2312

Best known for his work with the Mars trilogy, and The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson is a visionary author whose works have challenged readers' views about nearly every aspect of society, from government, to business, to global warming and religion itself. His latest novel, 2312 takes place three hundred years in the future, and provides a glimpse at a very believable humanity that's spread to the other planets.It's always difficult to find fault with Robinson's works. His use of vocabulary and stage-setting is without equal, and continues to impress in 2312 as well. It seems that the perfectly appropriate word is used in every circumstance, which enriches the strength of the story. He writes of many places and situations that humans have never before been associated with, but in a way that's purely authentic; indeed, it would be thoroughly surprising if reality differs from Robinson's depictions by much at all. He portrays a web of humanity that has spread to nearly every conceivable location in our solar system, and even beyond, by the later chapters of the book. From the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, to the terrariums built out of asteroids, the book reads almost as a history of the future.As always, Robinson's choice of characters is both excellent, and profoundly believable. Characters with real flaws always tell the best stories, and those in 2312 are not only realistic, but very flawed, each in their own way. The primary character, Swan Er Hong is moody, eclectic, often quick to anger, and not even particularly sympathetic, yet the reader is forced to care deeply about her, thanks to Robinson's work. In the same way that the book seems to tell the history of events that haven't yet happened, the characters in 2312 feel so real, it's as if they just haven't been born yet.The dialogue is equally astute, and shows that these characters live in their world, and have been a part of it long before the reader picked up the novel. Though there are a lot of terms that should be foreign to the reader, they are somehow not. The author does a great job of weaving story, characters, and dialogue together as to make the page disappear, and the plot live on in the readers' mind.Kim Stanley Robinson books are typically slow-burning, and 2312 is no exception. Often times, it's difficult to place exactly where the climax is coming from, as events necessarily build toward a specific point. However, 2312 does build up, only with small, but significant sections. The plot comes together very quickly, and once it does, readers will be rewarded with an excellent consolidation of seemingly minor plot points, that suddenly mean everything. The book takes place in so many locations as to be a whirlwind, but it never feels that way. Majestic vistas, from the bright side of Mercury, to the rings of Saturn, and even the shattered locations of Earth are portrayed perfectly in the book; it's completely understandable how these locations have come to be the way they are by 2312.Perhaps some of the most surprising aspects of this novel are the depictions of places like New York City, and the terrariums themselves. Terminator on Mercury is also an intriguing locale, though Robinson perhaps could have spent some more time describing and exploring that section of the book. Still, the idea of New York City as a drowned metropolis, yet being converted into a bustling Venice-like city of glass towers reflecting on water seems magical. Most works that detail New York City being flooded seem to portray people as abandoning it to rot and collapse back on itself. It's refreshing to find an author who sees how people would likely really see the city. It's also unusual to hear New York City sound as if it's better for having been drowned.For all the good this novel does, however, there are a few things that tend to get in the way of the enjoyment. The challenges to genders in 2312 seem rather confusing, and are never explained particularly well. It seems that the idea of male and female have been transformed tremendously, and yet it never seems to affect the characters all that much. With the exception of a sex scene, it's almost as though gender doesn't matter, yet Robinson goes to great lengths in certain sections to describe the various genders. It seems that in only three hundred years, gender is essentially removed from the equation, which feels somewhat far-fetched in this novel. Still, it's perhaps a unique insight into how Robinson sees us moving forward as a species, and the trends that today's societal roles see changing.2312 does a fantastic job of building a new fiction universe for Robinson to continue working in. The book itself seems to tell only a part of a very large story that takes place in this futuristic reality of 2312, and it would truly be a shame to not see more of this particular future that he has so masterfully created. 2312 is world-building at its finest, and no author accomplishes it quite as successfully as Kim Stanley Robinson.

