KimStanleyRobinson.info

The reference site for Kim Stanley Robinson

Category: novels

  • Aurora

    Aurora is the title of a Kim Stanley Robinson novel published in July 2015. It deals with the journey of an intergenerational interstellar spaceship with the mission to colonize Aurora, the moon of a planet in a star twelve light-years away from the solar system. As the novel begins, the ship has started decelerating to its destination, still eleven years away.

    Summary

    /! Beware of spoilers! Moreso than your typical KSR novel, Aurora is more plot-driven and contains several plot twists.

    1. Starship Girl

    Introduction. Setting.

    2. Land Ho

    Freya’s wanderjahr around the ship’s biomes, befriends Euan. Devi dies. Arrival at Aurora.

    3. In the Wind

    Exploration. Contamination. Euan dies. Ship inhabitants protect themselves from the Aurora settlers.

    4. Reversion to the Mean

    Confusion. Vote on what to do next. Violence. Ship intervenes. Reveal of the fate of the twin ship. Town meetings. Settling of Iris. Half the ship departs for Earth.

    5. Homesick

    Trip back. Failing ecosystems, starvation. Adapting hibernation technology.

    6. The Hard Problem

    Ship musings as it approaches Sol. Gravity-assisted deceleration. Separation of pods, last attempt at deceleration.

    7. What Is This

    Survivors on Earth, shown around, confused. Landscape restoration on a beach.

    Characters

    Freya: a young girl at the start of the novel

    Badim: Freya’s father

    Devi: Freya’s mother, the ship’s chief engineer and highly regarded problem-solver

    Euan: an adventurous friend of Freya’s

    Jochi: a friend of Freya’s strong in mathematics

    Aram: a friend of Badim’s, leader of the math group

    Ship: the ship’s artificial intelligence

    The Ship

    Population at start of narrative: 2122.

    Destination: Tau Ceti star, planet E (with a moon, Aurora), planet F (with a moon, Iris). Distance from Earth: 11.9 light-years.

    Voyage began in 2545 CE; narrative begins year 159 (2604 CE); journey ends year 363 (2908 CE).

    24 cylinders in two rings with twelve major Terran ecological zones (permafrost glacier, taiga, rangeland, steppes, chaparral, savannah, tropical seasonal forest, tropical rain forest, temperate rain forest, temperate deciduous forest, alpine mountains, temperate farmland). Each cylinder 1 km in diameter, 4 km long. Cylinders connected with each other by tunners, and to the inner ring via spokes, which is close to the central spinal axis. Rotation creates .83 g centrifugal force.

    • Ring A (Old World ecosystems): Tasmania; Himalayas; Yangtze; Siberia; Iran; Mongolia; the Steppes; the Balkans; Kenya; Bengal; Indonesia; Hokkaido
    • Ring B (New World ecosystems): Nova Scotia; Sierra; Prairie; Labrador; Pampas; Sonora; Piedmont (?); Costa Rica; Amazonia; Olympia; Patagonia

    Background information

    In an interview with Romanian website SFMag in March 2014, Stan says:

    “I just finished a starship novel in which people in a multi-generational starship try to get to Tau Ceti and occupy one of the planets around that star (actually a big moon of one of the planets). Problems follow…”

    In September 2013, in an interview at FDL Book Salon, Stan mentioned:

    “My next novel is going to be about a multi-generational starship, actually.
    But I don’t think they are going to work. I’m still working on that idea.
    It’s part of the thinking going on in 2312 and Shaman, and so I think the three books will make a kind of argument for what we are and what we can or should try to become in the future.
    This is something my editor, Tim Holman, has been pointing out to me; that these three books will make a kind of extended argument or case.”

    Also in September 2013, in an interview with Amazing Stories:

    ASM: What projects are you working on now that we can look forward to?
    KSR: Another science fiction novel, of course; this time, about a multi-generational starship to a nearby star.

    Reviews

  • Shaman

    Shaman is the title for the novel by Kim Stanley Robinson published by Orbit in September 2013. 456 pages.

    It describes the life of humans living close to the Chauvet cave in Vallon-Pont d’Arc, about 30,000 years ago, during the Ice Age.

    The official synopsis reads:

    Kim Stanley Robinson, the New York Times bestselling author of science fiction masterworks such as the Mars trilogy and 2312, has, on many occasions, imagined our future. Now, in SHAMAN, he brings our past to life as never before.

    There is Thorn, a shaman himself. He lives to pass down his wisdom and his stories — to teach those who would follow in his footsteps.

    There is Heather, the healer who, in many ways, holds the clan together.

    There is Elga, an outsider and the bringer of change.

    And then there is Loon, the next shaman, who is determined to find his own path. But in a world so treacherous, that journey is never simple — and where it may lead is never certain.

    Structure

    Long narrative chapters, including many songs. Limited third person narrative from the point of view of humans, which is actually revealed to be narrated by the third wind, a spirit that comes in to help people when they are at the end of their strengths. Certain short chapters are told from the point of view of a cat, a wolvering, and an old one (a Neanderthal).

    Summary

    Loon’s Wander

    At around the Spring solstice, Loon’s wander: left naked, he has to survive for 13 days in nature, alone, and tell the tale to his people. Loon is twelve.

    The Wolves at Home

    Daily life at Loon’s group of people, the Wolf pack, close to the Urdecha river. Learning things with their shaman Thorn, painting, the songs. Helping the women making things while recovering from his wounded leg. Then hunting elg. Starving through the spring. Finally, ducks arrive: summer!

    Elga

    Summer trek north-north-west, to caribou hunting ground. Then to the festival: 8th day after the new moon of the 8th month! Dancing, games, stories, finally sex. Loon meets Elga from the Eagle pack; they decide to marry and she joins them on their trek back.

