Antarctica

Rating:
Summary: Weaker than expected. Nothing new after the Mars Trilogy.
Review: This book isn't one of KSR's stronger works. It's largely derivative from the powerful Mars Trilogy (which everyone should read!) and founders quite a bit, both in character and plot. Much as I hate to admit it, I found myself skipping pages just to get to meatier parts.

If you've read the Mars trilogy, you might even consider passing on this book, and reading _The Wild Shore_ instead. If you haven't read the Mars trilogy, what are you waiting for??? Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: What can I say, it's KSR.
Review: I fell in love with KSR's work with Red Mars (and subsequently spent several years finding a first edition hardcover).

Some people complain about the 'tangents' or 'minutae', but that's just what makes his work so real. You actually get to know these people, and care about them and their lives. It's something that's rare in science fiction, and which makes KSR my favorite writer of all time.

Rating:
Summary: snooooooooooooore
Review: As I slogged though the first 300 pages of this tome, I felt like I had endured the mental equivalent of what Scott and Amundsen went through trying to reach the Pole. After that I died just like Scott (or Amundsen, whichever).Put the book down with no regrets whatsoever. I really loved Red Mars, and found each successive book in that trilogy to be tougher to get through because of all the minutae and wisps of plot threads. Unfortunately Robinson seems to have gotten worse, not better since he finished with Mars.

Rating:
Summary: Painful Reading
Review: I bought this book to read on a long trip and it kept me occupied probably just because I had nothing else. I've long been a fan of arctic and antarctic adventure but this fictional antarctic adventure was absolutely painful. The futuristic plot was stupid at best and the characters were irritating. The book only received two stars instead of one because of its excellent research quality. Frequent excerpts describing past historic antarctic travel were well done and the exerpts on the geological aspects of Antarctica were fascinating. BUT... If I had no working knowledge of geology, I would have not only been lost but bored stiff. As it turns out I put the book down with 50 pages left and started on another. I will never regret not finishing the book. I could not have cared less how the pointless and implausible plot turned out and I wasted more than enough of my life getting as far as I did. For a truly enjoyable read, try "Endurance" by Caroline Alexander or "The Arctic Grail" by Pierre Burton.

Rating:
Summary: anticlimax
Review: I found Robinson's book to be much like Mount Erebus itself: difficult to scale in the beginning, exciting on the summit, cold on the trip down and painful in the end.

He should have called in a "Search And Rescue" mission to chop the last 180 pages down to a more merciful, less cumbersome 20 or so.

I was very glad to finally stumble through- battered, bored, and convinced I'll never again sign up for another of Mr. Robinson's literary trekking expiditions. BPT

Rating:
Summary: For people who enjoyed the Mars Trilogy's unique style
Review: Many people have criticized the Mars Trilogy (and Antarctica as well) for being too long and containing too much information that does not necessarily have any direct impact upon the plot. Well if you're looking for a minimalist page-turner, those criticisms are valid and Robinson is not for you. However, some of us enjoy Robinson's books, especially Mars and Antarctica, because of those same things that many people criticize. These books are for true members of the information age--people who love to devour detailed information about numerous fascinating subjects. Reading one of Robinson's novels is like surfing the internet for detailed information on a hundred different fascinating scientific and cultural subjects, but having all this information packed into a story, told and experienced by interesting characters in rich settings. Robinson brazenly defies the idea that a novel should contain only information that has a direct impact on the plot. He realizes that life doesn't have concise, coherent plots, and so a story shouldn't either. Instead, Robinson describes the complete experiences of intelligent, sohpisticated characters and everything that those characters experience and think about over the course of the story. I loved it in the Mars Trilogy when characters would sit and talk about things like the science of color, or some obscure psychological theory, or certain kind of weather pattern, or a certain religion or political theory. There is a similar scene in Antarctica when a group of characters has a lengthy discussion about how scientists with different theories on a subject compete with each other for exposure, and this conversation goes on for a good fifty pages. None of these things had anything to do with a plot (hell, there wasn't any plot in the Trilogy,) but they were part of the experiences of the characters and therefore part of the story. Robinson's stories are about life. The whole shebang. And we read in awesome fascination as his brilliant characters experience life. But someone who is accustomed to reading supermarket paperbacks might not ctach on to this truly artistic form of literature that Robinson has mastered. But if you liked the sophisticated, information-rich style of the Mars Trilogy, you should enjoy Antarctica as well. It's not an epic trilogy about an entire planet, so don't expect another Mars trilogy or you will be disappointed. But it is the same sophisticated style in a shorter novel about a smaller, more down-to-Earth subject. Still, it's the style itself that makes Robinson's novels masterpieces.

