What do you think?
Rate this book
Three Californias Triptych #1
Дикий берег
2047 год. Началась и закончилась ядерная война. США лежат в развалинах, в которых царствуют койоты. Страны-победители установили карантин - японские корабли патрулируют побережье, а спутники - небо.
Жители калифорнийского городка Сан-Онофре забыли о прошлом, ведут примитивное натуральное хозяйство и изредка меняются товарами с соседними общинами.
Хэнк Флетчер же мечтает о том мире, который был навсегда уничтожен войной. Именно его мечтам суждено сыграть главную роль в деле возрождения Америки.
Жители калифорнийского городка Сан-Онофре забыли о прошлом, ведут примитивное натуральное хозяйство и изредка меняются товарами с соседними общинами.
Хэнк Флетчер же мечтает о том мире, который был навсегда уничтожен войной. Именно его мечтам суждено сыграть главную роль в деле возрождения Америки.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1984
215 people are currently reading
5976 people want to read
About the author
Kim Stanley Robinson
250 books7,490 followersKim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He has published 22 novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 371 reviews
April 3, 2008
I tend to go on binges when I discover a writer I really like, taking down as many of their works as I possibly can voraciously for the first few months of my acquaintanceship with their works. Hell, I read really fast, so it's not like I don't have time. So I'm kind of in that stage with Kim Stanley Robinson.
I've read science fiction pretty regularly since I was pretty young, devouring my father's and uncles' collections indiscriminately. When I was about 14, I decided I was more interested in grown up SF, and read more of the experimental New Wavers, Dick, Delany, Sturgeon and Ellison. Later I discovered the wonder that is Gene Wolfe. They wrote better than the bulk of the hard SF writers that filled the shelves at the used bookstores I frequented, they were more "literary." But in the past year or so, I started rereading some of the authors that I had discarded before high school, and I rediscovered the wonder and joy of great imaginative storytelling. This lead me somehow to the works of Kim Stanley Robinson.
I should say first that Robinson is a stylist of the first order, and the texture of his prose is a beautiful thing. The characters he creates are rich and believable. And I think that that is sort of the miracle of the Mars trilogy, as well as the promise of the Three Californias: these are novels of Big Ideas, for sure, but the narrative is never sacrificed for the sake of lumbering speculative exposition. Sure, the Mars books regularly feature capsule lectures about the possible effects of terraforming on Martian weather patterns, or the psychological effects of long interplanetary voyages, but they feel perfectly balanced by the furtherance of the rich tapestry of narrative and character development.
Such digressions do not make up the fabric of The Wild Shore. It's a tightly constructed, fairly simple narrative set on the West Coast after the United States has been largely destroyed by a nuclear assault. This is a very well traveled sf conceit, but the simple, narrative-oriented approach makes it much different from Alas, Babylon or A Canticle for Leibowitz. The focus here is not so much survivalist porn or the extrapolation of how society would crawl out of the ruins, although both themes are present. It focuses more on how normal people balance the necessities of survival with the dream of a return to an almost mythical lost civilization. In Robinson's scenario, America was destroyed in a terrorist-style attack by an unknown enemy, and there was no time for retribution. The rest of the world, mediated by the UN has elected to quarantine the United States, rather than escalate into war over who controls the blasted territory.
America exists for the postbellum characters in this novel only through fragmented reading and the stories of a handful of survivors, crystallized in the character of Tom Barnard, who is the memory of the fishing village of San Onofre and the teacher to its youth. He has tried to instill a knowledge of the past in the young people of the village so that the ideas of civilization and learning don't vanish in the slide back into primitive subsistence-based existence. This creates a sense of having had something stolen from them from them in the younger characters, and after making a trip south to the relatively-civilized metropolis of San Diego, it ignites the hope that they might be able to strike back at their oppressors. This leads to predictably tragic consequences.
The Three Californias is not a trilogy in the traditional SF sense. Rather than each novel moving forward in time, each novel covers the same period in a different possible future, with characters and themes recurring. In The Wild Shore Robinson plays with mirror structures that indicate the approach of the books to come. This is really a minor detail, but I think that it's good to note that with Robinson, the book doesn't end with the pages. His writing is the sort that bleeds into the rest of our realities, and that's really the best kind, isn't it?
I've read science fiction pretty regularly since I was pretty young, devouring my father's and uncles' collections indiscriminately. When I was about 14, I decided I was more interested in grown up SF, and read more of the experimental New Wavers, Dick, Delany, Sturgeon and Ellison. Later I discovered the wonder that is Gene Wolfe. They wrote better than the bulk of the hard SF writers that filled the shelves at the used bookstores I frequented, they were more "literary." But in the past year or so, I started rereading some of the authors that I had discarded before high school, and I rediscovered the wonder and joy of great imaginative storytelling. This lead me somehow to the works of Kim Stanley Robinson.