    The Hunger Spring

    Loon and Elga’s wedding. At the eleventh full moon, annual gathering in the cave; Thorn paints lions and bisons (and they leave hand marks). Elga adapting. Hunting, meeting travelers. Elga pregnant, gives birth to a boy. A difficult spring, so much that a member of the pack dies. Finally, summer.

    Under the Ice

    At the eight-eight festival, Elga is abducted. Loon leaves with Pipiloette to find her. Loon is captured by the northeners, the jende, and passes the winter with them, separate from Elga. The jende have captive people that they don’t consider as people, and captive wolves; they live in large heated huts; they store frozen meat, carry fish from the salt sea, gather firewood; they have better snowshoes than the Wolf pack. Loon and a group survived being trapped on an iceberg floating in the sea; trekked on the ice plateau. Meanwhile, Thorn takes the old one Click with him to try to take Loon and Elga back. In late spring, Thorn and Click reach the jende and with Elga they escape.

    Hunted

    They manically try to escape the ice men and their wolves, trekking fast and for days. Loon’s bad leg is so worn he has to walk with poles. They finally lose them after a storm, they cross a river with ice with difficulty, they nearly starve, while it is still snowing. Click dies, and they have to eat him to survive, and use his frozen body as a sled (Loon later has a vision of Click’s spirit saying goodbye). And they finally reach home, exhausted.

    All the Worlds Meet

    Resting, recovering. Thorn is tormented by Click’s ghost. They miss the eight-eight festival. Loon makes better snowshoes to give to the northeners as compensation for Elga. Next spring, they give Click a proper burial. In the festival, the Wolf pack and the northereners settle their dispute, arbitrated by corroborators. Elga gives birth to a baby girl. The pack is torn with disagreements and also because it is getting too large; discussions of splitting into two packs. Thorn falls ill for a long time and eventually dies.

    Shaman

    Soon after Thorn’s death, Loon goes deep into the cave and paints, a group of horses, to his great satisfaction; his fire goes out and he has to find his way out in complete darkness (using a bear skull in the process). The pack separates in two, with Loon serving as both groups’ shaman. Loon has a final vision of Thorn; Loon starts teaching his son Lucky in the ways of the shaman.

    Characters

    Loon: orphaned, raised by Heather and Thorn. His father Tulik was Thorn’s real apprentice.

    Thorn: the pack’s shaman. He was taught by Pika, the “bad shaman”.

    Heather: the pack’s head woman. Was Pika’s model for the woman in the cave mating with a bison.

    Others in the Wolves pack: Sage, Schist, Ibex, Hawk, Moss, Chamois, Bluejay, Thunder, Nevermind, Rose, Starry, Spearthrower, Ducky, Windy.

    Elga: from a pack northeast, was taken into another pack, then met Loon and joined the Wolf pack.

    Pippiloette: traveler from the Lion pack, travelled across the world as far as he could.

    The ice people: Kaktak, Elhu, Orn; Bron is another captive with Loon.

    Click: an old one, a Neanderthal. Wounded, he is taken care of by Heather. Joined Thorn in his expedition to save Loon and Elga.

    Lucky: Loon and Elga’s child.

    Quartz: the neighboring Lion pack’s shaman.

    Third wind: comes to you when you have nothing left, to go on. The narrator.

    Geography

    Urdecha: main setting. The river Ardèche. Loop Meadow, Loop Hill, the Stone Bison are all recognizable features of the Vallon-Pont d’Arc part of the Ardèche, where the Chauvet cave is situated.

    Ordech: river flowing into Urdecha, confluence at the Ordech-meets-Urdecha.

    Lir: important river flowing north. The Loire river?

    Five Rivers: just north of the site of the eight-eight festival, where several creeks meet the Lir, with the river Maya north. Possibly modern-day Angers, where the Loire is met by several rivers, including Mayenne.

    White cliffs: the jende live north of some white cliffs, north of which there is an ice plateau. England and the Cliffs of Dover?

    Ice Cap South, Puy Mir: west of the Wolves’ pack. The Massif Central and Puy-de-Dôme?

    Songs and stories

    At the time Shaman took place, knowledge and history was orally transmitted, and songs and stories repeated again and again were very important. We read about the process of passing down information from one generation of humans to the next with the relationship of Thorn and Loon. Thorn corrects Loon about ill-remembered verses but at times Loon prefers his own version: that too is part of the process, and the songs, like memory, are a living changing thing. There are several instances where the songs are repeated in the text, and the reader has the benefit to leaf through the pages and read the earlier version and spot the differences. Stories and accounts of deeds are told in verse, like lays, helping in memorizing them. Remember! Remember! Robinson’s songs in Shaman are also myths and reflect the beliefs of that time; some can be connected to later ancient myths, versions of which have survived until today.

    Here are the songs and stories in Shaman, in order of appearance in the text:

