Antarctic Fiction
October 16, 2016 6:06 PM Subscribe
I know there are one or two posts on AskMe on this, but the last one was posted 2012 so I figure an update is due.
Currently researching Antarctica for a fiction writing project and while I am pretty sorted on the non-fiction side, I'm looking for some good fiction recs. Prefer non-genre, but if you know of a good one, please, fire away. Bonus points for queer protags/characters.
Currently researching Antarctica for a fiction writing project and while I am pretty sorted on the non-fiction side, I'm looking for some good fiction recs. Prefer non-genre, but if you know of a good one, please, fire away. Bonus points for queer protags/characters.
[also, my suggestion lacks any queer protags, so apologies for that...]
posted by jalexei at 6:35 PM on October 16, 2016
posted by jalexei at 6:35 PM on October 16, 2016
Antarctica is a setting for part of the plot of the novel Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple from a couple of years ago--maybe the final 1/3 or 1/4 of the book if I remember correctly.
posted by bookmammal at 6:43 PM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by bookmammal at 6:43 PM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
Hey, it looks like the fine Wikipedia folks have an answer for you. How cool is that?
posted by DrGail at 6:56 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by DrGail at 6:56 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "Sur."
posted by BicycleFace at 6:58 PM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by BicycleFace at 6:58 PM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]
Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica is one of his more readable novels.
posted by jessamyn at 7:44 PM on October 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 7:44 PM on October 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
A good chunk of Where'd You Go Bernadette has to do with Antarctica, and the last portion of the book takes place there, as well.
posted by yellowcandy at 8:19 PM on October 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by yellowcandy at 8:19 PM on October 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
A friend of mine who spent a few seasons at McMurdo as a janitor wrote a book of short stories: Highway One, Antarctica. They're not all set in McMurdo, but the ones that are have a unique perspective.
posted by fermion at 8:21 PM on October 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by fermion at 8:21 PM on October 16, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ok prolly not what you're looking for but H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness takes place largely in Antarctica.
Also Who Goes There, by John W. Campbell Jr. but probably more better known as the film adaptation The Thing by John Carpenter.
posted by elendil71 at 8:46 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Also Who Goes There, by John W. Campbell Jr. but probably more better known as the film adaptation The Thing by John Carpenter.
posted by elendil71 at 8:46 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
Whiteout, a graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber, is very good. There's a move based on it but I haven't seen it.
posted by feckless at 9:14 PM on October 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by feckless at 9:14 PM on October 16, 2016 [4 favorites]
One chunk of the (rather good) Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is set in Antarctica. I don't want to give anything away, but the book does feature a gay character.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 11:00 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 11:00 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Big Bang Symphony, by Lucy Jane Bledsoe!
posted by gingerbeer at 11:11 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gingerbeer at 11:11 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]
She's also written non-fiction and kids books about Antarctica, all listed on her website.
posted by gingerbeer at 11:14 PM on October 16, 2016
posted by gingerbeer at 11:14 PM on October 16, 2016
Seconding the graphic novel Whiteout, which I believe also has a queer protagonist.
posted by gideonfrog at 4:15 AM on October 17, 2016
posted by gideonfrog at 4:15 AM on October 17, 2016
Although the Antarctica section is late in the book,The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica is one of my favorites - the lone left-leaning book by conservative talk show host John Calvin Batchelor, from his young day when conservatism was very different.
So in a near-future (near future for 1983, when it was published, so late nineties) Europe, a fascist, anti-semitic, Nordic-Christian political convulsion occurs, creating an enormous flotilla of refugees scattered from the Atlantic to the Southern Ocean. The protagonist, his parents, his chosen family and a variety of stragglers they pick up are fairly well-equipped for a variety of reasons but still unable to reach safety. Plague, pirates, Christian "charity" and political violence beset the refugees and the small island settlements scattered through the Atlantic.
After years of struggle - and brief respite in the Shetland Islands - the protagonists end up in a charity camp on the northernmost shores of Antarctica. Things happen.
It's a really weird book. Mostly it seems like a critique of liberal charity and Benthamism, and it's mostly anarchist in sensibility.
Very, very unusually for 1983, part of the protagonist's chosen family is a gay couple, and several of the other central characters are POC.
