Saturday, April 20, 2002
Title: Antarctica
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager
The parallels between Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and this novel Antarctica should be clear. Setting his narratives against an extreme environmental background; in fact the group of colonists that were sent to Mars in Red Mars trained in Antarctica. With his extreme environmental background it is perhaps not then surprising that environmental issues are one of his key themes - Antarctica depicted as the planet's last great wilderness with a unique history and equally distinctive future. Here he places his characters in a period of flux - the treaties which protect Antarctica from exploitation have expired and various factions are jockeying for advantage and stalling renewal.
As with his Mars Trilogy Robinson manages to combine a level of politics and science that really fleshes out his topic as much as his characters. At times in the Mars trilogy I felt he went a little over the top with details, here he has either got the balance better or I am more used to his style. Leading the narrative are four main characters, though there are plenty of other people to be met. First off is Wade Norton, a senatorial aide for a notoriously eccentric senator, sent to Antarctica to get a feel for the place and find out what is going on there. Then there is X and Val, who were a couple last season, but X, general dogsbody and bottom rung worker, known by the size of his overalls rather than his name, has been cruelly dumped by Val the striking mountaineering guide. Lastly there is Ta Shu, a Chinese poet struck dumb by Antarctica on his first visit, returned renamed and as a Feng Shui geomancer. Through the first three we explore the situation, the factions, the scientists, encounters with eco-terrorists and nomads, new oil explorations and the blossoming adventure tourism industry. While Ta Shu provides the role of narrator to some degree, an observer who transmits his commentary back to his viewers in China - a mix of deep, poetic scene setting, observation and recounting the history of the continent and those who have explored it over the years.
Over the course of the book Robinson builds a situation where we are following these characters and their interactions. The human details of broken hearts, and the mistakes that led to them, the grind of the job and how the related ambitions allow the individual to fit (or not) into the rest of the world. These things guide how the characters will act when a sudden direct action by environmental terrorists affects everyone on the continent. The catalyst which drives his narrative to its peak and then in turn to resolution. The fact that he manages to tell a human story while educating the reader about the likes of Scott, Shackleton, Amundsen, global warming, the debate over how long the continent has actually been ice, is testament to Robinson's real ability as a writer.
RVWR:PTR
April 2002
