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Fiction Like a polar strip mall SOUTH POLE STATION By Ashley Shelby 356 pp. Picador Reviewed by Marty Carlock Odd questions arose as I read this novel. Is it a farce? A love story? A true reflection of life among Polies? Has Ashley Shelby herself spent a sojourn at the bottom of the earth? Do they really call themselves Polies? And then, is this a polemic about political meddling in science? About global warming? And whose side is Shelby on? Part of the problem is the shifting tone of the book. There’s humor: the Polies are an irreverent, wise-acre bunch – there’s tragedy: the heroine has a secret mission to bury her dead brother’s ashes at 90˚ south – there’s sex: though the Polies hook up readily, they have rules about who’s taken and who’s not – there’s sociological study of interactions in a closely packed group; there’s unapologetic drinking; there’s scientific speculation; there’s politics of the nastiest kind. Regarding Question Number 4, Shelby says in her afterword that her mi...