Rating:
Summary: A Follow-Up Act
Review: Antarctica's most defining characteristic is that it follows on the heels of Robinson's Mars trilogy, which is some of the best science fiction anywhere. Unfortunately, this means the book has some enormous shoes to fill; and my rating is more a reflection of the fact that Robinson's narrative style, structure, and tactics are all quite familiar but are committed to a story whose scale and grandeur are considerably less than his previous work. The characters will be familiar to anyone who has read the Mars books, but they don't resonate the same way. Robinson has clearly done his homework on Antarctica, but the science, characters, and story aren't blended into the same kind of cohesive whole that so distinguishes the Mars books. Also, the recounting of early explorers' exploits and endurance is a bit volumous for my taste. The story principally follows two social misfits who have found themselves in the fledgling Antarctic society of the early twenty-first century and a Congressional aide has been sent by a forward-looking senator who wants to understand events unfolding at the bottom of the world. As is customary for Robinson's work, the narrative is stuffed with relevant science. Robinson uses the characters to show the reader what Antarctica is like, physically and socially. The plot climax and resolution are good but lack the drama of Robinson's earlier work. This book would be a good warm-up for someone who hasn't read the Mars books yet.

Rating:
Summary: Boring, no plot, a lot of descriptions
Review: If you want to know how Antartica is, this book is a must !. If you are looking for a story, a novel then you must avoid this book. Realy it is a very very slow book, full of detailed descriptions.

Rating:
Summary: Uplifting!
Review: I decided to read Antarctica because I loved the Mars trilogy so much and I was certainly not dissapointed. KS Robinson has obviously gone to a tremendous effort and goes to immense detail to make this book as vivid and lifelike a portrayal of Antarctica in the near future as possible. I just couldn't put it down! While I understand that some may find the immense detail of 'Antarctica' (or the Mars trilogy for that matter) to be mind numbing, I believe that the detail put into Robinson's books is what places them on a higher level. The characters, which often leave something to be desired in KSR's other books, are all likeable in this one. And as for the often oblique political references that some may object to... well, it is just a storybook, and maybe if these people took the time to read the arguments put forth in the dialogue of the characters instead of turning their noses in disgust and flipping across the offending pages they might understand where the author is coming from. My one criticism of the book is that in places within the last 250 or so pages it DOES get a little too far fetched which detracts somewhat from the rest of the book... and the ending is a bit too vague and inconclusive. At any rate I must commend the author for the vast scope of his tremendous imagination, for the huge amount of detail and research put into the history and geography of Antarctica.

Rating:
Summary: Antarctica
Review: Kim Stanley Robinson is well-known for his Mars saga set in the future on another planet, in Antarctica he brings his formidable talents closer to home to create a hair-raising possibility about our own last continent, the South Pole. Intertwined with rich historical information about the adventurers of yore, their feats and their fears, their beau gestes and their pettiness, Robinson has given us a relentlessly unfolding drama of corporate profit-taking at the expense of employees in the most hazardous of job sites; of ecology protectors contemplating insane protests; of ludicrous yet intensely frank real-time televised travelogues. In the beginning, it all seems so clean and mild. The only enemy the weather, then bad, strange things begin to happen. And as the cracks deepen this isolated community that depends upon the sanity of the whole to keep it from killing itself off, finds itself in dire straits from those coming in for fun, profit or politics. Interesting and didactic.