Having read every single one of KSR's previous novels, I looked forward to 2312 since I heard of its existence. And I began reading it on the day that it came out on May 22. Nineteen days later I am finished. To put that into context, I normally read about 1 book per week. But there were so many ideas to think about in 2312 that I had to keep putting the Kindle down to think about the words on the page. This book will challenge you. It is thoughtful science-fiction that both entertains and feeds the mind. If that is what you enjoy, then read this book. The book itself is a Gesamtkunstwek, a total work of art, to borrow a word from the Germans. The book's narrative occurs within chapters that are interspersed with Lists and Extracts that fill you in on the 24th century (a century we have come to imagine within the Star-Trek narrative, but that here is quite different from that vision). The weave that this creates within the book is like that of a tapestry where the threads come together to form a beautiful image (and to those who have already read the book, then a better metaphor would be a symphony's movements or individual rocks that come together).2312 is a long account of the past. Oh it is set in the year 2312, thus the title, but if you pay close attention, you will notice that there are details that indicate that it is some future author writing this history of the past - an author many decades out from the events of 2312. 2312 is apparently a crucial year - a turning point. The book concerns itself with the momentous events of 2312 that begin with the death of the protagonist's grandmother. We meet the protagonist, Swan Er Hong, an artist, already in her second century, living on Terminator - a moving city on Mercury that is propelled forward on tracks heated by the light of dawn. Swan remains the nexus of the story, although the viewpoint does change on occasion to some other characters. What is the book about? Humanity and its attempts in the 24th century to better the human condition.In the year 2312 humanity has balkanized (to use KSR's terminology). Humans live on Mercury, Venus, Mars, in the Saturn System, on many thousands of asteroids, and on an Earth that continues to spin and continues to support billions of humanity. Yes, life is not perfect on Earth, but it is not the apocalyptic doomsday that so many current authors seem to imagine a future Earth will look like. For that I am already thankful (because I consider the lack of progressive vision of future humanities currently being written about by many science-fiction authors to be distressing). So this is not a dystopia. Nor is this a utopia either. It is a future still driven by the human condition, with everything that entails.Reading Kim Stanley Robinson is not for everyone. But I happen to love his works because they transplant me to futures (or in the case of the Years of Rice and Salt - the past) that I want to experience. I can imagine myself in the time and place. That is how effective KSR is at world-building. Many have complained that while his world building is impressive, he lacks the ability at effective characterization. I don't consider this to be true. The character of Swan Er Hong, a 24th century artist from Mercury, is one of the better anti-hero characters that I have seen fleshed out.This is a book that you will find yourself returning to. Why? To think about its ideas and to reexperience its story. This is what science-fiction can be - an effective mirror of humanity that seeks to comment on current trends. Kim Stanley Robinson's history of the future does that. Now if only his history of the future were already our past . . .

No se inglés, lo he comprado en inglés y no he podido leerlo. Es una historia muy larga, pero me han dicho que está muy bien.

But this is really impeded by an extremely bad numerisation!! There is a lot of missing text and this is irrespectful of both KS Robinson and his readers.

A continuation of Blue Mars’ Universe Kim meshes Climate Change implications for humanity with computer technological advances to create a thrilling who-Dunn it . Very satisfying.