    • Loon’s account of his wander: summarizing his 13-day wander of the first part.
    • The story of the long winter: a winter that lasted ten years, told by Thorn, one of his favorites.
    • The seasons: and what we do in them. Loon has trouble memorizing it. Partly repeated when Loon returns home in part seven. Partly repeated again when Lucky is learning it from Loon.
    • Thorn’s riddle about the second wind.
    • The break-up story: said to break the ice at the start of spring. Repeated when they are being hunted by the northeners.
    • The great flood story: With a storm the water covered the land completely, and finally receded back to the west. The great storm story is very old, found in the stories of Gilgamesh and Noah.
    • Loon’s riddle about himself.
    • The story of how the animals got summer: The animals stole summer from the summer people, but then started sharing it back and forth. There are many myths on the procession of the seasons with beings transitioning from one world to the other, like the story of Persephone.
    • Thorn’s short song about rain and hail.
    • The ways to cut and eat and use the body of a caribou.
    • The story of the swan wife: A man gets a wife who is not of this world; she leaves and the man has to go through adventures to reunite with her again. Stories of human meeting nature or human meeting divine are common in all world mythologies.
    • “We had a bad shaman“: Thorn’s rememberance of his own shaman, Pika. Also, the first line in the novel.
    • The song to Mother Earth: told by Thorn exploring the paintings inside the cave, inside the womb of Mother Earth.
    • The account of Pippiloette’s travels to as far East as he could go, until nobody he talked to could understand him.
    • Thorn’s curse at the northeners pursuing them.
    • Song to help the dying people into the next world (2 verses).
    • Goodbye-farewell song to a spirit: told by Thorn to Click’s spirit.
    • The spirit-freeing song (3 verses): told by Thorn to Click’s spirit.
    • The good-bye song: Loon and Thorn to Click. Repeated in the eighth part, Loon to Thorn.
    • Elga’s angry story of her own life at the judgement at the eight eight festival.
    • Thorn’s defense at the judgement at the eight eight festival.
    • The solstice song: a thanks.
    • “I am the third wind“: the narrator appears! Repeated over the entire novel, each time with an additional verse, until it is given in its entirety at the very end.

    Interview Comments

    The Sacramento Bee, December 16, 2012:

    “I’m finishing a novel set in the ice age, about the people who made the paintings in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave in southern France, about 32,000 years ago,” he said. “I do a lot of snow camping in the Sierra, and I put my snow knowledge into it and tried to explain how we became who we are now. It’s only science and archaeology that allow us to write historical fiction with any accuracy,” Robinson added. “So it’s kind of science fiction in a way.”

    On KSR.info, articles with KSR interviews and reviews:

    Essays and Criticism

    Reviews

    Resources

  • 2312

    “2312”
    A novel by Kim Stanley Robinson

    First edition US hard cover, artwork by Kirk Benshoff
    First published May 2012
    Pages 576
    ISBN # 978-0-316-09812-0
    Publications
    ← Previous Next →
    “The Best Of Kim Stanley Robinson“ “Shaman“

     

    2312 is the title of a Kim Stanley Robinson novel first published in May 2012. It was published in hardcover on May 22 2012 in the USA and May 24 2012 in the UK; it will be published in paperback on June 25 2013 in the UK.

    It was announced in November 2009 as the first of a three-book deal with publisher Orbit (however, 2312 is a stand-alone novel and not the first volume of a trilogy).

    Orbit publisher Tim Holman described the setting of this novel thus:

    “2312 will be set in our solar system three hundred years from now; a solar system in which mankind has left Earth and found new habitats. This will be a novel for anyone curious to see what our future looks like – a grand science-fictional adventure in every sense.”

    The book back cover reads:

    The year is 2312. Scientific advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer our only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system, on moons, planets and in between. But in 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront our past, present and future. The first event takes place on Mercury, in the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. For Swan Er Hong, it will change her life. Once a designer of worlds, now Swan will be led into a plot to destroy them. 2312 is a bold vision of humanity’s future and a compelling portrait of those individuals who will shape its events.

    Orbit Books launched a mini-site to accompany the publication of the novel, with a chapter, Extracts(1), illustrated and animated.

    Structure

    2312 is composed of a multitude of short chapters, each belonging to a certain type.

    Main story
    Chapters written in the third person but from a point of view from a specific character, mainly Swan and Wahram, and to a much smaller extent Genette and Kiran.

    Extracts
    Collection of short texts on a similar theme. The texts often start and end abruptly, as if one were quickly skimming through findings of a web search. The texts come from various in-universe sources independent from the main characters, often historical or economic manuals or scientific research papers, at times written at a time after the events described in the main story, at times undetermined.

    Lists
    List of items on a similar theme.

    Places
    Description of various places in the solar system, planets or moons, going from the pre-settlement geological description to the social habits of their settlers.

    Quantum Walks
    Stream-of-consciousness-like thoughts or processes of a humanoid quantuum computer.

    Setting

    By the year 2312, the solar system has been colonized, new political organizations have been adopted off Earth and technological improvements in biotechnologies and other sciences have expanded human lifespan, made a host of body modifications accessible, and unleashed projects at a scale unprecedented in human history. Mars has been terraformed, and Venus and several moons of Jupiter and the outer planets are under terraforming. Thousands of spinning and hollowed out asteroids have been turned into terraria, small worlds cruising the solar system and providing food to Earth. With 11 billion population, Earth still struggles with institutional sclerosis and poverty. New technologies keep emerging, such as the quantum computers (qubes). Inter-settlements alliances emerge and dissolve; the Mondragon Accord is one of the largest ones, unifying Mercury, the Jovian and Saturnian systems and several terraria.

    The Solar System

    Given the scope and complexity of 2312, a reference guide of the main bodies colonized by humans is handy. Counting outward from the Sun:

    • Vulcanoids
    • Mercury. Single city: Terminator (on tracks revolving around the planet to escape the burning sun)
    • Venus. Under terraforming, large tented cities
    • Earth. Still the center of all human activities. Moon: Lune
    • Mars. Fully terraformed, independent from Earth, rather retired from interplanetary affairs
    • Asteroid belt: Vesta, Ceres. Some terraria are travelling anywhere in the solar system, but several are to be found in the asteroid belt.
    • Jupiter. Home of the Jovian League. Moons: Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, (these three under terraforming, the latter two harbour microbial alien life), * Io
    • Saturn. Home of the Saturn League. Moons: Titan, Iapetus, Enceladus (harbours microbial alien life)
    • Uranus
    • Neptune. Moons: Triton (could be terraformed)
    • Pluto. Moons: Charon, Hydra, Nix

    Synopsis

    (The breakdown in parts is this site’s)

    The Mercury Incident

    The story begins in media res, right after the death of the Lion of Mercury, Alex. She is mourned by her granddaughter, Swan Er Hong, a biome and terraria designer turned landscape and body artist. In Terminator, Mercury’s only city, Swan and Alex’s partner Mqaret, synthetic biologist, are visited by Alex’s associates in a loose secret project: Jean Genette, investigating officer at the Interplanetary Police, and Fitz Wahram, diplomat for the Saturnian League; they hint at possible foul play on Alex’s death. Swan discovers hidden messages from Alex and decides to deliver one of them to Wang Wei, qube expert on Io.