I should say first that Robinson is a stylist of the first order, and the texture of his prose is a beautiful thing. The characters he creates are rich and believable. And I think that that is sort of the miracle of the Mars trilogy, as well as the promise of the Three Californias: these are novels of Big Ideas, for sure, but the narrative is never sacrificed for the sake of lumbering speculative exposition. Sure, the Mars books regularly feature capsule lectures about the possible effects of terraforming on Martian weather patterns, or the psychological effects of long interplanetary voyages, but they feel perfectly balanced by the furtherance of the rich tapestry of narrative and character development.
Such digressions do not make up the fabric of The Wild Shore. It's a tightly constructed, fairly simple narrative set on the West Coast after the United States has been largely destroyed by a nuclear assault. This is a very well traveled sf conceit, but the simple, narrative-oriented approach makes it much different from Alas, Babylon or A Canticle for Leibowitz. The focus here is not so much survivalist porn or the extrapolation of how society would crawl out of the ruins, although both themes are present. It focuses more on how normal people balance the necessities of survival with the dream of a return to an almost mythical lost civilization. In Robinson's scenario, America was destroyed in a terrorist-style attack by an unknown enemy, and there was no time for retribution. The rest of the world, mediated by the UN has elected to quarantine the United States, rather than escalate into war over who controls the blasted territory.
America exists for the postbellum characters in this novel only through fragmented reading and the stories of a handful of survivors, crystallized in the character of Tom Barnard, who is the memory of the fishing village of San Onofre and the teacher to its youth. He has tried to instill a knowledge of the past in the young people of the village so that the ideas of civilization and learning don't vanish in the slide back into primitive subsistence-based existence. This creates a sense of having had something stolen from them from them in the younger characters, and after making a trip south to the relatively-civilized metropolis of San Diego, it ignites the hope that they might be able to strike back at their oppressors. This leads to predictably tragic consequences.
The Three Californias is not a trilogy in the traditional SF sense. Rather than each novel moving forward in time, each novel covers the same period in a different possible future, with characters and themes recurring. In The Wild Shore Robinson plays with mirror structures that indicate the approach of the books to come. This is really a minor detail, but I think that it's good to note that with Robinson, the book doesn't end with the pages. His writing is the sort that bleeds into the rest of our realities, and that's really the best kind, isn't it?
April 10, 2012
In the year 2047, humanity struggles to survive in the ruins of coastal California. Almost 50 years before, nuclear blasts decimated thousands of cities across the United States. However, this is the only world teenaged Henry knows: a world revolving around harvests, fishing, the howl of the Santa Ana, and the danger of wild-eyed scavengers in Orange County. His ancient mentor, Tom, taught him how to read and of the way things used to be. Henry's world shifts when strangers from the outside arrive. San Diego seeks to unite the coastal communities by handcar rail, even as outside forces bomb their efforts. Henry must decide where his future lies.[return][return]This was a fascinating coming-of-age tale. It's not a suspenseful read. It builds slowly, and shows how people have scraped by. I loved the details on fishing and harvest time, and all of the characters felt real and complicated. Some people might find the detailed world building to be dull, but in some ways, it reminded me of a childhood favorite, The Other Side of the Mountain, or a pioneer book. Those details made their hardship feel genuine to me.[return][return]This apparently is part of a trilogy called The Three Californas. I'm a little disappointed that the other books cover different interpretations of the future Orange County and won't continue this post-apocalyptic setting. However, as a native Californian, I adore speculative fiction set in the state, and I will read the next books at some point.
October 4, 2022
Earlier this year I read this author's most recent novel, The Ministry For the Future. I liked it so much, I decided to read all his books, having not read any of them before.
The Wild Shore is his debut and the first of a trilogy: Three Californias. Each book in the trilogy imagines a different future for my home state. This one takes place after a limited nuclear war has left the United States blockaded and fragmented.
A small community south of San Clemente is eking out an existence by farming and fishing between the foothills of the mountains there and the Pacific coast.
It is an adventure tale featuring a 15 year old boy and his friends who want to break out of the community and discover what might be going on in the rest of the former United States. I found the voice of Kim Stanley Robinson I had become acquainted with in Ministry For the Future. A younger voice for sure but his underlying ideas about how human beings can work together to create life during adversity and his perceptions about the natural world are all there.
The author clearly draws on earlier sci fi authors such as Philip K Dick and Ursula Le Guin, as well as Mark Twain's boys. The coming of age of his teenage characters has elements I found in the first Earth Sea story by Le Guin. But I also enjoyed a political and social consciousness that felt well formed and informed.
