Non-fiction: Robert B. Yonaitis: Going to Antarctica (2012) Going to Antarctica is a travel story self-published on the Kindle. The American writer Robert B. Yonaitis goes on a cruise off the Antarctic coast, and in one sense the book is banal: we learn what happens every day of the trip, Continue Reading
Antarctica
Research Blog Antarctica #117: The Third Reich in Antarctica
Non-fiction: Cornelia Lüdecke & Colin Summerhayes: The Third Reich in Antarctica (Erskine Press, 2012) The German Antarctic expedition of 1938-39 is famous for being the “Nazi Expedition”. This book goes through the voyage of the expedition ship Schwabenland in academic style, with plenty of pictures and illustrations. The tone of Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #116: Ice Station
Novel: Matthew Reilly: Ice Station (St. Martin’s, 2000) Ice Station is an action thriller about an American Antarctic research base that discovers something valuable under the ice, and various governments around the world who send military forces to capture it. It’s mostly composed of improbable action scenes. The book is Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #115: Fram Museum
(Photo: Maria Pettersson) That’s a photo of me on the deck of the Fram, an exploration vessel used by both Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. It was Amundsen’s ship on his conquest of the South Pole. We visited the Fram Museum in Oslo last weekend. The museum features the ship Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #114: Little America
Non-fiction: Richard E. Byrd: Little America (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1930) Little America is the U.S. explorer Richard Byrd’s account of his first Antarctic expedition. I’ve written before about Byrd’s two other Antarctic books, the account of the second expedition, called Discovery, and the account of Byrd’s winter alone (called Alone) Continue Reading
Stats for polar bears and space hamsters
Jukka Särkijärvi created stats for both polar bears and space hamsters for Valley of Eternity: There are many strange things in the Antarctic, and the giant space hamster is probably the strangest. This white-furred rodent is the size of an elephant seal, but much quicker in its movements. Nobody is Continue Reading
Greatest penguin RPG out there
Jukka Särkijärvi writes nice things about Valley of Eternity, now out in English. What is Valley of Eternity, you ask. Well, it is nothing less than the greatest penguin RPG of all time. Drawing from spaghetti westerns, Conan the Barbarian and March of the Penguins, it depicts a bleak and Continue Reading
Valley of Eternity published in English
In 2009, I published a roleplaying game called Ikuisuuden laakso. It was about the heroic struggles and tragic fates of lonely penguins and anti-penguins. In 2011 the game was translated into Danish as Evighedens dal by Rollespilsakademiet, and now in 2012 into English by Vagrant Workshop. The English title is Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #113: Black Ice
Novel: Matt Dickinson: Black Ice (Hutchinson, 2002) Black Ice is a paperback thriller set in the world of contemporary Antarctic exploration. It doesn’t have any particular literary aspirations, but the Antarctic milieu is depicted well. The story concerns an expedition to cross Antarctica at its widest point by two men: Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #112: Antarctica beer
(Photo: Juhana Pettersson, 2012) Antarctica is a brand of beer available at least in Argentina and Brazil. I got a can from a small supermarket on the island of Ilha Grande, close to Rio de Janeiro. There was a tiny hole in the side of the can, spraying an almost Continue Reading