    She taxis to the Jupiter system using two terraria, discussing with Pauline, the qube she had implanted in her brain, and living a feral life in the wild biomes of the terraria. On Callisto, she meets up with Wahram and they meet with Wang on Io, where Wang’s base suffers a failed attack from an unknown assailant. Wang and Wahram explain Alex’s plan, concerned with the balance of powers in the Solar System and the emerging power of the qubes.

    Swan travels to Earth on another terrarium, to Alex’s contact (and Swan’s ex-partner) Zasha, in a flooded Venice-like New York. Wandering around, she is nearly kidnapped and meets a young Indian emigrant, Kiran, whom she smuggles out to space. She takes him to Venus where she leaves him to a contact of hers.

    On Mercury, Wahram and Swan are outside of Terminator when a sudden unidentified attack destroys the city’s tracks, resulting in the city being evacuated, exposed to the sun, and inevitably burnt. Wahram and Swan run for shelter, Swan gets massive radiation from a solar flare, and they hide underground. They have to walk in an underground corridor all around the planet for 45 days. In the relentless repetitiveness, they get to know each other; Swan whistles Beethoven, Wahram takes care of Swan’s radiation sickness, and they discover each other’s gender manipulations (Swan is a gynandromorph, Wahram is an androgyn). They are eventually rescued by a passing-by craft on the surface.

    Kiran on Venus

    Kiran is hired by Swan’s contact Shukra and gets acquainted with the worker’s life on Venus: a large Chinese working force carries out huge infrastructure works for the future terraforming of the planet while the decisions are made by the obscure and paranoid Chinese-controlled Venusian Working Group and its hard-to-read inner politics. Swan points Kiran to another contact of hers, Lakshmi, a competitor of Shukra’s; eventually Kiran is used as a double agent, between Colette and Vinmara, employed by Shukra but covertly spying on both bosses’ operations and helping moving Lakshmi’s secret shipments across Venus. Kiran discovers that one of these shipments seems to be live people, another is human eyeballs. Knowing he’s seen things he shouldn’t have, Kiran flees Vinmara, for Colette, where he tries to contact Shukra.

    The Investigation

    Swan and Wahram recover with Mqaret. Inspector Genette leads the investigation on the attack on Terminator. Swan accompanies him across the System, visiting the Vesta Zone of terraria. Genette theorizes Terminator was attacked by the same thing that happened on a depressurized terrarium: a multitude of small, undetectable pebbles converged at a single point; their orbits necessarily had to be calculated by qubes, however a calculation error would point to human culprits behind it all.

    In a terrarium, Swan has a deeply unsettling encounters three people who claim to be qubes in humanoid bodies.

    With Wang’s qube’s help they identify a ship that might have launched the pebbles, now inside Saturn’s atmosphere. Wahram is shaken from his everyday life at Iapetus, attending the Saturn League council meetings, living with his crèche and thinking of Swan, when he joins Genette and Swan in a trip to Saturn to that ship. They manage to trace back the ship to a Terran firm just before the ship sinks in the atmosphere. Wahram shows Swan his crèche and they go bodysurfing on the ice chunks of one of Saturn’s rings.

    Swan visits Earth to collects inoculants to help rebuild Terminator. She revels in the open spaces of Earth; she visits Chad, China, Greenland; she discusses with Zasha the way the people’s poorness is manipulated into hating the spacers; she is abducted and drugged and returned as if nothing had happened. Back on Mercury, she helps get the new Terminator going by helping the farm work.

    Swan accompanies Kris, the new Lion of Mercury, to renegotiate the deal to provide focused light beams to the outer planets’ moons, as Mercury used to be the Vulcanoids’ administrator; however, the Saturn League (i.e. Wahram) negotiated directly with them and they no longer recognize Mercury’s authority. Swan is mad at Wahram and visits him on Venus, where he was negotiating with the Venusian Working Group to intervene on Earth and deal with the qubes. Swan’s vehement plea convinces Wahram to launch a drastic intervention on behalf of the spacers to end poverty on Earth, enact terraforming techniques on Earth as a kind of landscape restoration project, and start a revolution of full employment.

    The Reanimation

    Wahram works with Earth institutions to assist people, end poverty, do landscape restoration (e.g. raising the drowned Florida) and build housing for the poor, using spacer technology. There is inertia and resistance from certain Earth groups, averse to spacer interference, even sabotage. Wahram has to help Swan after she is arrested following the havoc wreaked by a sabotaged blimp with self-replicating machines in Africa. Wahram enacts Alex’s project to repopulate Earth with extinguished or displaced animals that have been bred in the terraria. A “reanimation” occurs, where 12,000 terraria unite to simultaneously land all their animals on Earth, and spacers seed forests where there was wasteland or agricultural land. Swan is on the ground, tracking wolves; she eventually gets trapped in a melt pond in Canada with a young wolf and has to be rescued by Wahram. They camp together helping the animals adapt, and consummate their relationship.

