Antarctica Station: A Thriller

I picked up this audiobook primarily because the setting fit a challenge. I actually found myself liking quite a lot. The plot is wildly improbable, but with a proper and a very sizable suspension of belief, it's a rip-roaring thriller. "Ripped from the Headlines", as it were, it all hangs together in a weird way. It moves at a breakneck pace, and heroine, Laura, is quite likeable. She is quite naive, but it makes sense that she would not be able to deduce what's really going on a Antarctica station. The supporting characters are well-drawn, and the semi-sentient "Transport" is unexpectedly endearing. The technological aspects of the story will likely become dated quickly, but it may be the most pure fun I've had with a book this year.

A.G. Riddle’s Antarctica Station requires more suspension of disbelief than I can manage. Laura, the heroine, is a surgeon at a hospital with no control of drug inventory in the OR. When drugs go missing, no one investigates with any care, and Laura is unbelievably easy to frame. She then goes to work for a highly sketchy outfit that offers her a get-out-jail card if she signs up. The catch is she has to be incommunicado in Antarctica for three years. Then the Feds blackmail her. And let’s just say that what happens in Antarctica is less believable than events so far. Even some gee-whiz tech and a long trip in a huge So-Cat-style vehicle with a cute AI can’t save this one. 2.5

What's more frustrating than a book that - with a little tinkering here, some plot tightening there, a wee bit of attention to fleshing out some key characters - could have been very, very good? The ice is very thin through much of this story - best to skate across the woulda-shoulda-coulda as quickly as possible and appreciate the potential.

This book really suffers from poor pacing. The story starts out very interesting; gets incredibly, tediously boring; and then finally makes a mad dash towards the conclusion. The ending is like a weak evil-villian trope with monologues and cringey dialogues.

LOVED this book!!!