I look forward to the rest of his books.
The Wild Shore is his debut and the first of a trilogy: Three Californias. Each book in the trilogy imagines a different future for my home state. This one takes place after a limited nuclear war has left the United States blockaded and fragmented.
A small community south of San Clemente is eking out an existence by farming and fishing between the foothills of the mountains there and the Pacific coast.
It is an adventure tale featuring a 15 year old boy and his friends who want to break out of the community and discover what might be going on in the rest of the former United States. I found the voice of Kim Stanley Robinson I had become acquainted with in Ministry For the Future. A younger voice for sure but his underlying ideas about how human beings can work together to create life during adversity and his perceptions about the natural world are all there.
The author clearly draws on earlier sci fi authors such as Philip K Dick and Ursula Le Guin, as well as Mark Twain's boys. The coming of age of his teenage characters has elements I found in the first Earth Sea story by Le Guin. But I also enjoyed a political and social consciousness that felt well formed and informed.
I look forward to the rest of his books.
March 25, 2009
I had already read his Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars) and had liked them but had trouble at times with his didactic style/approach, even when I agreed with his point of view (which I don't always).
However, this book was his first novel and I really liked it. It has a simplicity but is as powerful as anything else he has done. It is an interesting post-apocalyptic coming of age story about a group of teenagers and an old man who are part of a small fishing community eking out a subsistence living after America has been nuked. It was written in 1984 and has eerie resonance for events to come that have actually happened -- e.g. 9/11 and climate change for a couple of strong examples. If you like science fiction, I believe that you will like this book. Even if you don't as a general rule, his prose is very elegant and even poetic. It compares well with anything Cormac McCarthy has written, and while dark, he doesn't have the unrelenting grimness that overwhelmed me in reading McCarthy's The Road.
However, this book was his first novel and I really liked it. It has a simplicity but is as powerful as anything else he has done. It is an interesting post-apocalyptic coming of age story about a group of teenagers and an old man who are part of a small fishing community eking out a subsistence living after America has been nuked. It was written in 1984 and has eerie resonance for events to come that have actually happened -- e.g. 9/11 and climate change for a couple of strong examples. If you like science fiction, I believe that you will like this book. Even if you don't as a general rule, his prose is very elegant and even poetic. It compares well with anything Cormac McCarthy has written, and while dark, he doesn't have the unrelenting grimness that overwhelmed me in reading McCarthy's The Road.
October 8, 2022
This is a SF post-apoc novel of an unusual kind. There is a nuclear attack in the past that devastated the USA, but the book’s present is not a usual struggle of survival with mutants, radiation sickness and new glory, but a life in a rural post-war community. This is the debut novel by Kim Stanley Robinson (KSM), but the story is quite solid, even if much less SF-ish than his x. I read it as a part of monthly reading for October 2022 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group. The book was nominated for Nebula in 1985 but lost to much more famous Neuromancer, which largely defined the cyberpunk genre – in this case, the KSM’s debut, which deals in alt-history (the nuclear holocaust there occurred in 1984, the time of writing) can be seen as a possible untaken way for the US SF of the 80s.
The year is 2047. The story starts with a narrator, Henry Fletcher, age 17, together with a group of folks of a similar age, discussing a graverobbing in order to get some silver, for they were told that long ago, before the nuclear attack, all rich people had silver handles for their coffins and silver is a unit of exchange once again. It quickly shifts from words to actions and soon they dig up a coffin only to find out that the handles are plastic painted silver, i.e. worthless. Angry, they go to a very old guy, who lived before the attack and likes to tell about the glorious past of the USA. He laughs at them and then tells that
“The really rich ones were buried in gold,” he said slowly, looking down at the steam rising from his cup. “One of them had a gold mask, carved to look just like him, put over his dead face. In his burial chamber were gold statues of his wife, and dogs, and kids—he had on gold shoes, too, and little mosaic pictures of the important events of his life, made of precious stones, surrounding him on each wall of the chamber.…”
Giving us, readers an indicator of the truthfulness of his stories. And quite a few of the younger generation (but not Henry) doubt the truth of his stories, especially such fantastic ones as the men walking on the Moon. They all live in a small village near the Pacific Ocean, working in fields, fishing, and trading with scavengers, who still loot destroyed cities. Life is hard but peaceful, at least until a group of men comes from San Diego by a secret railroad, for some power shots railroad bridges from the sky. And the mayor of San Diego wants to make America great again, to make it what it was before the war, the best nation on Earth, a slogan that reminds current readers of Donald J. Trump, but actually coined by the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. (it is also mentioned in Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler).
