Category Archives: Antarctica

Review: In Cold Pursuit by Sarah Andrews

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I’m aiming for the expert’s level in the 2010 Global Reading Challenge which requires me to read, among other things, two books set in Antarctica. It was surprisingly difficult to find anything other than testosterone-fuelled thrillers or sci-fi adventures for this setting so I was quite pleased to stumble across 2007’s In Cold Pursuit which is a genuine murder mystery for my 7th official book in the challenge.

Valena Walker is a young glaciology graduate student who has secured a place on Professor Emmett Vanderzee’s Antarctic team. Unfortunately upon arrival in Antarctica she is told that Vanderzee  has been arrested and taken back to the US and she too will have to leave as soon as there’s a spare seat on a flight out. Walker discovers that during the previous year’s work on the continent a journalist who was critical of Vanderzee’s work died from what was thought to be altitude sickness while on a visit to Vanderzee’s camp but now new evidence indicates the death was not an accident. Desperate not to leave Antarctica she decides to investigate the matter to see if she can determine what really happened.

The standout feature of the novel for me was the picture it painted of life in Antarctica. Unlike other books I’ve read that are set there, the action in this one takes place in and around McMurdo Station which is a temporary home to more than 1300 people and I’d never really thought about Antarctica having its own small town before. With talk of ‘the season’, the need to haul in all the equipment and supplies one might need from half a world away and the competition between research teams for resources and kudos I was reminded of the many books I’ve read (fact and fiction) based in and around early archaeological digs in Egypt. I don’t know if the author has been there (her website says she was hoping to go there but it hasn’t been updated for quite some time) or has just spoken to people who have but she certainly made it seem very realistic and provided quite fascinating details of day-to-day life in the crowded isolation. Not surprisingly, because Andrews is a geologist and a professor, the scientific details and discussions about science-related issues such as global warming have an air of authenticity and add an interesting aspect to the book.

As far as characterisations go I thought the best of these were at a group level rather than an individual one. We are shown the scientists (beakers), the tractor drivers (with their own very Pythonesque club), the administrators and so on and, as much as any group generalisation can be realistic, these felt quite natural and showed what kinds of people might be drawn to work in such a place and how they might react to the location. We don’t really get to know any single person other than Valena in any depth and for me this is a bit of a disappointment as I’d much rather get to know individuals. Valena is depicted quite realistically for the most part: generally strong with some credible glimpses of the uncertainties that a woman of her age would display in the kinds of stressful situations she encountered. I didn’t fall in love with her but liked her and wanted to see how things would turn out for her.

The only part of the book that was a bit of a letdown was the mystery itself. Although there are the requisite number of suspects and red-herrings there really isn’t much  in the way of suspense and for a good deal of the book there’s barely any action on the mystery front at all as we observe the day-to-day goings on at McMurdo. At times it felt like the author was trying to squeeze in all the interesting things she knew about living and working in Antarctica to the detriment sometimes of plot development.

Although it’s not the best example of a mystery you will find In Cold Pursuit is a good read, especially for those with an interest in science. It hasn’t convinced me that any scientific knowledge humanity has gained from our presence in Antarctica will prove to have been worth the cost of finding the last pristine bit of the planet and covering it in buildings, vehicles and all the other detritus that accompanies us wherever we go but I did enjoy it as a unique reading experience. It appears that all of Andrews’ previous novels feature a forensic geologist and amateur sleuth Em Hansen, a character who makes a brief appearance at the other end of an email in this novel, and I enjoyed this one enough to seek out another book in this series.

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My rating 3.5/5

Publisher: St Martin’s Paperbacks [2007]; ISBN: 9780312945961; Length 368 pages; Setting: Antarctica

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Review: Black Ice by Matt Dickinson

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My third book for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge took me to cold and lonely Antarctica

World-famous English explorer Julian Fitzgerald and a Norwegian colleague Carl Norland aim to be the first men to cross Antarctica at its widest point on foot. When things go wrong and they are forced to call for help the only chance of rescue is by land from a private scientific research base nearly 500 kilometres (300 miles) away. The base leader Lauren Burgess and her small team put their work on hold and race the clock to see if they can save the explorers before the long winter sets in and any form of rescue will be impossible.

