Antarctica

Antarctica

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72  ·  rating details  ·  1,113 ratings  ·  84 reviews
From the award-winning author of the Mars Trilogy comes a thrilling new novel....

Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning Mars trilogy, is one of the most original and visionary writers of fiction today. Now, in his latest novel, he takes us to a harsh, alien landscape covered by a sheet of ice two miles deep. This is no distant planet--it is the l...more
Paperback, 672 pages
Published July 6th 1999 by Bantam (first published July 1st 1998)
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Sachahaworth
This story follows the inhabitants of an Antartic research station, dealing with the intermingling of their lives and their response to an ecological terrorist attack.

KSR spends the first half of the book setting up a vivid world of blinding whiteness and spends a great deal of time fleshing out the characters who inhabit it. There's the brooding, directionless X, the enthusiastic civil servant Wade, the bitter expedition guide Val and the feng-shui poet Ta Shu. The chapters hop between the exp...more
Juliet Wilson
This novel published in 1998 is set in an imagined Antarctica of the early twenty-first century

There is an odd feeling of reading about a future that isn't quite the future but nor is it the present that it's somehow supposed to be. Other than that though, this is an excellent piece of speculative fiction - gripping and meticulously researched (Robinson spent time in Antarctica as part of the US Antarctic Program's Artist and Writer Program).

This is an Antarctica fought over by African oil compa...more
Sl Jenan
How to rate this book? On its own terms, probably a three-star effort. The knowledge of the author was excellent (his having lived in Antarctica was evident). BUT-- I didn't enjoy being lectured for the final quarter of the book. Yeah, I get it, humans=bad, corporations=bad, eco-freaks=good. But you see, I've been a boss for 15 years, and I don't idolize 'the worker' quite so much as the author does here. Which is not to say I don't appreciate my employees, and the work they do. But 'co-op'? Exp...more
Jan Bednarczuk
Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica is the rare sort of book that can make the walls dissolve around you while reading it, so that you are no longer surrounded by the comfortable environs of your living room, or bedroom, but rather are completely immersed in the world described by the novelist: in this case, the knee-weakening, heartache beauty of the frozen southern continent.

I was not surprised to find, when reading the acknowledgments at the end, that Robinson has actually visited Antarctica h...more
Hollowman
(in progress review...)

Sampling the first chapter and having a rough time immersing myself in KSR's continent. (I had similar difficulties with Robinson's RED MARS **). The sci is ok but the plot/story is dull and incredulous.

A great 3-part series from BBC -- made around the same period of this books orig. copyright -- is far more engaging WRT "accessing" Antarctica.

Note: KSR has physically been there. I'm sure HE knows what HE's describing.

Bottom line: for such a visual/sensual/sensory topic...more
Lisa
I had some difficulty getting into this book, but the pace finally picks up. This novel deals with an "ecotage" in Antarctica and fictional politics and factions. I enjoyed the historical commentary of Antarctica in the novel. An enjoyable read if you have time to read 412 pages and are patient.
Heather
I enjoyed this book, but I can see what one of my co-workers meant when he told me that Kim Stanley Robinson takes a long time to set up a story. I think I got to about page 400 before things really started happening.

It was oddly-paced, yet also oddly interesting. It focuses on three main characters--Wade Norton, a senator's aide, Valerie "Val" Kenning, a mountaineer and wilderness guide, and "X" (I don't think we're ever given his real name), a grunt worker in Antarctica. Wade comes to the cont...more
 Jessica
I wanted this book to be gripping, science-y, and intelligent. I liked the historical information, I liked the scenes where the scientists got to sit around and talk science. I liked the endless descriptions of Antarctic landscape and climate.

