Fictionalizing Antarctica

In late 2004, bestselling novelist Michael Crichton published State of Fear, a thriller in which eco-terrorists manufacture environmental disasters - including the deliberate fracturing of the Ross Ice Shelf by explosives- in order to maintain alarm over global warming and hence ensure continued funding to environmental organisations. While only one of the novel's seven sections is set in Antarctica, the continent - and more particularly, whether and why its ice is melting- features frequently in the footnotes, graphs and bibliography that Crichton added (unusually) to his popular thriller. Despite mixed critical reviews, only a week after publication Crichton's novel had 'stirred intense reactions ... from people at every corner of the debate about climate change'. In what follows, I offer some ways to begin thinking about the relationship between fiction, politics and Antarctica, both in the abstract and in regard to specific traditions, texts and genres.