Antarctica

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the most original and visionary voices in science fiction. In his highly successful Hugo and Nebula award-winning Mars trilogy, Robinson led us on an odyssey of transformation and discovery, as humans terraformed the Great Red Planet. 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.It is a stark and inhospitable place, where the landscape itself poses a challenge to survival, yet its strange, silent beauty has long fascinated scientists and adventurers. Explorers have crossed this vast, frozen terrain for many reasons: to stand in awe before the volcanic Mount Erebus or Antarctica's other natural wonders, to fathom the mysteries of ages past, to exploit its great stores of untapped mineral wealth, or to pit themselves against this cold, unforgiving continent.Now Antarctica faces an uncertain future. The international treaty which protects the continent is about to dissolve, clearing the way for Antarctica's resources to be plundered, its eerie beauty to be savaged. As politicians wrangle over its fate from half a world away, major corporations begin probing for its hidden riches. Adventurers come, as they have for more than a century, seeking the wild, untamed land even as they endanger it with their ever-growing numbers. And radical environmentalists carry out a covert campaign of sabotage to reclaim the land from those who would destroy it for profit. All who come here have their own agenda, and all will fight to ensure their vision of the future for this last great wilderness. As complex and compelling as his Mars saga, as powerful and majestic as the continent itself, Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica takes us to the remote and awe-inspiring world at the South Pole.Kim Stanley Robinson is the author of the Nebula and Hugo award-winning Mars trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, as well as The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, Pacific Edge, A Short, Sharp Shock, and other novels. He lives in Davis, California.