    The Venus Incident

    A meeting of all people helping Alex is called, on a new type of qube; Swan is to tell Jean. Swan travels in the Chateau Garden terrarium, where she plays lawn bowling with a young person who seems abnormally expert at it. She makes a connection between bowling and the coordinated pebbles attacks. With Genette, she attends a meeting with the rest of Alex’s group on Titan on the qube issue: they have identified about 400 humanoid qubes, they are self-programming perhaps as a result of their loosely constrained original objective to solve problems, they do not have emotions.

    Swan, Wahram and Genette travel to Venus on the ETH Mobile. Swan has Pauline and Wang’s qube further investigate and they discover an imminent pebble attack on Venus’ sunshield. The ETH Mobile has to be evacuated so that it can accelerate and ram the pebble as they coalesce and prevent the sunshield from being destroyed and killing all of Venus’s population. The passengers jump out to space alone in their suits, hoping they will be rescued by passing ships. Wahram is hit by shrapnel and Swan nurses him as they wait long hours floating in space; Wahram declares his deep love to Swan.

    The Resolution

    As they recover on Venus, Swan and Wahram are joined by Kiran and Shukra: Lakshmi’s solution to the Venusian terraforming had been to bombard Venus with asteroid to increase its spin and get rid of its sunshield; Lakshmi building coastal towns at a lower level than others fit with that bombardment solution. Genette theorizes people not wanting the sunshield asked qubes for the best way to get rid of it, and that humanoid qubes and that the Terminator and Venus attacks are a result of a poorly constrained algorithm. Genette coordinates a cross-System apprehension of all humanoid qubes. Genette and Wahram apprehend the lawn bowler too, who proves to be the human designer of the humanoid qubes. The qubes, the lawn bowler and his co-workers are gathered on Pluto/Charon: their punishment is to be placed on the Nix starship and exile them from the solar system. A lab assistant was letting some human qubes go free; one of them comes across Zasha in Jersey, and Swan releases him instead of capturing him.

    With Mars cleaned of its qube ‘infection’, Genette’s exile status is revoked. Wahram proposes to the Saturn League a three-party commercial deal between Saturn, Mars and Mercury. Swan settles in in Mercury, wonders about monogamy. When Wahram visits, with Pauline’s, Swan answers ‘yes’ to his proposal to marriage. Wahram and Swan and their friends gather in Olympus Mons, on Mars. With Genette their witness, they marry, for life.

    Characters

    Swan Er Hong
    Born in 2177 (about 137 years old). From Mercury, grand-daughter of Alex; after her parents died, Alex and Mqaret were like parents to her. She used to be a biome and terraria designer, worked for a time for Shukra on Venus, now turned land artist (goldworthies) and body artist (abramovics). An impatient, mercurial character, a loner. Adept of body modifications, among other things she had parts of skylark brain added to her, making her a good whistler; she ingested alien hallucinogenic bacteria from Enceladus; she added a qube to her brain, Pauline, with whom she converses often. A gynandromorph, she had a child with Zasha in the past who died, and another one with whom she doesn’t keep contact.

    Fitz Wahram
    Born circa 2201 (about 113 years old) from a wombman from Callisto (a 3rd generation Jovian) and an androgyn from Mars (a political exile). From Titan, a diplomat for the Saturnian League, the League’s Mercury ambassador. He lived on Titan, Herschel, Phoebe, Iapetus (where he studied terraforming governance and diplomatic arts), Hyperion. He was a very close friend of Alex. A calm, saturnine character. Very tall, “prognathous, callipygous, steatopygous, exophthalmos”, he looks like a toad. An androgyn (he also gave birth once), he lives with his crèche of six other adults and 8 children on Iapetus, and takes some hormones (vasopressin for monogamy, oxytocin for social memory). A great admirer of Beethoven (and also Tchaiskovsky, Brahms).

    Jean Genette
    From the asteroids, senior investigating officer at the Interplanetary Police (for the league); he has a wristwatch qube, Passepartout. A small (i.e. about a meter tall) of indeterminate gender, “aged, slender, with a neat blond ponytail”. Genette grew up on Mars, worked 40 years there, then was exiled for a crime he didn’t commit; now he hates Mars. He was a close friend of Alex.

    Kiran
    A youngster from South India who moved to the US East Coast as an economic immigrant, he was smuggled to Venus by Swan.

    Alex
    The Lion of Mercury. Mqaret’s long-time partner and Swan’s grandmother. One of the leaders in building the Mondragon Accord. Set up an informal group of about 15 people across the Solar System, the “Alexandrines”, to investigate the Earth’s developmental problems and certain mysterious events involving qubes. She died at 191 on Mercury.

    Mqaret
    Alex’s partner for 70 years and Swan’s step-grandfather, lives on Mercury. A synthetic biologist who works on longevity treatments.

    Zasha
    Swan’s partner for a time, they separated after their child died. He works at the Mercury House in Manhattan, on Earth, he was Alex’s main contact on Earth.

    Shukra
    A Venusian boss, Swan had worked for him and had worked with Alex.

    Lakshmi
    A Venusian boss, in competition with Shukra.

    Wang Wei
    Principal investigator, one of the Jupiter system’s foremost experts on qubes (he has two founding algorithms named after him). He works from a base on Io where his qube is one of the most powerful System-wide.

