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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I love this book. It was the first I read from Kim Stanley Robinson, and I think this was the third time I have read it. The book mixes a lot of historical facts about Antarctica with very believable fictional plot and group of characters-very well done! And it's fascinating as well. I recommend it!
Not quite as compelling as the Mars series, and there are some tedious passages (either due to long drawn out description or characters reiterating views we've already seen them express), but overall a pleasant read.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Is 'landscape writer' a thing? Kim Stanley Robinson makes it his thing, and in this book he takes us to Antarctica, continent of ice and rock, the last great wilderness, a beautiful and deadly place.
I've been there, just as a tourist during one of the nicest summers on record, but KSR nails the ineffable qualities of the place and the strangeness of light and distance. Robinson spent a season in Antarctica with the NSF's Artists and Writer's Program, and it was time well spent on all sides. By far my favorite character was Ta Shu, a feng shui geomancer and artistic resident streaming the landscape back to an audience of millions with a running commentary on its five-dimensional harmony and nano-poems. Ta Shu feels both entirely authentic and very alien.
blue sky
white snow
There are more mundane people as well, and the A plot concerns the future of the Antarctica and the Earth, as scientists wrestle with evidence for the last warm period, support staff grumble under the feudal structure of science, oil exploration teams prepare to extract natural resources, 'native Antarcticans' try to stay below the radar, and ecological saboteurs plan a massive attack in the name of the planet. There's a sorta a love triangle between X, a blue collar General Field Assistant, Val, an elite expedition guide, and Wade, senator's aide, but the characters, while round and unique, feel somewhat muted compared to the landscape and the simply trials of getting anywhere alive on the continent. The only true shared culture of Antarctica; the early expeditions of Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen, come through again and again, along with the disagreements between different political factions. Though this is science fiction, the issues that Robinson explores are still very much alive.
I've been there, just as a tourist during one of the nicest summers on record, but KSR nails the ineffable qualities of the place and the strangeness of light and distance. Robinson spent a season in Antarctica with the NSF's Artists and Writer's Program, and it was time well spent on all sides. By far my favorite character was Ta Shu, a feng shui geomancer and artistic resident streaming the landscape back to an audience of millions with a running commentary on its five-dimensional harmony and nano-poems. Ta Shu feels both entirely authentic and very alien.
blue sky
white snow
There are more mundane people as well, and the A plot concerns the future of the Antarctica and the Earth, as scientists wrestle with evidence for the last warm period, support staff grumble under the feudal structure of science, oil exploration teams prepare to extract natural resources, 'native Antarcticans' try to stay below the radar, and ecological saboteurs plan a massive attack in the name of the planet. There's a sorta a love triangle between X, a blue collar General Field Assistant, Val, an elite expedition guide, and Wade, senator's aide, but the characters, while round and unique, feel somewhat muted compared to the landscape and the simply trials of getting anywhere alive on the continent. The only true shared culture of Antarctica; the early expeditions of Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen, come through again and again, along with the disagreements between different political factions. Though this is science fiction, the issues that Robinson explores are still very much alive.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Much more readable, for me, than the Mars books. Like them but in microcosm, smaller scale, more human. Valerie is a stand-out character (boy does this guy love his tall women). The way the stories come together and wrap up is a little out-of-nowhere, and no character truly drives the plot, but it is more about their collective experiences and transformations out on the ice allowing them to face up to the problems in their personal lives and in the world at large.
this book was like a mini version of KSR's mars trilogy--enjoyable for the same reasons but on a less epic scale. (i think the first mars book even starts out with the colonists training in antarctica, right?) anyway, this made me want to go to antarctica as much as the mars trilogy makes me want to go to mars! which is to say, a lot.
A low 4. Nothing I disliked, just didn't feel like the plot was thick enough to support the length. After Deepwater Horizon, the optimism for the extraction industry feels odd. I wonder in general how KSR feels about the feasibility of some of the ideas here, 20 years later.
With editing, this could have been a great book. The story involving the main characters was very good. After Val led her group to safety I said “WOW” out loud. The best parts of the book echoed reading about Shackleton and other Antarctic expeditions. It also reminded me of James Rollins novels. Unfortunately, the story was 1/2 of the book at most.
There were hundreds of pages about politics, the role of science in society, environmental issues that were a slog. The latter part of the book mostly dropped the characters and suffocated into a philosophical debate about how Antarctica should be governed.
There were hundreds of pages about politics, the role of science in society, environmental issues that were a slog. The latter part of the book mostly dropped the characters and suffocated into a philosophical debate about how Antarctica should be governed.
I love Kim Stanley Robinson and really enjoyed this read. There's a lot on the history of Antarctica and the infodumps he is known/loved/hated for and it wasn't revolutionary but it was right in the groove of what I expected from a Stan Robinson book. Glad I read it.