KimStanleyRobinson.info

It's the summer and you may be wondering what to read next. Here are a few fresh suggestions:

The Best Of Kim Stanley Robinson, a hardback collection of Stan's short stories and novellas across all his career, has just been released in the USA. Contents:

• Venice Drowned
• Black Air
• Ridge Running
• The Lucky Strike
• Our Town
• The Blind Geometer (previously uncollected)
• Mother Goddess Of The World
• Glacier
• Remaking History
• The Lunatics
• Before I Wake
• The Translator
• Zurich
• A History Of The Twentieth Century, With Illustrations
• A Sensitive Dependence On Initial Conditions
• Muir On Shasta
• Vinland The Dream
• Arthur Sternbach Brings The Curveball To Mars
• Sexual Dimorphism
• Discovering Life
• How Science Saved The World (previously uncollected)
• Prometheus Unbound, At Last (previously uncollected)
• The Timpanist Of The Berlin Philharmonic, 1942 (previously unpublished)
• Afterword by Kim Stanley Robinson

Some reviews can be found here, and of course you can leave your own.

Also, one year after its hardcover release (this seems to be standard publishing procedure), Galileo's Dream has now been released as a paperback in the UK (and by consequence the rest of Europe too)!

" Late Renaissance Italy abounds in alchemy and Aristotle, yet it trembles on the brink of the modern world. Galileo’s new telescope encapsulates all the contradictions of this emerging reality. Then one night a stranger presents a different type of telescope for Galileo to peer through, enabling him to see the world of humans three thousand years hence.

Galileo will soon find himself straddling two worlds, the medieval and the modern. By day his life unfurls in early seventeenth century Italy; by night he is transported through dimensions of time and space no other man of his time could possibly comprehend. Inexorably, Galileo faces trial for religious crimes in his own time, while in the new world he discovers, where science assures men that they can perform wonders, but does not tell them what wonders to perform, he is revered.

This sumptuous, gloriously thought-provoking and suspenseful novel recalls Robinson's magnificent Mars books as well as bringing to us Galileo as we have always wanted to know him. "

More reviews can be found here. Some minor corrections and modifications have been made in the text for this release compared to the first edition of the hardback. Personally, I prefer paperbacks because of how easily they can be carried around to be read anywhere in the Great Outdoors, so this is the edition I'll be reading.

All this makes for a very stellar post -- both covers are amazingly similar!

KSR.info has already reached its first birthday! Bring out the kava!

KSRi hopes to continue nurturing appreciation for Kim Stanley Robinson's works and fuel related discussions for many terrestrial revolutions around the sun to come...

Carlos NCT is a friendly and up-and-coming illustrator from Spain, who has taken his love of KSR's Mars trilogy and applied it to his digital paintings. He has produced several pieces over the years, and went at it again recently:

Red Mars

Green Mars

Blue Mars

(you can click for bigness)

The three images above were actually part of a project to create mock covers for a fictional edition of the Mars trilogy (in Spanish). The project actually included much more material, such as bookmarks and pencil sketches. See also these "faces" drawings:

His other Mars-related work exhibits the same excellent use of colours and landscapes:

You can find more on the covers project, more Mars-related art and more artwork in general on Carlos' blog here and on his portfolio here.

¡Le deseamos mucho éxito!

On May 6, Kim Stanley Robinson participated in an event at UCSD on Galileo: "Galileo Between Science, Science Studies and Science Fiction" -- very fitting with the themes of his latest novel Galileo's Dream!

Participants were Mario Biagioli, history professor and scientifc revolutions expert; Sheldon Brown, visual artist; Brian Keating, astrophysicist; and Kim Stanley Robinson.

DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT:
In his recent book, Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson creates a portrait of Galileo's life in which he combines historic research with science fiction tropes to show the impact and challenges of paradigm shifts and their very human origins. One of the sources for this work is the research of Mario Biagioli, who will discuss the importance of Robinson's approach to historians of science and interrelationships between science studies and science fiction. Additionally, UCSD Professor of Physics Brian Keating will describe his observations of the early universe made with a version of Galileo's refractor telescope, which is sensitive to radio-waves, instead of visible light. This telescope located in Antarctica, has made ultra-sensitive images of the afterglow of the Big Bang. He will show images of the early universe as well as data from observations of Jupiter made with a new UCSD telescope, and will discuss techniques to peer deeper into the universe, standing on Galileo's shoulders. All will be framed by films of high resolution images produced by Sheldon Brown of the four Jovian moons discovered by Galileo some 400 years ago. This event is organized by Don Wayne, Provost of Revelle College. Co-Sponsored by: California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), Clarion Writers’ Workshop, Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), The Council of Provosts, Department of Literature, Division of Arts and Humanities, Division of Physical Sciences, Revelle College.

The recorded panel has been posted online, at Calit2 and at YouTube and lasts for 2h 10min. Here it is below for your enjoyment:

Kim Stanley Robinson, a UC San Diego graduate, gave the commencement address for UCSD's Sixth College on June 13. Prior to the address he gave an interview for SignOnSanDiego. Highlights:

There is a mismatch now between our civilization and the natural systems that give us life and support us. In short, we have not yet invented a sustainable civilization, and now inventing that civilization has gone from being a good idea to a survival necessity. That process will be the story of the twenty-first century.

Those of the World War Two generation will understand best the idea that having an overarching goal for the whole society is something that can bring people together and drive individual decisions in powerful ways. Now we're facing a different kind of challenge, and in many ways a more positive one. It will take the global community coming together, rather than fighting each other; and young people are the most connected generation yet. So, this big necessary project will mean jobs, careers, and meaningful lives. It's a good thing to have.

Enough of my novels have had autopian aspect that I also often think of myself as a utopian science fiction writer. This is an odd pursuit, but I find it interesting, and it keeps me working to find new ways to do it. I think it's a useful thing for our literature to include visions of how we might build a better world. And it's fun to try.

Find the full interview here.