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{{Short description|1959 novel by Kobo Abe}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Infobox book
| name = ''Inter Ice Age 4''
| image = File:Dai-Yon Kampyōki.jpg
| image_size =
| border =
| alt =
| caption = Cover of 1st Japanese edition
| author = [[Kōbō Abe]]
| title_orig = 第四間氷期<br />Dai-Yon Kampyōki
| orig_lang_code =
| title_working =
| translator = [[E. Dale Saunders]]
| illustrator = Abe Machi
| cover_artist =
| country = [[Japan]]
| language = Japanese
| series =
| release_number =
| subject =
| genre = [[Science fiction]]
| set_in =
| publisher = [[Kodansha]]
| publisher2 =
| pub_date = 1959
| english_pub_date = 1970
| published =
| media_type = Print
| pages =
| awards =
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| preceded_by = 
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| native_wikisource =
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| website =
}}

'''''Inter Ice Age 4''''' (第四間氷期, ''Dai-Yon Kampyōki'') is an early [[science fiction]] novel by [[Japan]]ese writer [[Kōbō Abe]] originally serialized in the journal ''Sekai'' from [[1958 in literature|1958]] to [[1959 in literature|1959]]. In [[1970 in literature|1970]] the book became the first Japanese science fiction novel to appear in [[English language|English]], in a translation by [[United States|American]] scholar [[E. Dale Saunders]].<ref name="Extrapolation">"Japanese Science Fiction in English Translation" by John L. Apostolou, [[Extrapolation (journal)|Extrapolation]], volume 25, number 1, spring 1984, page 84.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/koboabe.htm |title=Kobo Abe |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121117013431/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/koboabe.htm |archivedate=17 November 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=John|first=Clute|title=Abe Kobo|url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/abe_kobo|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|publisher=Orion Publishing Group}}</ref>

==Plot summary==
In the third edition of ''[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]'', author and critic [[John Clute]] writes of ''Inter Ice Age 4'': "It is a complex story set in a near-future Japan threatened by the melting polar ice caps. The protagonist, Professor Katsumi, has been in charge of developing a computer/information system capable of predicting human behavior. Fatally for him, this system predicts his compulsive refusal to go along with his associates and his government in the creation of [[Genetic engineering|genetically engineered]] children, adapted for life in the rising seas. Most of the novel, narrated by Katsumi, deals with a philosophical confrontation between his deeply alienated refusal of the future and the computer's knowing representations of that refusal and the alternatives to it. The resulting psychodramas include a mysterious murder and the enlistment of his unborn child into the ranks of the mutated water-breathers."<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Clute|first=John|title=Abe Kobo|url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/abe_kobo|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|publisher=Orion Publishing Group}}</ref>

Plot elements include: submersion of the world caused by melting polar ice, genetic creation of gilled children for the coming underwater age, and a fortune-telling computer predicting the future and advising humans how to deal with it.<ref>{{cite web|title=Not just a Gibson Clone: An Interview with Goro Masaki|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080316223825/http://www.centerforbookculture.org/review/02_2_inter/interview_masaki.html|archive-date=2008-03-16|url=http://www.centerforbookculture.org/review/02_2_inter/interview_masaki.html}}</ref> Because a similar computer in Moscow is being used to make political forecasts, the institute of a [[Tokyo]] professor decides to avoid politics and try to foresee the future of an individual. A man is picked, apparently at random, only to be murdered before he can be programmed, but the computer can still read his mind. The resulting involvements are complicated by a climatic shift – Inter Ice Age 4 – that puts Earth underwater.

==Literary significance==
In his ''[[The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]'', [[United Kingdom|British]] author and critic [[Brian Ash (bibliographer)|Brian Ash]] calls the English translation of the novel "flat" and "featureless", but notes that this "could not smother the miracle of [Abe's] use of biology to attack racism at its very root, asking what will be our attitudes to those whom we ourselves design for life in alien habitats?"<ref>{{cite book|last=Ash|first=Brian|title=The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction|url=https://archive.org/details/visualencycloped00ashb|url-access=registration|year=1977|publisher=Harmony Books|location=New York|isbn=0-517-531747|pages=[https://archive.org/details/visualencycloped00ashb/page/261 261]}}</ref>

Scholar Robert L. Trent writes of the novel's themes: "Genetic engineering succeeds in creating an aquatic human, but people feel the sapping of their own sense of identity as people, since after the flood, only the aquatic humans will be 'people'. As one can see, the crisis of alienation and the crisis of identity are great concerns of Abe Kobo."<ref>{{cite web|last=Trent|first=Robert|title=Abe Kobo: A Study and a Translation|url=http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=utk_chanhonoproj|publisher=University of Tennessee, Knoxville}}</ref>

In his introduction to a pair of Abe's essays published in the November, 2002 issue of ''[[Science Fiction Studies]]'', Christopher Bolton writes: "Abe's work in the 1950s included short stories about robots, suspended animation, and alien visitation, but it was the 1959 publication of his novel ''Dai yon kanpyôki'' (''Inter Ice Age 4'', 1970) that marked a real turning point for SF in Japan. Incorporating hard-science elements on a scale that no Japanese novelist had attempted, Abe nevertheless pushed the story toward a disturbing, almost surreal conclusion. A number of critics have identified ''Inter Ice Age 4'' as Japan's first full-length science fiction novel, and a work that helped jump start Japanese interest in the genre."<ref>{{cite web|last=Bolton|first=Christopher|title=Introduction|url=https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/88/abe.htm|work=Two Essays on Science Fiction|publisher=Science Fiction Studies}}</ref>

''A Companion to Crime Fiction'' describes ''Inter Ice Age 4''
as a 'metaphysical detective story', comparing it with [[Andrew Crumey]]'s [[Mobius Dick]] and [[Haruki Murakami]]'s [[Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World]], 'linking apocalyptic science fiction and metaphysical detective/mystery stories through antiphonal narratives, alternating "science" and "mystery" to yield reciprocal modes of displacement.'<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rzepka |first1=Charles J. |last2=Horsley |first2=Lee|date=2020 |title=A Companion to Crime Fiction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=euzcDwAAQBAJ |location= |publisher=Wiley |page=319 |isbn=9781405167659}}</ref>

''Inter Ice Age 4'' was the first Japanese science fiction novel to be translated into English, in a 1970 translation by [[United States|American]] scholar [[E. Dale Saunders]].<ref name="Extrapolation"/>

==References==
{{Reflist}}
* [[Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD]]: "Abe Kōbō"

==External links==
*{{ISFDB title|id=3650}} (Lists the Japanese editions plus all translations)
*{{ISFDB title|id=186737}} (only lists English language translations)
*''[[iarchive:intericeage400abek|Inter Ice Age 4]]'' at the [[Internet Archive]]
*[https://kimon.hosting.nyu.edu/sites/science-fiction/2018/10/03/techno-anxiety-apocalyptic-paranoia-in-post-ww2-japan-kobo-abes-inter-ice-age-4 Tech Anxiety & Apocalyptic Paranoia in Post-WW2 Japan: Kobo Abe’s ''Inter Ice Age 4''] article which also includes some of Abe Machi's illustrations

{{Kōbō Abe}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Novels by Kōbō Abe]]
[[Category:1959 science fiction novels]]
[[Category:Japanese science fiction novels]]

Inter Ice Age 4 - Revision history

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