Antarctica

Rating:
Summary: Stan In The Doldrums Is Still In The Top 2% Of Writers
Review: Don't get me wrong. Antarctica is a fine piece of work. There is mystery, intrigue, complex characterization, social commentary, and excellent hard science. KSR spent enough time in the Antarctic as part of the US Antarctic's Artists and Writers' Program to firmly get a sense of the place, its beauty, its allure, and the unforgiving cold. Although he opens the book with a majestically poetic hymn to the loneliness of ice, he fails to follow through consistantly on this sense of place. For a true sense of the Antarctic one might do better to go to a source that Robinson himself acknowledges frequently throughout the book: Apsley Cherry-Garrard's "Worst Journey In The World." Robinson returns to a number of his Mars themes: ecology, geology, and the politics of virgin land. But he covers very little new ground (indeed, fans will recall that Red Mars even had a chapter or two that took place in Antarctica), and there is a curious softness to both his political vision and his ecological vigilance that causes the one to worry that he's losing his edge. The book is absorbing, thought-provoking, well written, and worth reading for both Sci-Fi fans and readers of mainstream fiction, yet a niggling question remains: is Stan going the way of William Gibson?

Rating:
Summary: The New York Times Book Review; July 12th, 1998
Review: "There is no finer writer of science fiction today than Kim Stanley Robinson, and he is at the top of his form in ANTARCTICA ... a body of work distinguished by two elements all too rare in modern science fiction: a sense of character and a sense of place. Robinson writes about geography and geology with the intensity and unhurried attention to detail of a John McPhee. This is fiction so sturdily underpinned by facts that you might forget the story takes place sometime in the next century."

Rating:
Summary: One of Robinson's very best!
Review: I have read everything he's written and consider this to be one of his best, along with "The Gold Coast" and "Pacific Edge." The characters are three dimensional, the settings magnificently drawn, and the plot engaging. Robinson is usually stronger on socio-politics and the environment than he is on plot and this is no exception. But the plot held me, the characters were people I already know or would like to know, and the descriptions of Antartica were so vivid that I now want to add that continent to my travel list.

I liked the Mars trilogy but felt it should have been edited down to no more than two books. This book does it all with far greater tightness.

If you are disinterested in the history of the earlier explorations of Antartica you may find those passages too long, although I found them fascinating. But a little skimming won't detract from your enjoyment of the rest of the book.

This a winner, should be a nominee for both of the most prestigious sci-fi awards, and also should be a book that the "mainstream" critics pay attention to.

Rating:
Summary: "Mars"message, brought to earth
Review: Antarctica is a good book. Not great, but good. Readers of the Mars trilogy will, I feel, be disappointed with the repetitive plot and slow storyline. Personally, I feel the biggest problem is with the characterization--the characters remain quite unfinished despite the excrutiatingly long life histories described. But, there are good...no, Great things to be said for the book. First, I must say the description of the landscape is marvelous. Who thought snow & ice could look so good. Secondly, the message is blatant. Robinson's Mars stories had strong (an understatement) environmental themes to them. Great stories, but the trilogy was "science fiction." Some (not me, mind you) see this as an excuse to ignore the message. Antarctica, though, is NOT sci-fi. It is here and now--almost. The close proximity in time and space brings the message to the forefront. There is no way to ignore it. Kudos to Robinson on that! Other than that though, ...eh, 's'alright I guess.

Rating:
Summary: Mars Trilogy redux
Review: I'd been eagerly awaiting Robinson's new book - maybe too much so, admittedly, given the expectations he'd raised with the magnificent Mars Trilogy. But Antarctica is a disappointment: there's about 60 pages of story in the 400-page novel. Characters and situations are watered-down versions of their Mars analogs. Disappointingly, he hasn't advanced his program for economic, social and spiritual reform: I was hoping for something more than was presented in Blue Mars, and got the same, but less. One real strength of the book is his facility with creating tomorrow's future, in describing technology that doesn't quite exist yet, but is perfectly familiar. While passages of his prose are brilliant, in Antarctica his impulse to include every kitchen sink of his research really gets the better of him. Still, he's Robinson, and I don't know of anybody else with as lucid and passionate an opposition to modern capitalism. Antarctica is worth reading, but if you want real brilliance, re-read the Mars Trilogy

Rating:
Summary: One of Robinson's very best!
Review: I have read everything he's written and consider this to be one of his best, along with "The Gold Coast" and "Pacific Edge." The characters are three dimensional, the settings magnificently drawn, and the plot engaging. Robinson is usually stronger on socio-politics and the environment than he is on plot and this is no exception. But the plot held me, the characters were people I already know or would like to know, and the descriptions of Antartica were so vivid that I now want to add that continent to my travel list.

I liked the Mars trilogy but felt it should have been edited down to no more than two books. This book does it all with far greater tightness.

If you are disinterested in the history of the earlier explorations of Antartica you may find those passages too long, although I found them fascinating. But a little skimming won't detract from your enjoyment of the rest of the book.

This a winner, should be a nominee for both of the most prestigious sci-fi awards, and also should be a book that the "mainstream" critics pay attention to.