    Background

    2312 (2012) marks Robinson’s return to writing future science fiction in outer space after his famous Mars trilogy (1992-1996). Although there are great similarities in the future history of both of these works, with 2312 being set about a century after the events of the trilogy, there are some differences that set these two futures apart: mainly the slower colonization of space in the 21st century, the more severe effects of global warming on Earth, and the faster terraforming of Mars (resulting in Mars being scorched with canals, reminiscent of Lovell’s canals). There are, however, some very specific similarities between the two futures in the form of winks to the reader:

    • Accelerando: The historical period where, thanks to technical advancement, humanity colonizes the entire Solar System in a fast period of economic growth and optimism.
    • Charlotte: In an Extracts chapter, Charlotte Shortback is credited as the historian that created a periodizing system for the last few centuries’ history, from the Dithering to the Balkanization. In the Mars trilogy, Charlotte (no family name given) is a Martian historian that proposed a similar periodizing system, up to the Accelerando; she was from Dorsa Brevia (Latin for “short back”).
    • Peter: When Swan and Wahram are stranded in the orbit of Venus, Swan recalls an old Martian song about a Peter being marooned on orbit around Mars. In the Mars trilogy, Peter Clayborne was marooned in Martian orbit before being saved by a passing-by spaceship.
    • Mars: 2312‘s Mars has a space elevator at Pavonis Mons and weddings are traditionally conducted in a common ceremony on top of Olympus Mons. In the Mars trilogy, Pavonis Mons also has a space elevator and early in the planet’s history John Boone established a festival on top of Olympus Mons that became an annual tradition.

    2312 abounds with references to figurative arts, music and literature, and includes certain semi-hidden references to science fiction literature:

    • The structure of the novel, with the different types of chapters, is inspired by John Dos Passos and his U.S.A. Trilogy (1930-1936). This method was reused by John Brunner in Stand on Zanzibar (1968), a landmark SF novel for which Robinson did the preface in a 2011 edition.
    • Body art is referred to as “abramovics” in 2312. Swan’s interest in body art and performance art is inspired by Marina Abramovic, the New York-based Serbian artist, an important performance artist.
    • Land art is referred to as “goldsworthies” in 2312. Swan’s and many spacers’ interest in land art is inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, the British land artist.
    • Jean Genette is modelled after Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s iconic Belgian detective.
    • “Dhalgren sun”: a reference to Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren (1975).
    • “Ursuline culture”, on the result of gender modifications: a reference to Ursula K. Le Guin and her novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), which has a culture where its members can change gender at will.
    • “Fuligin black”: a reference to Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun (1980-1983) and its main character, Severian, who has a fuligin black coat.

    Awards

    • Shortlisted for 2012 BSFA Award for Best Novel
    • Nominated for the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award
    • Won 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel
    • Honor listed for 2012 James Tiptree, Jr. Award
    • Finalist for the 2013 John W. Campbell Memorial Award
    • Nominated for the 2013 Locus Award
    • Nominated for 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel
    • Nominated for 2014 Ignotus Award for Translated Novel (Spain)

    Essays and Criticism

    Reviews

    Resources

  • Galileo’s Dream

    Galileo’s Dream is a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, published on August 6, 2009 in the UK and December 29, 2009 in the USA. It is Robinson’s 14th novel to be published.

    In articles and interviews in 2008, during the writing stage, the novel was referred to as The Galileans.

    Premise

    After the historical fiction feel of most of The Years Of Rice And Salt, Robinson returns to writing set in Renaissance times, with this novel whose pitch can be approximated to a biography partly based on historical sources, partly time-travel science fiction.

    Galileo’s Dream covers the life of Galileo Galilei, the 16-17th century Italian scientist, most known for his invention of the optical telescope and discoverer of the four big moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto), which are still called “Galilean moons” today. In a touch which might be reminiscent of Olaf Stapledon’s Last And First Men, a novel Robinson has read and admired, Galileo’s Dream enables Galileo to communicate across time with the future inhabitants of the Galilean moons. This narrative device, which can be described as supernatural, sounds novel and unexpected on Robinson’s behalf and marks the first time Robinson has used time-travelling in his work. It is, however, used within the novel to explore themes such as human perceptions, the passage of time, mortality and legacy.

    The novel includes the following product description:

    In a novel of stunning dimensions, the acclaimed author of the MARS trilogy brings us the story of the incredible life — and death — of Galileo, the First Scientist. Late Renaissance Italy still 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 kind of telescope for Galileo to peer through. Galileo is not sure if he is in a dream, an enchantment, a vision, or something else as yet undefined. The blasted wasteland he sees when he points the telescope at Jupiter, of harsh yellows and reds and blacks, looks just like hell as described by the Catholic church, and Galileo is a devout Catholic. But he’s also a scientist, perhaps the very first in history. What he’s looking at is the future, the world of Jovian humans three thousand years hence. He is looking at Jupiter from the vantage point of one of its moons whose inhabitants maintain that Galileo has to succeed in his own world for their history to come to pass. Their ability to reach back into the past and call Galileo “into resonance” with the later time is an action that will have implications for both periods, and those in between, like our own. By day Galileo’s life unfurls in early seventeenth century Italy, leading inexorably to his trial for heresy. By night Galileo struggles to be a kind of sage, or an arbiter in a conflict …but understanding what that conflict might be is no easy matter, and resolving his double life is even harder. 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, in full.

    Structure

    The novel is composed of 20 chapters, each beginning with a quotation from works of literature or poetry from ancient, medieval or modern times (including from Galileo himself). It appears to be written in the third person, occasionally switching to first person narration.

    Summary

    I The Stranger

    1609. Venice, Padua.

    Galileo Galilei, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Padua since 1592, meets a stranger from “Alta Europa”, who informs him of the existence of a spyglass. He creates one and makes a demonstration to the Doge of Venice and his senators.

    II I Primi Al Mondo

    1609-1610. Venice, Padua.

    Galileo perfects his spyglasses and makes astronomical observations: the stars, the moon, the planets, Jupiter’s moons. He contacts the Florentines hoping patronage at the Medici court.

    III Entangled

    3020. Europa.

    The stranger, Ganymede, leads Galileo on Europa; meanwhile in 17th century Italy, Galileo is in a syncope. Council: Galileo meets Hera, Ganymede’s group contests a vote on the exploration of Europa’s ocean. Galileo is made to forget his visit.