I hated the characters and how they were "written." I'm using scare-quotes around that word because I don't feel there was much actual novel-writing going on here. KSR seemed incapable of illustrating his characters outside of having them internal-monologu...more
Joe Chaves
It was pretty much a microcosm of his Mars series. There was a world apart from the "real world". It's looked at as a model for how the real world could work if they followed the example. There were ecotuers, a mountaineer, a senator looking to change the world, a zen buddist, a hidden "colony", and a "regular" guy named simply "X".
It was good. He makes you excited to see Antarctica for yourself. Makes you excited about science and being "in the world".
It was a long book, and sometimes dry. But...more
Lauri
I read this book because my dad spent several months in Antarctica many years ago and has a mountain named after him there. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this book - honestly, I wasn't expecting much. It was a big, sweeping novel sort of reminiscent of James Michener. The descriptions of the place were beautiful and haunting - much like the continent, I'd imagine. Definitely worth it, especially if you've ever wondered what it might be like to drop out of society for awhile and...more
A. Bowdoin Van Riper
It happened again: I tried to read a Kim Stanley Robinson novel and put it down before I was halfway through. Don't take that as a bad review, though, or let it put you off picking up the book yourself. You should pick it up Antarctica, at least to try: It's packed with atmospheric writing, details of life on the ice, and glimpses into the history of polar exploration . . . not to mention a plot involving ecoterrorism, international relations, really bad weather, and intrigue both personal and p...more
Ursula
The book portraits a number of people either working in Antarctica, or having connections to Antarctica, their lives, their philosophies, their friends. Through their stories, the author also recaps the history of the continent, namely the early explorations (Scott, Amundsen, and others).
The story then culminates in dramatic events, that bring all protagonists together, and surprisingly ends happily.

Most of the Antarctic story takes place in NSF research facilities (that's the National Science...more
Barbara ★
I really wanted to give this more stars but I just can't. Though a huge effort obviously went into researching and writing this novel, over half of the 672 pages is boring as hell and difficult to slog through. The scientific parts are too detailed and the average person would have absolutely no idea what they are talking about (including me). Oh I got the gist of the discussions but the minutia came across as the author just showing off his new-found knowledge. In some instances this informatio...more
Jackmccullough
In Antarctica Kim Stanley Robinson portrays life on Antarctica as life on another planet, alien to life in "the world" and as dangerous and filled with wonder as life on another planet in other sci-fi novels. Robinson, the author of the Mars trilogy (Red, Green, Blue), does a good job of showing both the appeal of life on Antarctica and the challenges faced by Antarctic explorers, both the real explorers from the early Twentieth Century and the characters in the not-too-distant, different but re...more
Rebecca
Oct 27, 2008 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: KSM fans, sf fans who want to try something different
I have to say, Antartica is me coming back to Kim Stanley Robinson after I gave up on him midway through his Washington Trilogy (at the end of Fifty Degrees Below for those of you keeping score at home). Like the Mars trilogy and the Washington trilogy, Antartica has themes of ecology, scientific advance and social organization. While it would be foolish to assume that every author's views match his or her subject matter, one starts to sense a pattern.

Antarctica is that blurry line between co...more
Robert
Sep 04, 2011 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of KSR and cold weather.
Shelves: scifi
This the most perfect novel by KSR that I've read. The Mars books and Galileo's dream were more ambitious and perhaps achieved more but at the cost of some flaws. That often seems to happen when writers really reach out and try to grasp something big and complicated but I would encourage them to try it anyway...however Antarctica tackles a fair bit and succeeds every which way I look at it: narrative drive, characterisation, subtext, prose style (apart from an occassional jarring line here and t...more
Dorene
One of Kim Stanley Robinson's eco thrillers! As the title indicates, Antarctica is set in Antarctica in the near future. As the global human population soars, Antarctica remains the last true wilderness still on the planet. With the expiration of the Antarctic Treaty, developed and developing countries alike look to the frozen continent for solutions to their energy and mineral resource needs. Scientists study the vast warming region for clues to geologic events of the past. Vacation adventurers...more
Bookman8
While written by a science fiction writer of note, this is an environmental study in fictional form of Antarctica at some point in the future. Some good descriptive writing. The author uses many interesting techniques to capture your inner vision of a place.

He proposes "ferals" who actually live in the Antarctic in small communities. A good job of examining many of the environmental issues, but, as often happens, the author begins to proselytize and preach in the last eighty pages. Different.
Jonna
Jan 03, 2009 Jonna added it
Shelves: favorites
I love all the descriptions of the landscape, which helped me learn to love the cold where I live. I love the character of Val and her relentless cheerfulness as a moral virtue. I love Ta Shu and I always find myself saying "This is a good place," though no one else gets it. And if it wouldn't make me sound weird, I would also go around saying "is possible" and "is not possible." I just love the simultaneous every-dayness and the otherworldliness that Robinson can conjure in his writing.
Eddy Allen
Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning Mars trilogy, is one of the most original and visionary writers of fiction today. Now, in his latest novel, he takes us to a harsh, alien landscape covered by a sheet of ice two miles deep. This is no distant planet--it is the last pure wilderness on earth.

