The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica [Hardcover]

John Calvin Batchelor (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Doubleday Doran; First Printing edition (1983)
• ASIN: B001KRXCNE
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A dark and unconventional view of the end of our century, April 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica: A Novel (Paperback)

I've been thinking about this novel lately. Something about reading plenty of William Gibson (COUNT ZERO, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, BURNING CHROME), and thinking about outcasts of society making their way in a decaying world.

I stumbled up TBOTPROA when researching Antarctica for a stage adaptation of "Who Goes There?" This novel is a dark tale of outcasts, refugees at sea when the world has its 19th nervous breakdown. Drifting south, the narrator finds a new life amongst the ruthless new culture that springs up at the end of the world. Elements of Norse myth and modern chaos recombine under the shadow of a social apocalypse. Intimate and tragic, this is a vision of the end of world that veers off course from expectations. Though I've lost my copy, the story has stuck with me for, what, 14 years or so. That says something -- only about two dozen or so stories are locked away in my psyche. John's is one of them.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, morbid... yet strangely uplifting. Chaos. then calm., June 29, 1998

By 

Ugly Gentleman (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica: A Novel (Paperback)

It stays in your mind, this book. The birth, life, and death of one Skallagrim Strider, a man touched by the Fates in every way, who come to accept his place in it as the world around him deteriorates. People and wolves, gunboats and war, passion and cannibalism amongst the ice floes of the South Atlantic: they are but products of Nature and Fate. In the end, there is no remorse, no true lingering hate. Everything strange and macabre is really just an ordinary aspect of existence - acceptance of dark tragedy as only the ancient Norse could accept it.

An alternate story of our world, yet a very possible reality. Change the dates forward a few more years again, and it remains a very possible future. Gritty and detailed look at Fate.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent style which gets to the essence of things..., November 9, 2002

By 

Milos Tomin (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica (Paperback)

Writing from the point of view in the early 80's and fresh from the chaos of the 70's oil crisis Batchelor naturally used this experience to build his world which in SF terms would be classified as a "near future" narrative.

More accurately his book is that rare animal in the XX century a political fiction talking about the issues of freedom and personal responsibility in the face of antiutopian fictions like 1984 or The Brave New World and actual political utopian projects like the Soviet Union or Third Reich.

It is easily recognizable that Batchelor is writing from a Libertarian perspective and that would allow me to label the book as a 'Libertarian fable' however this book is much more.

Taking Sweden in the early 70's as the location of his books beginning the writer appropriates the heritage of Norse mythology and epic poems for his flawed hero and this imagery stays with the reader throughout the book in tone, names and a whole chapter that takes place during a 'berserk' war fury during which the Hero Skallagrim Strider commits many crimes.

However Batchelor posits his crimes against the political crimes of those who convicted not just the hero but millions to a fate worse than his. The metaphor of the 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' is aptly used here.

In the end the Hero is given a sort of a political redemption by becoming a "Republic of one" incarnating the libertarian ideal of personal responsibility and freedom in the wastes of Antarctic islands.

Fascinating read that will stay with you, slightly dated due to the basic premise of a breakdown in world social order by Oil crisis, racism and religious fervour. Otherwise, to the point, asking the most fundamental questions about the political animal-Man.