    IV The Phases of Venus

    1610. Padua, Venice, Florence.

    Cartophilus comes to the service of Galileo. Galileo observes the Jupiter moons. Publication of The Starry Messenger (Siderus Nuncius). Galileo is accepted as Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke Cosimo. He sends spyglasses to many courts in Europe. Galileo moves to Florence and meets young Florentine nobleman Filippo Salviati. He observes the phases of Venus.

    V The Other

    3020. Europa.

    Ganymede and Hera take Galileo to a plunge into the Europan ocean, trying to sabotage a Europan expedition to the ocean’s deep, where they encounter a being. Hera wants to snatch Galileo off Ganymede’s influence.

    VI A Statue Would Have Been Erected

    1610-1611. Florence, Rome.

    Religious condemnations of Galileo’s observations. Galileo goes to Rome to defend his opinions, making important acquaintances: Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, Federico Cesi (founder of the Academy of the Lynxes), Pope Paul V. Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino initiates an investigation into Galileo’s theories.

    VII The Other Galileo

    3020. Io.

    Ganymede and Hera battle over using the device (the entangler) to take Galileo back and forth to the future (prolepsis and analepsis). Ganymede wanted Galileo as an intelligent and neutral party to support his position to prevent the exploration of the Europan ocean; Ganymede’s prolepses aim at science overcoming religion, and Galileo dying as science’s martyr, burned at the stake; Hera wants to help prevent that fate.

    VIII Parry Riposte

    1611-1616. Florence, Rome.

    Galileo defends himself of accusations, another visit to Rome. Bellarmino’s warning not to deal with Copernicanism finds itself in the middle of power plays between the Borgias and the Vatican, with the Inquisition meddling. Catophilus and diplomat Giovanfrancesco Buonamici investigate within Rome’s network of spies. Bellarmino delivers Galileo a decree with the warning, while all books adopting the Copernican view are banned.

    IX Aurora

    1616. Florence.

    Galileo moves in the Villa del Segui, in Bellosguardo, overlooking Florence.

    3020. Europa.

    Aurora, physicist and mathematician, gives Galileo a fast summary of scientific advancements from the Ancient Greeks, to his own time, to quantum physics, to mathematical descriptions of probabilities, time, multi-verses and manifolds. Galileo has a partial dream-like memory of previous visits, which influence his decisions in his life; Hera tries to remedy to that.

    X The Celatone

    1616-ca.1619. Florence.

    Sickness and bad temper, and Galileo focuses on other things. He develops the jovilabe and the celatone. He sends his daughters to the convent of San Matteo.

    XI The Structure of Time

    3020. Europa, Callisto.

    With Aurora, Galileo gets another crash course at mathematics and physics history: the ten dimensions, the three dimensions of time, the entity that encompasses all of Europa’s ocean. Hera makes Galileo remember his past in order to make him better understand the choices in his life: his mother abusing his weak father (and how that affected his relationships with women, his will to be stronger than everybody else); his meeting with Marina at a party at his old friend Sagredo’s in Venice. Hera takes Galileo to Callisto.

    XII Carnival On Callisto

    3020. Callisto.

    More memories: despite this love at first, he did not marry Marina, and they fought; his mother and Marina clashing, Galileo trying to separate them (women having a hard time in a patriarchal context). Ganymede was a cult leader who had ventured in Ganymede’s ocean; what he had found there made him want to prevent Europans from doing the same; Hera had been his mnemosyne (akin to a psychologist). On Callisto, Hera and Galileo moved through a great carnival to a council for the whole Jovian system, Ganymede and the Europans clashing. Hera’s group follow Ganymede’s group to Io and engage in a skirmish; Ganymede escapes while Hera is left stranded and Galileo is sent back in a hurry, without amnestics.

    XIII Always Already

    ca.1619-1623. Florence.

    Galileo is lost between the present, the future and the déjà-vus of manifolds. Many deaths: Sagredo, his mother, Cardinal Bellarmino, Duke Cosimo (replaced by young Ferdinando II), Marina, Pope Paul V (replaced by Gregory XV). Visits to the convent; gardening; writing. Discussion with Cartophilus: Ganymede had made several other interventionist attempts before (Archimedes) and Cartophilus had been around for over two centuries, but the inertia of the manifolds was too much to achieve the desired long-term effects; the whole process was being abandoned because of philosophical objections. The unexpected happens: Gregory XV dies and is replaced by Galileo’s friend Cardinal Barberini, Pope Urban VIII; a Lyncean, Cesarini, is made Cardinal!

    XIV Fear of the Other

    3020. Europa.

    Hera makes Galileo remember: Galileo having a good time with rich friends while Marina was doing the hard work of parenting; not marrying her because of her stature as a prostitute; complying with astrology (prostituting his science) for the sake of patronage; and what Hera considers Galileo’s main contribution, establishing scientific protocols for experimentation. Ganymede’s group creates an explosion in Europa that seemes to damage the sentience underground; then Jupiter reacts.

    XV The Two Worlds

    1623-1631. Florence, Rome.

    Galileo finishes The Assayer. Positive conjunctions do not last forever: Cardinal Cesarini dies and is replaced by Fra Niccolo Riccardi, less of an intellectual; Pope Urban is too much involved in the politics of installing his power, and of the alliances being made (in the Thirty-Years War), to care. Galileo leaves Rome believing he had been given permission to discuss anything as long as it’s considered as a mathematical abstraction. Again between illnesses, Galileo writes the Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems. Pope Urban grows more distant and the weight of Galileo’s friends diminishes; nevertheless, Galileo successfully negotiates for the publication of his Dialogo. In Florence, Galileo moves from Bellosguardo to the villa Il Gioiello, in Arcetri, next to his daughters’ convent. Galileo gets the Dialogo published. In a banquet by the Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo meets Hera, passing as Countess Alessandra Buonamici, wife of the diplomat Buonamici!

