Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Ice Station Zebra cover art

Ice Station Zebra

By: Alistair MacLean
Narrated by: Jonathan Oliver
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Where Eagles Dare cover art
Night Without End cover art
HMS Ulysses cover art
When Eight Bells Toll cover art
The Guns of Navarone cover art
Fear Is the Key cover art
Force Ten from Navarone cover art
Puppet on a Chain cover art
The Dark Crusader cover art
The Golden Rendezvous cover art
Circus cover art
The Golden Gate cover art
The Silent Voyage cover art
The Wreck of the Mary Deare cover art
The Martian cover art
Surface with Daring cover art

Summary

A classic thriller from the best-selling master of action and suspense.

The atomic submarine Dolphin has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean to locate and rescue the men of weather station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice pack somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.

But the orders do not say what the Dolphin will find if she succeeds - that the fire at Ice Station Zebra was sabotage and that one of the survivors is a killer....

©2017 Alistair MacLean (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"A thoroughly professional cliff-hanger." ( Sunday Telegraph)

What listeners say about Ice Station Zebra

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    203
  • 4 Stars
    75
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    172
  • 4 Stars
    64
  • 3 Stars
    26
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    184
  • 4 Stars
    66
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not the Movie, but still good

If you have seen the movie then the story here is similar for the first third to half of it, but it changes afterward. In fact the book is less cold war spy thriller ala the movie, but more arctic murder mystery.

The story is generally good, varied and interesting with a few moments that Macleans just about gets away with. There are some errors, for instance the mannicker schoenhower one (they never made pistols), but in general it is a good listen and worthy of a credit.

Where most of the recently release Maclean books fall down, is in the narration. Jonathan Oliver is ok and just about bearable in this one, unlike the Guns of Navarrone and Where Eagles Dare. He does better with the normal narration here, but he struggles to maintain the American accent, and I am not convinced with the irish and scottish ones. Some times he is good, sometimes it hurts my ears, which leads to a mixed response on my part.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

Saw the film years ago but had never read the book. A must read and has stood the test of time,

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Its age is showing

The story is nice but shows all its age. Monodimensional characters, playing braggart while facing with certain death. The sense of wonder for technologies that sounds silly nowadays, when we hold some of those bleeding edge techs in our phones.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Old school!

Revisited a book I read at school. Old school but engrossing and gripping. Wasn't sure about the narrator at first but actually he was very good.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazingly gripping...

This was a very exciting story with excellent narration. The audio was much better than the film, as the story was stronger and more believable.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Mr
  • 04-11-23

Love the book, not the narration.

I remember this book very fondly from an audio version I had when I was a teenager, and it still stands up magnificently. It's a great mystery story, and despite an occasional lapse into melodrama, it's superbly written with incredibly atmospheric descriptions of the conditions in the arctic. There's a crisis on the submarine towards the end of the book that still haunts me thanks to how well told it is.

What really lets it down in my estimation, is the narration. I don't think Oliver is a *bad* narrator per-se, but he reads the material without adequate pauses or emphasis, which makes everything run-on at an unsettling pace. The accents sometimes veer on the comical. With one of them sounding like a muppet, and *all* the Americans sounding like the same cliched southern hick.

Probably if you don't remember the version I remember with such fondness, it won't bother you so much.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyable story.

I didn't want to put it down. I'll be listening to another McLean novel soon.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

A five star listen in every way. I’ve just looked up the date when to book was written - 1963 - but it hasn’t aged in my opinion.
I was trying to figure out ‘whodunnit’ throughout with very limited success.
I’ll now make a point of watching the film but suspect it won’t be as good as the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Kept me guessing throughout

Classic storytelling, this novel was full of suspense - it dangled a piece of information but made me always wanting more, hence I could hardly put it down!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Shockingly poor narration & awful plot

Well I stuck with it & unfortunately it didn’t improve any.
Plot is dull & ending is terrible.
Narrators accents are awful.
So much unnecessary technical jargon on nuclear submarines that do nothing for the story.
Don’t waste a credit or your time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!