Just like in his later works, KSM here gives a lot of attention to possible environmental changes (much more than to nuclear fallout) and to American imperialism. Definitely a strong debut, but I much prefer his Mars trilogy.
The year is 2047. The story starts with a narrator, Henry Fletcher, age 17, together with a group of folks of a similar age, discussing a graverobbing in order to get some silver, for they were told that long ago, before the nuclear attack, all rich people had silver handles for their coffins and silver is a unit of exchange once again. It quickly shifts from words to actions and soon they dig up a coffin only to find out that the handles are plastic painted silver, i.e. worthless. Angry, they go to a very old guy, who lived before the attack and likes to tell about the glorious past of the USA. He laughs at them and then tells that
“The really rich ones were buried in gold,” he said slowly, looking down at the steam rising from his cup. “One of them had a gold mask, carved to look just like him, put over his dead face. In his burial chamber were gold statues of his wife, and dogs, and kids—he had on gold shoes, too, and little mosaic pictures of the important events of his life, made of precious stones, surrounding him on each wall of the chamber.…”
Giving us, readers an indicator of the truthfulness of his stories. And quite a few of the younger generation (but not Henry) doubt the truth of his stories, especially such fantastic ones as the men walking on the Moon. They all live in a small village near the Pacific Ocean, working in fields, fishing, and trading with scavengers, who still loot destroyed cities. Life is hard but peaceful, at least until a group of men comes from San Diego by a secret railroad, for some power shots railroad bridges from the sky. And the mayor of San Diego wants to make America great again, to make it what it was before the war, the best nation on Earth, a slogan that reminds current readers of Donald J. Trump, but actually coined by the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. (it is also mentioned in Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler).
Just like in his later works, KSM here gives a lot of attention to possible environmental changes (much more than to nuclear fallout) and to American imperialism. Definitely a strong debut, but I much prefer his Mars trilogy.
January 30, 2021
This book was among the set of SF first novels published by Ace Books in 1984-85 which included William Gibson's Neuromancer, Lucius Shepard's Green Eyes and Michael Swanwick's In the Drift, all of which I have read except for this first novel by KSR. Why I held off on The Wild Shore until now I attribute to bad optics. The other books seemed much sexier somehow. The omission is now gladly corrected and after reading this novel, I realize that The Wild Shore, aligned with KSR's other books, is the most passionate and poignant.
KSR's SF books are unique in that they are SF told from the perspective of the people who live it. These are stories of character and experience, adventure and contemplation. The SF elements remain strong but are not the focus of the novels, rather they provide the backdrop for a story about life and human endeavors.
In The Wild Shore, we are given an alternate history in which the United Stated was massively nuked in the 1990s, some 60 years earlier. The survivors find scrabbly subsistence in the few green areas available, in this case, southern California. The story is told through the eyes of a youth named Hank and his mentor Tom. Tom was a youth of 18 himself when the bombs exploded and is sort of a tribal elder among the sixty or so residents of the San Onofre Valley. Hank exemplifies the hardy youth who does dawn-to-dusk labor to fish, harvest and hunt for the valley residents. From the south, a hand-driven train comes one day, running on dilapidated tracks, and its rider/drivers bring news of a small city in San Diego that is actively resisting incursions of outside nations, particularly Japan. America apparently is under an interdiction that keeps it in a primitive, non-technological state and isolated from the rest of the unscathed world. Through this setting, the narrative wends touching on the tough life of the remaining inhabitants, the angry passions against foreigners, the wild indiscretions of its youth, all the while showing glimpses of the rest of this strange SFnal world. But like many of KSR's books, this does not dwell on the devastation or suffering of its characters but rather on their perseverance and innate hope for a better future.
Highly recommended for mature readers.
KSR's SF books are unique in that they are SF told from the perspective of the people who live it. These are stories of character and experience, adventure and contemplation. The SF elements remain strong but are not the focus of the novels, rather they provide the backdrop for a story about life and human endeavors.
In The Wild Shore, we are given an alternate history in which the United Stated was massively nuked in the 1990s, some 60 years earlier. The survivors find scrabbly subsistence in the few green areas available, in this case, southern California. The story is told through the eyes of a youth named Hank and his mentor Tom. Tom was a youth of 18 himself when the bombs exploded and is sort of a tribal elder among the sixty or so residents of the San Onofre Valley. Hank exemplifies the hardy youth who does dawn-to-dusk labor to fish, harvest and hunt for the valley residents. From the south, a hand-driven train comes one day, running on dilapidated tracks, and its rider/drivers bring news of a small city in San Diego that is actively resisting incursions of outside nations, particularly Japan. America apparently is under an interdiction that keeps it in a primitive, non-technological state and isolated from the rest of the unscathed world. Through this setting, the narrative wends touching on the tough life of the remaining inhabitants, the angry passions against foreigners, the wild indiscretions of its youth, all the while showing glimpses of the rest of this strange SFnal world. But like many of KSR's books, this does not dwell on the devastation or suffering of its characters but rather on their perseverance and innate hope for a better future.