    XVI The Look

    3020. Jupiter.

    Galileo gets a tutorial on the history(ies) between his time and Hera’s: man’s progressive hold over nature, war, huge life loss, and then slow but resilient restoration and reconstruction; time-travelling a search for redemption and an attempt to minimize past suffering. Ganymede believes that minimization shall come by Galileo dying and science overcoming religion. Flying over Jupiter’s surface, Ganymede is on trial; he says he is from the future and that extinction lies ahead if contact is made with the Jovian, because of the despair that would be produced in humanity if they learn how insignificant they are compared to the Jovian and his peers, vastly superior to humanity. Jupiter manifests itself, with sounds and cloud formations, making them understand that the cosmos is populated everywhere, from Europa and Ganymede and Jupiter, to millions around stars elsewhere in the galaxy, and stars themselves, all of them communicating across all ten dimensions, changing always across all manifolds, eternity itself striving to improvement. In ecstasy, Galileo was unable to follow any longer; “All things remain in God”. When they came to, Galileo and Hera made love, Galileo understanding that men of his time had been afraid of women because they were other.

    XVII The Trial

    1632-1633. Florence, Rome.

    Wars in Europe had weakened papal power and Urban had to strike back by crusading against heresy: Galileo is called for examination. Ambassador Niccolini tries to defend him. In the trial, headed by Maculano di Firenzuola, Galileo is questioned on the prohibition by Bellarmino of 1616; a stricter but fake injunction is presented to him. Galileo is held in a Vatican dormitory room. In a private interview with Galileo, Maculano explained that he had to be found guilty in something, and got Galileo to accept admission of sin.

    3020. Jupiter.

    With Hera, Galileo decides of Ganymede’s fate: to be sent back in analepsis to make himself prevent the changes that he had done.

    XVIII Vehement Suspicion

    1633. Rome.

    Galileo confesses and is allowed to defend himself and spends months waiting, writing letters to Maria Celeste. Maculano’s proceedings are superseded by the Jesuits and Galileo’s fate lies in the balance. Cartophilus and Buonamici, always watching, conspire and make sure what the Cardinals’ vote will be (Cartophilus sneaks in Gasparo Borgia’s villa and drugs him). Galileo is sentenced to vehement suspicion of heresy, the Dialogo is banned, Galileo is to be imprisoned, 7 out of 10 signatures: a compromise had been reached.

    XIX Eppur Si Muove

    1633. Rome, Siena.

    Galileo spends days and sleepless nights in rage and bitterness. He is allowed to move to Siena, at Archbishop’s Piccolomini (an ex-student), who tries to occupy his mind, while Urban’s reprimands continues.

    3020. Io.

    Hera explains Ganymede was trying to carve a new channel of temporal outcome with multiple analepses, where science would dominate religion from its beginning, and low points of human history would be reduced compared to times where the reverse is realized; but all potentialities exist, all Galileos exist, an infinity of them, including the ones that were burnt to the stake (this Galileo tries to save one). There is no end to it. Hera gives Galileo amnestics and Galileo comes back from his syncope.

    1633-1634. Siena, Florence.

    Galileo is granted to be moved to his home and his family at Arcetri (bidding Piccolomini goodbye, he said “Eppur si muove”). The nuns at the convent were in a horrible state; Galileo helps in any way he could, spending time farming, talking daily with Maria Celeste. He devises machines and starts writing, about the mathematics in all of God’s creations. Maria Celeste falls ill and dies.

    XX The Dream

    1634-1642. Florence.

    Galileo compiles his old notes and writes The Two Sciences (Discorsi), the book he wanted to write before he got involved with the telescope; it is published in Holland. He falls back into melancholia, goes blind; young Vincenzio Viviani becomes his assistant. Correspondence and visits from Alessandra Buonamici comfort him; visitors come from all over Europe (Thomas Hobbes, John Milton). He dreams of all the important people in his life, most dead, and Alessandra. He falls ill, and dies.

    1642-1794. Florence, Holland, England, France.

    Viviani dedicates his life to collecting Galileo’s work; he takes out Maria Celeste’s remains and places them close to Galileo’s tomb. After his death, Pope Clement XII (a Florentine) has built a new tomb: Galileo with Maria Celeste and Viviani, next to Michelangelo, Art and Science side by side. Cartophilus and fellow (time-)travellers move on, helping several people; no one coming back in the entangler anymore. Cartophilus had tried to change things with Ganymede, to make understand that science is a religion, the most ethical religion, interfered with Archimedes, then Galileo, then trying to correct things along the way. Now, in a cell in Bastille during the French Revolution, Cartophilus ends his narration.

    Characters

    • Galileo Galilei
    • Maffeo Barberini (Pope Urban VIII)
    • Ganymede
    • Hera

    Publication History

    • Voyager, hardcover, August 2009
    • Voyager, trade paperback, August 2009
    • Spectra, hardcover, December 2009
    • Spectra, e-Book, December 2009
    • Science Fiction Book Club, December 2009
    • Minotauro, as El Sueño de Galileo (Spanish translation), June 2010
    • Voyager, paperback, August 2010
    • Spectra, paperback, December 2010
    • Recorded Books Inc., Audio Book, February 2011
    • Presses de la Cité, as Le Rêve de Galilée (French translation), November 2011
    • Pocket, as Le Rêve de Galilée (French translation), September 2013

    Reviews

    (by order of discovery, which more or less approximates order of publication):

    Aggregates:

    En español:

    Resources