So as I went over my notes on when I was reading this book, I think they can be summarized as “Reasons Why I Hate This Book”. However, since the book has been nominated for the Hugo, the Arthur C Clarke Award and won the Nebula Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel, I feel like I have to justify why it wasn’t a particularly satisfying read for me.In Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312, the date is given by the title and our solar system is a very different place. Humans have terraformed and colonised every inhabitable planet and moon. Asteroids have been repurposed as long-haul shuttles, self-contained habitats that people live on for years or months till they reach their destination. Mercury supports a city called Terminator, which is a shielded habitat that travels around the planet on rails, pushed forward by the thermal expansion of metal at sunrise.The protagonist is Swan Er Hong, a native of Terminator, and grand-daughter of Alex, one of the most powerful women in the solar system. Swan is impulsive, erratic and emotionally intense. Her past is full of outrageous risks and extreme creativity: having songbirds neurons implanted into her brain, eating extra-terrestrial bacteria, designing habitats in the asteroid belt and creating art on the plains of Mercury. The story opens with Swan mourning Alex’s death. An inspector from the asteroids and a diplomat from Titan (Fitz Wahram) enter her life, and Swan finds out that Alex’s death may not be due to natural causes. And then Mercury is attacked, making the situation really complicated.Now, while all of this may sound really promising, why I thought 2312 was nothing more than an ambitious failure was its lack of a coherent storyline. Robinson has imagined a truly amazing world, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. The characters don’t seem to have any concept of fiscal or practical limitation. They head across the solar system on a moment’s notice, take vacations on random asteroids and seem to have a free hand in messing with the Earth’s already too-fucked environment, with next to no repercussions.In structure, 2312 is supposed to be a murder mystery. Swan and Wahram witnessed the attack on Terminator, survived it and then investigate it, which in turn leads them to the pre-existing fault lines their society. The problems with this are that the society hasn’t been described coherently enough for the reader to grasp the potential fault lines and Robinson has no idea about how to construct a mystery plot. Swan and Wahram’s approach is very disjointed, there is no sense of gathering clues and very little sense of drama. All of the plot revelations are dropped in Swan’s lap by another character at a convenient moment. The characters essentially do no meaningful investigation and show no investment in the outcome of the plot. When the climax comes, it is very weirdly forgettable.There are also large sections of the book that appear to have nothing to do with the rest of the plot, and that’s where the unfortunate interval on Earth comes in. Robinson takes advantage of the scenes on Earth to do a bit of alienation and shows how foreign and strange and stifling Earth feels to someone who grew up outside of its atmosphere. Parts of this work, but he puts the plot on hold to do it. And parts of it do not work at all. The most glaring example is Swan and Wahram’s bizarre bit of attempted charity in Africa, which comes across as stunningly high-handed and arrogant. This could be in character, particularly for Swan (who is not long on empathy), but, if so, the book doesn’t signal to the reader that it should be read that way. Instead, there are some side (or snide) comments that seem to indicate Robinson knows nothing about the economic arc of Africa from the past twenty years. And when their absurd, botched, condescending charity plan fails for all the obvious reasons, the characters, and apparently the novel, throw up their hands and write Earth off as a stagnant lost cause that can’t accept the imposition of a good idea and go back to the plot, never apparently caring about Earth again.Almost as frustrating is the way that these interludes are tied back into the story, which is usually through Swan getting ridiculously lucky on her random encounter rolls. It felt like whenever Robinson needed to make progress in the plot, Swan would just accidentally run into exactly the right person or situation to bring up the next plot point or to have some investigation make sense. (Not that Swan usually figured this out. Normally, the inspector explains it to her.) The author’s finger was planted so firmly on the scales that it destroyed my suspension of disbelief and made a mockery of the idea that the characters were actually investigating anything.2312 is built around a skeleton of a plot, but the lack of engagement with it, the lack of tension and emotion, the way the next developments are generally narrated to the protagonists and the reader, and the repeated use of random encounters to steer it left me without much reason to care. Robinson tries a few twists, but since the story never felt committed to its plot anyway, those twists feel less like planned complications and more like another random veer in the road. It didn’t help that the final outcome was more prosaic and forgettable than the book had been implying it would be.At the end, I would like to say that 2312 is not all that bad. The protagonists are memorable, and Robinson was brilliant at world-building and at writing the set pieces. However, the book lacked a plot and the characters needed a more coherent and complete cultural backdrop. Without these, the book just felt like reading about gorgeous moments separated by a whole lot of boring, and gave the overall impression of a construction tour rather than a story. There are bits of it I loved (especially the extended characterisation of Swam and Wahram in the tunnels of Mercury) but the book as a whole is a mess, and I can’t recommend wading through it for the good parts.

To me reading this title was rather more like a psychedelic experience than simply reading a sci-fi story. The plot itself offers a lot of space and often I would start day dreaming or contemplating different alternatives to the story and the universe it takes place in. I enjoyed the language and was throughout the book inspired by the pictures and ideas that were revealed to me. First time since my childhood I find my self having dreams about humanity being able to inhabit outer space... The way how the story is told created a unique, peculiar but beautiful and fulfilling experience for me. It appeared by no means action-packed to me it and still did hold enough momentum. In fact, I seldom felt so rewarded after reading a book - to me it was more like a trip. Good luck!