Highly recommended for mature readers.
June 1, 2020
(...)
Information is key in the novel. Just like the readers, the characters are in the dark about what happened. They are also in the dark about what is happening, for Robinson shows glimpses of a bigger narrative in world politics in the aftermath of the attack – but characters nor readers get to know its true extent. It is a clever narrative device, maximizing the reader’s empathy with the characters: we share uncertainty and frustration about it. It is especially clever because – like the readers – the characters do know about what once was: trains, electricity, hospitals, national pride, and general literacy.
Robinson isn’t showy, and he doses the post-apocalyptic horror extremely sparsely, at the right times, with supreme command – so much that most of the time you even forget you’re reading a post-apocalyptic story at all.
Just as Hank doesn’t have a grip on what happens, he doesn’t have a grip on what he himself is doing. He doesn’t know whether his actions are the right ones, and moral information doesn’t come cheap. The obligatory old man in the story – Tom – seems to have a better grip on things. He’s the only character that survived from the olden days, but ultimately confesses to be a fool too, like anyone. Robinson leaves it to the reader: how much in control are we really, and how is history formed?
(...)
Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It
Information is key in the novel. Just like the readers, the characters are in the dark about what happened. They are also in the dark about what is happening, for Robinson shows glimpses of a bigger narrative in world politics in the aftermath of the attack – but characters nor readers get to know its true extent. It is a clever narrative device, maximizing the reader’s empathy with the characters: we share uncertainty and frustration about it. It is especially clever because – like the readers – the characters do know about what once was: trains, electricity, hospitals, national pride, and general literacy.
Robinson isn’t showy, and he doses the post-apocalyptic horror extremely sparsely, at the right times, with supreme command – so much that most of the time you even forget you’re reading a post-apocalyptic story at all.
Just as Hank doesn’t have a grip on what happens, he doesn’t have a grip on what he himself is doing. He doesn’t know whether his actions are the right ones, and moral information doesn’t come cheap. The obligatory old man in the story – Tom – seems to have a better grip on things. He’s the only character that survived from the olden days, but ultimately confesses to be a fool too, like anyone. Robinson leaves it to the reader: how much in control are we really, and how is history formed?
(...)
Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It
February 17, 2024
I’m not really sure on what to think about this book other than I liked it overall. It’s very much born of the Cold War fears it was written in. I found it interesting in its portrayals of the threads of American culture that are alive and well today and how they might flounder on forth in a post-apocalypse scenario.
I think one of the standout themes in the book is just the persistent and amazing depictions of nature throughout the book. It’s always there interjecting in the narrative to either be calming, wondrous, or deadly but always elegantly written by Robinson with intimate and fascinatingly deep and insightful descriptions.
I think one of the standout themes in the book is just the persistent and amazing depictions of nature throughout the book. It’s always there interjecting in the narrative to either be calming, wondrous, or deadly but always elegantly written by Robinson with intimate and fascinatingly deep and insightful descriptions.
March 9, 2014
A good book, engagingly written though a bit too YA for my tastes. A book in the fine American tradition of 'Huckleberry Finn'; the innocent who wises up but at a terrible cost.
A very convincing post apocalyptic world is created by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is also a very ironically prescient world (it was written in 1984) where America is defeated in some sort of conflict and severely crippled. The world imposes a quarantine which is something like the no fly zone imposed on Iraq after the first Iraq war. In this case any sign of more than nineteenth century advances politically or economically result in laser beam attacks. Not collective punishments but precise blasting of new bridges and railway tracks etc..
After the nuclear apocalypse a sort of basic, near the edge communities start to emerge along the Californian coast. The book is the story of a teenage boy in one such community.
KSR does what he does best and plays with ideas in this book. The characters with moral force in the story are against "The American Resistance". Was that terrible movie 'Red Dawn ' around about 1984? The resistance are shown as chauvinists or innocents being used by chauvinists. Many people believe that America's arrogance and pride were the cause of the WHOLE world turning against it. Many in the community simply believe the time of empty, violent gestures are past.
Is it better to live in the ruins of a magnificent hubristic civilization with dignity and peace or pine for for the past with revenge (against for whom and for what you are not sure but someone has to pay) in your heart?
