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About 50 years ago I read a book that started near Spilsby in Lincolnshire, UK and followed a family who moved across country due to an advancing ice age. They moved to the west coast of wales. I believe the title had ‘Towers’ in the title. Any ideas.

2 Answers 2

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Is this The Moving Snow (1974) by Ian Weekley...?

From a user review:

A "cosy catastrophe" that is a bit too cosy and unrealistic. An ice age descends on the British Isles causing death to millions and a mass migration South. Some of the inhabitants of a small Lincolnshire village decide to tough it out and, rather unrealistically, manage to acquire all the survival skills that they need whilst meeting only nice, helpful people.

From another user review:

Interesting post-apocalypse novel set in England. Climate change causes snow and ice to creep further and further south, until the entire island of Britain is locked in a frozen wasteland. The narrator and his family have to learn to survive in this strange new world -- skis are worth more than cars, a self-sustaining subsistence economy is the best hope for the future, etc. Interestingly, the story takes neither the "brainy humanity triumphs" or "stupid humanity dies out" approach, both of which are common in PA novels, but rather explores how humanity learns to cope with this new world: altered shipping routes, new trade patterns, new ways of life, figuring out what shallow-rooted crops to cultivate since there's permafrost six inches down, etc. There is the often-encountered attitude that rural/country/small-town people will survive better than soft complacent city-dwellers, but it's well supported and wrapped into the story rather than being preachy. All in all an interesting and unusual read.

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  • 5
    Although the word 'Towers' isn't in the title, the cover does feature tower-like structures as the only visible structures, which perhaps suggests that towers were of significance in this story. Looks like that may actually be the top of the Elizabeth Tower sticking out of the ice on the far right of the image. The structure to its immediate left could be the top of the BT Tower and the structure to the far left could be the top of St Paul's Cathedral. Mar 24 at 19:11
  • It's funny the two came out the same year.
    – Spencer
    Mar 25 at 14:12
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In Rings of Ice (1974) by Piers Anthony, six people flee across America in a motor home from a series of ecological disasters (caused by the title rings falling to the Earth). One character names the rings after four glacial maxima: Gunz, Mindel, Riss, and Würm.

(Incongrously, those are the European names of those maxima, but I guess Piers Anthony's choices in this regard don't matter to the story).

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