This book had a strong sense of its setting. The isolation, vast distances, extreme weather and the razor-thin line between humans taming nature and becoming its victims are all extremely well depicted. I would like to have seen some exploration of the idea that perhaps it’s an inhospitable place for a reason and we should leave it alone but I admit that’s a personal bias. I did get a bit sick of everyone being talked about in heroic terms though, especially the two explorers. My take on people who do extreme things just because they can is more ‘arrogant fool’ than hero, especially when they expect other people to risk their own lives to save their sorry arses.

The story is quite compelling although it would have been more so with a bit tighter editing. However there are several suspenseful story arcs and some genuine surprises. Although marketed as a thriller it was far more subtle and introspective than the all-guns blazing kind of book that the ‘thriller’ term would suggest but I was nevertheless very keen to find out what happened in the end.

Where the book fell down for me was in the character development. I can’t really go into much detail without giving away huge spoilers but I think the characters lacked any real depth. The impact of this on the book was to have people at several key points engage in behaviour that I don’t think was at all realistic in the circumstances. Probably the best character was the narcissistic Julian Fitzgerald whose degeneration into paranoia did seem fairly credible given the things he was experiencing and doing but the rest were all a bit too unselfish for me to really believe in.

Overall though I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would at the outset (the first 30-40 pages are a bit slow) and as it’s the first book I’ve read specifically for a reading challenge (i.e. I would never have read it but for the need to read something set in Antarctica) I’m quite chuffed with this outcome.

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My rating 3.5/5

Publisher: Hutchinson [2002]; ISBN: 978-0-312-98932-3 Length: 392 pages Setting Antarctica present-day

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Do check out the Global Reading Challenge blog to see what exotic locations the 69 (so far) challenge participants have been visiting

Review: Freezing Point by Karen Dionne

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Title: Freezing Point

Author: Karen Dionne

Publisher: Jove Books [2008]

ISBN: 978-0-515-14536-6

The world’s supply of fresh water is decreasing right at the point need for the commodity is increasing exponentially so it seems only natural that some corporation headed by someone evil will try to melt any icebergs created at the planet’s poles and sell the resulting water to the highest bidder. Equally naturally are environmentalists who are opposed to this idea and will take violent actions to make their point. Throw in an unknown virus, a new breed of animal and a few severe storms and you have the basic building blocks of Freezing Point.

The elements of a story I would like are present here: a remote location, environmental activists, sinister corporations, vaguely plausible science, and, at least potentially, a strong female character. However it’s not enough for a book to tick all the boxes, it still has to have an engaging story that links all the elements together and engrosses you so heavily that you forget you’ve read a load of books in the genre. This one didn’t achieve that for me. The story, such as it was, was entirely predictable from the outset, contained a load of half-finished threads that were plain annoying and had science and environmental messages so clunkily inserted into the narrative that the thing consistently felt more like a text book or a lefty diatribe than the thriller it was purported to be. I abhor being preached at in my fiction.

Also, while thrillers are allowed (even supposed) to have a series of unlikely events occurring simultaneously to create the perfect storm (literal or metaphorical) I need some realism in the mix. So many people in this story took such unrealistic actions that I rarely got past the ‘that just wouldn’t happen even in fiction-land’ mindset.

The book had a lot of characters introduced in quick succession and many were never heard from again so keeping track of who they all were and where they fit into the big picture required more effort than it should have done. None of them were fleshed out well enough to be truly engaging. Zo, the female character I should have liked, viewed every comment or action taken by male characters as misogynistic which grew tiresome. The other people were all a bit too black or white (all good or all evil) for me to really buy them and I’ve no clue why Rebecca (the avenging environmentalist) was even in the book as she really took no active part in the plot. Again, as with the story, there were lots of unexplained character developments dumped in the mix for no apparent reason such as several people despising each other with passion but without explanation (except in one instance).

There are a few interesting action-based passages here but, overall, the interesting concept that must have been the idea behind this book was lost in the delivery. The cover of my copy pronounces Dionne to be the next Michael Crichton but the very big difference between the two is that Crichton entertains first and allows his mastery of the storytelling art to relay any messages almost subliminally whereas Dionne, at least in this book which is her first, seems to assume readers will put up with second-rate storytelling if the messages are worthy enough. I’m harder to please than that.

My rating 2/5