One thing is for sure all civilizations fall and sometimes we are not even sure if they have fallen. Sometimes we just 'feel' something has changed sometimes an apocalypse just sweeps them away. KSR poses the real questions and gives realistic answers as to what our responses would and could be.
A very convincing post apocalyptic world is created by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is also a very ironically prescient world (it was written in 1984) where America is defeated in some sort of conflict and severely crippled. The world imposes a quarantine which is something like the no fly zone imposed on Iraq after the first Iraq war. In this case any sign of more than nineteenth century advances politically or economically result in laser beam attacks. Not collective punishments but precise blasting of new bridges and railway tracks etc..
After the nuclear apocalypse a sort of basic, near the edge communities start to emerge along the Californian coast. The book is the story of a teenage boy in one such community.
KSR does what he does best and plays with ideas in this book. The characters with moral force in the story are against "The American Resistance". Was that terrible movie 'Red Dawn ' around about 1984? The resistance are shown as chauvinists or innocents being used by chauvinists. Many people believe that America's arrogance and pride were the cause of the WHOLE world turning against it. Many in the community simply believe the time of empty, violent gestures are past.
Is it better to live in the ruins of a magnificent hubristic civilization with dignity and peace or pine for for the past with revenge (against for whom and for what you are not sure but someone has to pay) in your heart?
One thing is for sure all civilizations fall and sometimes we are not even sure if they have fallen. Sometimes we just 'feel' something has changed sometimes an apocalypse just sweeps them away. KSR poses the real questions and gives realistic answers as to what our responses would and could be.
August 22, 2011
The Wild Shore it one of the best books I've read in years. Fantastic story, compelling characters, interesting issues, vivid writing - I just loved it.
It is set in America "after the bombing". The United States is no more. America has suffered a severe nuclear attack. Millions died in the initial attack, and millions more in the aftermath, struggling to survive in the new pre-industrial world. Getting food by growing and hunting it, avoiding the "scavengers" - the people who live from the looted ruins and hunt one another.
What is more, the outside world is actively preventing any kind of reconstruction, using their space age technology to destroy any attempts to build up an industrialised civilisation.
About sixty years after the bombing seventeen year old Henry is living in a coastal farming community. He has a rather strange view of history, learnt from old Tom, one of the only people who still remember the "old times" before the bombs. This is a combination of truth and tall tales, and in fact, this is a strong theme in the book - the importance of story telling and the need for "lies".
Henry has to make some hard choices when he meets outsiders urging him to join the "resistance", a group people who vow to fight the outside worlds attempts to "keep America down". He learns about betrayal and regret, and what it means to be an adult in a harsh world.
The setting of this story is just awesome. Trees growing on the abandoned highways, crumbling sky-scrapers, flooded cities. Kim Stanley Robinson always loves to dwell on the detail, and its never just "description". The landscape is as important to the plot as the action.
And apparently there are more - a whole series of "Orange County" books. Off to the library to find some more!
It is set in America "after the bombing". The United States is no more. America has suffered a severe nuclear attack. Millions died in the initial attack, and millions more in the aftermath, struggling to survive in the new pre-industrial world. Getting food by growing and hunting it, avoiding the "scavengers" - the people who live from the looted ruins and hunt one another.
What is more, the outside world is actively preventing any kind of reconstruction, using their space age technology to destroy any attempts to build up an industrialised civilisation.
About sixty years after the bombing seventeen year old Henry is living in a coastal farming community. He has a rather strange view of history, learnt from old Tom, one of the only people who still remember the "old times" before the bombs. This is a combination of truth and tall tales, and in fact, this is a strong theme in the book - the importance of story telling and the need for "lies".
Henry has to make some hard choices when he meets outsiders urging him to join the "resistance", a group people who vow to fight the outside worlds attempts to "keep America down". He learns about betrayal and regret, and what it means to be an adult in a harsh world.
The setting of this story is just awesome. Trees growing on the abandoned highways, crumbling sky-scrapers, flooded cities. Kim Stanley Robinson always loves to dwell on the detail, and its never just "description". The landscape is as important to the plot as the action.
And apparently there are more - a whole series of "Orange County" books. Off to the library to find some more!
