Andrea White

Andrea White builds speculative adventures for younger readers that question public institutions and popular entertainment. Surviving Antarctica sends five fourteen-year-olds into a lethal recreation of Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole expedition in the year 2083. Their journey is being staged for a government-controlled reality program, while a young employee inside the Department of Entertainment tries to help them survive the hazards arranged for viewers. White incorporates material from Scott's journals, allowing the historical expedition and the imagined television spectacle to illuminate each other. The Eos imprint of HarperCollins issued Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 in 2005. It was White's debut novel and combines dystopian science fiction, polar survival, and historical reference for teen readers. The book's sharpest tension comes from the gap between endurance as lived experience and endurance packaged as entertainment. Its contestants must cooperate even though the system around them treats their danger as a source of ratings.