It's not a character-driven book, though - it's really weird and sort of John Barthes-y, moral-landscape-y, satirical. It was enormously influential on my politics in my late teens and early twenties, and I sometimes think I ought to write the author a fan letter to see what he says, since he's so right wing now. (Among other things, the book illustrates how different the right's concerns still were in the early eighties - not a lot of interest in culture war (except as a bad thing!) in this book.)
posted by Frowner at 6:38 AM on October 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
So in a near-future (near future for 1983, when it was published, so late nineties) Europe, a fascist, anti-semitic, Nordic-Christian political convulsion occurs, creating an enormous flotilla of refugees scattered from the Atlantic to the Southern Ocean. The protagonist, his parents, his chosen family and a variety of stragglers they pick up are fairly well-equipped for a variety of reasons but still unable to reach safety. Plague, pirates, Christian "charity" and political violence beset the refugees and the small island settlements scattered through the Atlantic.
After years of struggle - and brief respite in the Shetland Islands - the protagonists end up in a charity camp on the northernmost shores of Antarctica. Things happen.
It's a really weird book. Mostly it seems like a critique of liberal charity and Benthamism, and it's mostly anarchist in sensibility.
Very, very unusually for 1983, part of the protagonist's chosen family is a gay couple, and several of the other central characters are POC.
It's not a character-driven book, though - it's really weird and sort of John Barthes-y, moral-landscape-y, satirical. It was enormously influential on my politics in my late teens and early twenties, and I sometimes think I ought to write the author a fan letter to see what he says, since he's so right wing now. (Among other things, the book illustrates how different the right's concerns still were in the early eighties - not a lot of interest in culture war (except as a bad thing!) in this book.)
posted by Frowner at 6:38 AM on October 17, 2016 [3 favorites]
"A Brief History of the Dead" by Kevin Brockmeieir is fantastic and is partially set in Antarctica.
posted by ficbot at 8:03 AM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ficbot at 8:03 AM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
An odd and idiosyncratic novel that I read a million years ago (okay, in the 90s), I still have a general positive memory of John Calvin Batchelor's The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica.
posted by aught at 9:46 AM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by aught at 9:46 AM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Sorry to duplicate Frowner's much better description -- it didn't occur to me someone else would recommend the Batchelor so I posted before reading the whole thread.)
posted by aught at 9:48 AM on October 17, 2016
posted by aught at 9:48 AM on October 17, 2016
Two more that came to me after I posted the earlier:
- Short story, "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica," by Catherynne M. Valente, online here (not a conventional narrative but really interesting nonetheless);
- Brenda Clough's Revise the World (time travel and Antarctica, pretty good but not great).
posted by aught at 10:00 AM on October 17, 2016
- Short story, "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica," by Catherynne M. Valente, online here (not a conventional narrative but really interesting nonetheless);
- Brenda Clough's Revise the World (time travel and Antarctica, pretty good but not great).
posted by aught at 10:00 AM on October 17, 2016
It's a YA novel but one Madeleine L'Engle's Austin family series, Troubling A Star is largely set during the teenage protagonist Vicky Austin's trip to Antarctica. I think even if you haven't read any of the books in the series, you would have no trouble following along and enjoying it. (Though I highly recommend the rest of the series!)
posted by Aquifer at 10:04 AM on October 17, 2016
posted by Aquifer at 10:04 AM on October 17, 2016
Response by poster: Thanks everyone so far; some of these I have heard of, a few I've read, and one I did my MA thesis on ("At the Mountains of Madness"). I'm definitely looking them up, no matter how weird they sound. Sometimes weird can be great.
posted by New England Cultist at 10:37 PM on October 17, 2016
posted by New England Cultist at 10:37 PM on October 17, 2016
Response by poster: I'm reading Whiteout now and it's amazing. Thanks for recommending it, feckless and gideonfrog!
posted by New England Cultist at 12:32 AM on October 19, 2016
posted by New England Cultist at 12:32 AM on October 19, 2016
Whiteout is actually by MeFi's own Steve Lieber tho he doesn't participate much.
posted by jessamyn at 9:00 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 9:00 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by jalexei at 6:26 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]