June 6, 2015
-Lo iniciático en lo postapocalíptico.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Henry es un muchacho que, como el resto de sus amigos, divide su día entre echar una mano a sus padres en sus respectivos trabajos, divertirse en pandilla y tratar de saber más del mundo antes de la catástrofe, de la que recibe diferentes datos confusos debido al tiempo que ha pasado, y también de por qué las costas de la California en la que vive son vigiladas por barcos no identificados. Cuando averigua que en una localidad no demasiado lejana ha habido desarrollos tecnológicos, no duda en unirse al grupo que se desplaza hasta allí.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Henry es un muchacho que, como el resto de sus amigos, divide su día entre echar una mano a sus padres en sus respectivos trabajos, divertirse en pandilla y tratar de saber más del mundo antes de la catástrofe, de la que recibe diferentes datos confusos debido al tiempo que ha pasado, y también de por qué las costas de la California en la que vive son vigiladas por barcos no identificados. Cuando averigua que en una localidad no demasiado lejana ha habido desarrollos tecnológicos, no duda en unirse al grupo que se desplaza hasta allí.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
September 7, 2017
Nuclear war. People survive. Stuff happens. Parts interesting. Parts uninteresting. Parts meandering.
February 5, 2022
Notes:
Trilogy is Currently on Audible Plus
- Great narration by Stefan Rudnicki
- I didn't have a lot of expectations, but this story was not quite what I thought it would be. It's more of a slice of life with very odd quirks. There's a long phase where you just have to go with the story flow in order to maintain suspension of belief.
- I enjoyed the opening, but found other points of the story to be stretched too thin.
- Tom was great. Even if he was a tall tale of tales.
Trilogy is Currently on Audible Plus
- Great narration by Stefan Rudnicki
- I didn't have a lot of expectations, but this story was not quite what I thought it would be. It's more of a slice of life with very odd quirks. There's a long phase where you just have to go with the story flow in order to maintain suspension of belief.
- I enjoyed the opening, but found other points of the story to be stretched too thin.
- Tom was great. Even if he was a tall tale of tales.
March 27, 2021
The Wild Shore is the impressive debut novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is part of the Three Californias Triptych, and all titles were free on Audible last time I checked. The Wild Shore is the dystopian novel of the three. The triptych covers three possible futures for California.
Written in 1984, it's not surprising then that the dystopian setting was caused by a nuclear war. The war takes place in 1987, and the book is set in 2047. The reader is never really sure what caused the war, rumor has it that neutron bombs were detonated in vehicles in the 2,000 largest cities in the USA as a surprise attack by the rest of the world who wanted to put the US in its place. The novel is set in Orange County, California and focuses on a village of about 60 people struggling to get by. The story is told through the eyes of a young man, Hank, who, like everyone else, isn't sure what is going on in the outside world (although rumors abound). Japan has blockaded the West Coast (and other countries guard the other borders) and no one is allowed in or out of the country. The Californians have no technology and any advancements, such as railroad track repair, are met with bombs from unseen satellites. Hank's friend Tom is the oldest person in their village, supposedly over 100, and tells stories of what life was like in the modern world before the bombs.
The plot involves re-establishing contact and rail travel with their southern neighbors in San Diego, and the ongoing debate in the village whether to try to fight back against the Japanese, who occupy Catalina Island and whose boats patrol up and down the coast.
The pace of the novel is slow and steady, and the tone is melancholic, which was right up my alley and why I liked it so much. Kim Stanley Robinson can really tell a story, and the characters are really well developed in this one. I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in the triptych.
Written in 1984, it's not surprising then that the dystopian setting was caused by a nuclear war. The war takes place in 1987, and the book is set in 2047. The reader is never really sure what caused the war, rumor has it that neutron bombs were detonated in vehicles in the 2,000 largest cities in the USA as a surprise attack by the rest of the world who wanted to put the US in its place. The novel is set in Orange County, California and focuses on a village of about 60 people struggling to get by. The story is told through the eyes of a young man, Hank, who, like everyone else, isn't sure what is going on in the outside world (although rumors abound). Japan has blockaded the West Coast (and other countries guard the other borders) and no one is allowed in or out of the country. The Californians have no technology and any advancements, such as railroad track repair, are met with bombs from unseen satellites. Hank's friend Tom is the oldest person in their village, supposedly over 100, and tells stories of what life was like in the modern world before the bombs.
The plot involves re-establishing contact and rail travel with their southern neighbors in San Diego, and the ongoing debate in the village whether to try to fight back against the Japanese, who occupy Catalina Island and whose boats patrol up and down the coast.
The pace of the novel is slow and steady, and the tone is melancholic, which was right up my alley and why I liked it so much. Kim Stanley Robinson can really tell a story, and the characters are really well developed in this one. I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in the triptych.
January 5, 2020
This is so rich and detailed.
December 22, 2025
Kim Stanley Robinson is unquestionably the last of a dying breed of mainstream Hard SF writers. This has led me to take up conversations about the author as if he were a particularly vulnerable endangered species that would send catastrophic ripples through literature and art if he were to fall completely out of favor. He represents a stripe of SF that is headed the way of the dodo--but this protective feeling I have towards him is based purely on reputation and packaging. I hadn't actually read him till now and took his importance at face value, as whatever Robinson is doing feels entirely different than whatever mainstream contemporary SF is even aiming at these days. I hardly think KSR's brand of Hard SF is even my exact cuppa-- but I put on my cape for him nonetheless.