A stark and inhospitable place, its landscape poses a challenge to survival; yet its strange, silent beauty has long fascinated scientists and adventurers. Now Antarctica faces...more
Chris W
I am sorry to say that I really did not find this book all that enjoyable. I tried to like it, I wanted to like it, but I could not. It is largely an environmental piece on Antarctica. In this way, it has a very accurate and genuine feel -- countless chapters are spent trying to describe the place and the people who have inhabited it. The author even tries to come up with "neat" settings and characters, but somehow the whole thing falls flat. Having waited a week to write this review, I really c...more
Vamshidhar
Kim Stanley Robinson is an excellent sci-fi author, and if you like sci-fi, you should definitely read his Mars trilogy. This book is different, it's set in the present (late 90s when the book was published) in Antarctica. It still retains much of his writing style from the Mars trilogy and is an entertaining read. Highly recommended if Antarctica is a place that fascinates you. If not, you're probably not missing much by not reading it.
Warnie B.
Dec 28, 2012 Warnie B. rated it 4 of 5 stars
Recommended to Warnie B. by: Jodi Bolen
I really liked this one--but then, pretty much any book about Antarctica is like crack to me. The pacing is fairly slow, which some people seem to have been bothered by but which I enjoyed because it makes Antarctica feel like a character in its own right. I also very much appreciated the romance because at the beginning I assumed it would be all angsty drama with some sort of ridiculous polar sex scene thrown in at some point for effect. But no! Thank you, Kim Stanley Robinson! And while some f...more
Susan Chamberlain
This was a really good adventure story. Based in a future so near that it's hard to tell when the real science ends and the speculative science ends, it unfolds in the typical Robinson fashion, with multiple interwoven story lines. It was not quite as good as Red Mars, but close enough that I would recommend it to other readers.
Gendou
There was nothing wrong with this book, but it wasn't exciting, either.
I am glad to have learned all about the expeditions to the south pole.
The characters were pretty good, and there was plenty of Geo-politics.
Despite being set in the future, this book didn't speculate much at all.
It didn't add any new ideas to the science fiction culture.
But it did have some beautiful nature scenes, which made for a worthy read.
Sharla
This novel takes place in a near-distant future, when the interests of oil exploration companies, scientists, tourists, and environmentalists all converge on Antarctica. Some parts of this book were spectacularly good, a true adventure story that had me turning the pages. Other parts of this book were long-winded and preachy, and the important message got lost in long dull paragraphs. It's a fitting novel for our time, though. I would actually give it 3.5 stars!
Andreas
This book reprises much of the feel the Mars Trilogy. Once again, this is a story about grass roots insurrection, freedom and societal evolution. But no real plot, or did I miss it again? I derived my enjoyment purely from my interest in Antarctica. It is forgettable otherwise.

http://www.books.rosboch.net/?p=1215
Kevin
Extremely slow going for the first 300 (yes 300 pages). I love Antarctic history and have read many of the explorer diaries of the time. This didn't really get going at all for me although I did enjoy the references to Shackleton and Scott and indeed New Zealand as I live there.
Jenna
Part of me loved this book and part of me hated it. I have somewhat of an obsession with Antarctica, but when faced with my nemesis, Science Fiction, I balked a bit. The book was written in the late 1990's and set now-ish. If you can ignore the occasional weird "future"ism (everyone has fax machines! And wrist phones!), which are no fault of the author and every fault of the passage of time, and the overly in-crowd feeling of place-name-dropping (the author was a writer in residence at McMurdo,...more
Kristine
Reading this book while in Antarctica probably helped my appreciation for it; that said, it's an amazingly accurate depiction of research on the southern continent and a fun story besides. Definitely a great book to read on a research cruise between gravity measurements!
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Antarctica (Hardcover)
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Antarctica (Paperback)
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Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer, probably best known for his award-winning Mars trilogy.

His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the 15 years of research and lifelong fascination with Mars which culminated in his most famous work. He has, due to his...more
More about Kim Stanley Robinson...
Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1) Green Mars (Mars Trilogy, #2) Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy, #3) The Years of Rice and Salt 2312

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