Rating:
Summary: the Mars trilogy, set in Antartica, and trimmed to one book
Review: The title of this review is an accurate summation of my opinion of the book: it is, in all important aspects, nothing more than a retelling of the groundbreaking Mars trilogy ("Red Mars", "Green Mars", and "Blue Mars"). Robinson chose to set this novel in Antartica, and trimmed the page count down to a single book.

The book has strong points. Cutting the basic story back to a single book removes some of Robinson's worst excesses in the Mars trilogy. The handwaving about perfect communist communities is reduced to a tolerable level. Unnecessary technical details are kept to a minimum; there is just enough to make the story accessible to an audience that is not familiar with the technology used in ultra-cold conditions.

The book also has weak points. Cutting the basic story back to a single book removes much of the exposition and character development. Details about Wade's life in DC are given, but they never come into play again. The ecoteur is barely sketched. In the final third of the book, we suddenly find a group of people who have gone native in Antartica; this group is used as a deus ex machina to save many of the main characters. X goes from a whiner who can't get over Val to a well-spoken organiser of a co-operative enterprise.

The book isn't a bad one. It feels jagged in places, and certainly could have used a fair amount of additional exposition. The story moves along pretty well (and certainly better than the Mars trilogy does). If you have read the Mars trilogy, you can safely skip this novel. If you read this book and like it well enough, you should read the whole Mars trilogy to see where Robinson takes the ideas.

Rating:
Summary: Great Robinson Tale
Review: Antarctica is probably my favorite KSR book, of the 10 or so I've read. I love his vision of the continent and the stories of the people who live there. Fun adventures, likeable characters, and amazing descriptions of settings. Plus, although the Mars trilogy is great, Antarctica is a little less intimidating to get into- you don't end up becoming devoted to thousands of pages of reading to enjoy it.

Rating:
Summary: A bit tedious, but better than the Mars books
Review: I find Kim Stanley Robinson a bit of a hard slog to read. It is like he is showing off about all the clever bits of information he knows about Antarctica or Mars. I am a Geologist, and I have been to Antarctica, so I know can understand all the technical jargon, but I think many would get snowed under in all the fine detail which isn't necessary for the plot and I just feel like he is going 'see how smart I am'.

I also found the characters to be pretty much the same as in the Mars trilogy. The asian/eskimo alternative lifestyle guru, the crazy russian guy, the hurt, driven woman, etc.

I liked the gist of the story, but a bit too tedious.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable but Uneven Book
Review: I almost began this review by saying that I am not a fan of Robinson. However, that would be incomplete; I have only read one other of Robinson's books--The Years of Rice and Salt--and based on that book, I have not tried any of his others, even his highly-regarded Mars trilogy. If you loved "The Years of Rice and Salt," you should probably read a different review, because we don't share similar sensibilities; I didn't like that book at all.

That being said, this is an enjoyable but very uneven book. The view of Antartic life is wonderful, both the Polar culture and that of McMurdo. The scene of those two places is well drawn, interesting, and involving. I really came to enjoy several of the characters, even though most of them are--let's be honest--pretty sparsely drawn or even two-dimensional. But still, Wade, X, and especially Spiff and Viktor were enjoyable folks to read about. Their adventures, little and big, made fun reading, and of course the setting is simply awesome. I think Robinson does an especially good job bringing home to you the vastness, cold, and emptiness of Antarctica (I had a friend who went there for several seasons doing graduate research).

Unfortunately, I have two big problems with this book: the action is very uneven, and one of main characters--Val--I found stupendously annoying. One at a time.

First, the action. I honestly believe that *everyone* will find this book uneven, and will love some of it, and hate other parts. The dicey bit is, we're all going to love and hate different things. For example, a large portion of the book is taken up with an adventure trek (much like today's adventure climbs up Everest) along the same path that Amundsen, the first man to make it to the South Pole, took. I found almost all of this stupendously dull. Frankly, I couldn't care less. There is an especially long section where Val, the guide for the trekkers, is leading them on a long march across the Antarctic plateau, and it goes on for nearly 25 pages. Walking. A little dialogue, a lot of internal monologue (the guide's) and a whole lot of walking. 25 pages. Forgive me, but for me, that's stupifying. Indeed, on re-reading, I skip the whole thing.

But perhaps for you, it would be the best part of the novel, and the things that I love--such as the sub-culture of the folks who are at the Pole--would bore you to tears. It's hard to say. But I'm fairly confident that *some* of it will be interesting, and some of it dull. You've been duly warned.

With regard to Val, I will say little. She is a main character, and it's always a tough ride when you dislike a main character. Let me just say this: she keeps saying (and thinking and showing by her behavior) that she is "toast," i.e. done being a guide in Antarctica. Well, I got it the first time; I really didn't need to be told another half dozen or more times. I also found her approach to relationships pretty irritating, her view of men simplistic and absurd, and her physical attributes (how many women does one meet who are 6'4"? I've met exactly, um, none) to be almost unbelievable. But who knows; you might like her. In fact, there are probably plenty of folks who do.

So there you have it. I like this book enough to re-read it, but it's uneveness really gets to me. It's like going to a 2.5 star movie; you just *know* that it *could* have been so much better that you can't decide if you're more frustrated, or entertained.