Choosers of the Slain

Choosers of the Slain is a novel by James H. Cobb, published in 1996. It is set in the near future of 2006 and begins with an attack on a British scientific outpost in Antarctica, the opening move in an invasion of the seventh continent.

Argentina, resurgent after the Falklands war, has launched an armed takeover of the Antarctic Peninsula. The objective is the last untapped pool of natural resources on the planet, and the global community can only look on while the Argentine military builds up its forces and the polar winter closes in.

One hope remains, and it is a single United States Navy vessel docked in the harbour of Rio de Janeiro: the guided missile destroyer Cunningham. The novel puts the entire response to an invasion on one ship and its crew, and the winter is itself a participant, because it limits what any vessel can do in those waters.

The novel is a naval story rather than a political one, and it keeps its attention on what a single destroyer can achieve against an invasion that has already begun. The crew's options narrow as the polar weather closes in.