time.
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW: Overdone, lacking any basis in science, and a prime example of producer/director Roland Emmerich’s penchant for excess, yet watching it now is an entirely different experience than it was twenty years ago upon its release. The notion of New York freezing and the climate turning against us virtually overnight remains clearly absurd. But as a climate cautionary tale, why not take things to an extreme to make your point? And viewed today, through the lens of the devastating state of climate change’s effects on the environment, maybe Jake Gyllenhaal taking refuge from certain death from spreading ice in the bowels of the New York Public Library isn’t as farfetched as it initially seemed.
TWISTER and TWISTERS: The original and the sequel it spawned are classic manifestations of making climate the Big Bad Monster out to kill us all, like turning tornados ravaging the Plains into Godzilla, laying waste to Tokyo again and again. The recent sequel, especially, made great use of climate technology to the point that it served as a commercial for weather forecasting’s ability to save lives. The notion in the 2024 sequel of stars Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones valiantly racing to stop a killer tornado in its path harks back to old-school monster movies where the good guys inevitably come up with a way to stop the big bad monster from destroying the world.
THE PERFECT STORM: Based on the brilliant recapitulation of a doomed fishing voyage by Sebastian Junger, the crew’s desperate attempts (which we know will be futile) to survive the storm are both harrowing and gut-wrenching. In director Wolfgang Petersen’s expert hands, stars George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg finally come up against something they can’t defeat. And that’s the point. Unlike living, breathing villains, the sea takes no prisoners, gives no quarter, and can’t be outwitted. Indeed, incorporating climate into the plot of a thriller brings to mind Kyle Reese’s epitomal warning to Sarah Conner about dealing with a Terminator: “It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity! Or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop ever… until you are dead!’
THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE: The 1972 original featuring the late, great Gene Hackman features the finest depiction of a giant wave special effects for the time could conjure. That wave literally turns the lives of our small band of heroes upside down as they embark on a Homer-esque quest to reach the bottom of the boat, which is now at the top. Produced by the father of disaster movies, Irwin Allen, this and 1970’s “Airport” were responsible for ushering in an entirely new film genre that gave birth to the likes of the aforementioned “Twister” movies. Based on a book by Paul Gallico, it became the benchmark against which future disaster movies were measured. The difference today is that the blame for nature’s perversions begins and ends with man.
THE THING: The personnel, led by Kurt Russell’s R.J. MacReady (Mac), at an isolated Antarctic research station, stand no chance against the shape-shifting menace terrorizing them in large part because a violent storm and the onset of winter have stranded them in place with no contact with the outside world. John Carpenter’s masterwork of paranoid isolation, based on John Campbell’s novella “Who Goes There?”, “The Thing” uses the cold and icy Antarctic world to its advantage. It wins, and the world loses if it simply outlasts the humans fighting it, turning the climate into its accomplice in trying to destroy mankind.
