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Title: "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.
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