Antarctica - Reading this book as we approached Antarctica on our cruise, Robinson's done it again - his geology is rock solid, [only John McPhee can write so captivatingly about plate tectonics] so much so, that once again, I started thinking of his fictional Antarctica as the real thing. As we drove thru the Beech tree forests of Tierra del Fuego, it conjured his images of a former Antarctica covered with hardy Beech forest, to be re-discovered as fossilized beech leaf mats by Robinson's scientists. Elegantly weaving in Antarctic history, Robinson's story proceeds on multiple lines, with the modern day plotlines paralleling the explorers. The science is least fictional of any of his works, but the climbing and trekking scenes are riveting; the crevasse scenes are white knuckle memory time for anyone's who's ever traversed a glacier, even though his mountaineers have tracking toys we never dreamed of.