I've chosen to begin my KSR journey with this book, his first novel, packaged with two other early works to make up his California Triptych-- portraying different visions for the future of the Golden State: one post-apocalyptic vision, one extrapolating, one Utopian.
I can only hope that he makes major gains as a writer. Whatever interesting ideas KSR might have had are hamstrung by a tin ear for dialogue, boring characters, terrible sex, and a plot that bewilderingly fizzles as badly as any in recent memory. I am often resistant to calling books "unsatisfying" when they don't yield whatever the sentimental, pattern-seeking monkey brain is not immediately appeased-- but I could not believe how inconsequential nearly every idea and element introduced ended up being. There might be worse crimes a book could commit, and I hope it becomes clear that I don't hate this novel, but I can scarcely think of a bigger waste of time I've spent reading.
If nothing else, it is an ambitious book that, I think, aims for subtlety. Robinson is channeling a Whitmanesque Song for the Open Road, a refrain for a new America following the bombs. After America is reduced to ash, the hustle, bustle, and cheapening of life returns to a more dignified, if difficult, way of life. But Robinson's Californians carry knowledge of the old world, however incomplete or misinformed. They know they're *supposed* to have medicine, that their nation once stretched from one end of the continent to the other, making their valley pathetic by comparison. The youth become restless to return: his characters are all hot-blooded boys who speak as if Huckleberry Finn starred in Red Dawn (which was released the same year as this book-- which speaks to how KSR took the temperature of young American boys at the time). It is hard to romanticize a rustic, idyllic life, filling your lamps with whale oil when the ruins of a much cushier civilization wreath your lean-to. And doesn't it make you want to throw a punch at whoever did this?
At the risk of sounding foolish or that I'm prone to ignoring the emperor's nudity-- but I thought that most of the book was doing a "bad on purpose" sort of thing. I still believe this is what Robinson was trying to do: portray how, at a certain point in their evolution, American Boys, all rolic and shout, will get restless in their enclosure and try to violently expand their borders.
Later in the book, we find out that the Japanese are at least visibly better off than the Americans (how much better is unclear), and America itself may be in a kind of political quarantine enforced by the rest of the world to make sure that the spirit of America doesn't break containment as if it were some kind of virus. This, I thought, was a way of juxtaposing Robinson's clear literary influences in Twain's and Whitman's love of the American landscape and adventurous spirit (thought of lovingly, with no hint of irony) with the political realities and historical evidence that there appears to be something nefarious in the American character etched not in its constitution, but in its DNA. It is something about this enterprising spirit that contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Are you *supposed* to find the protagonist annoying and stupid, all of his ideas bad? I couldn't imagine a positive interpretation of this novel that opts for a different reading. I was waiting impatiently for Robinson to yank the rug and reveal that all this machismo leads to America's undoing every time, that whatever endearing qualities America might have reach an inevitable expiration date at a certain age in its maturity whenever the experiment gets reset.
This rug pull *sort of* happens, but what follows neither addresses the thesis I assumed the novel was building throughout, nor does it accentuate the ideas without directly addressing it a la Hemingway and Sallinger. It's caught in between, and in the end, Robinson can't land the plane when it comes to his plot *or* his themes, and those are two tough barrels to take to the chest at the end of a long book that is not particularly enjoyable to read.
The architecture of a fascinating, mature, complex, subtle book is here, but a young KSR couldn't fasten the beams together. I have great hopes that he will improve. My next Robinson will definitely be from the other end of his bibliography.
I've chosen to begin my KSR journey with this book, his first novel, packaged with two other early works to make up his California Triptych-- portraying different visions for the future of the Golden State: one post-apocalyptic vision, one extrapolating, one Utopian.
I can only hope that he makes major gains as a writer. Whatever interesting ideas KSR might have had are hamstrung by a tin ear for dialogue, boring characters, terrible sex, and a plot that bewilderingly fizzles as badly as any in recent memory. I am often resistant to calling books "unsatisfying" when they don't yield whatever the sentimental, pattern-seeking monkey brain is not immediately appeased-- but I could not believe how inconsequential nearly every idea and element introduced ended up being. There might be worse crimes a book could commit, and I hope it becomes clear that I don't hate this novel, but I can scarcely think of a bigger waste of time I've spent reading.
If nothing else, it is an ambitious book that, I think, aims for subtlety. Robinson is channeling a Whitmanesque Song for the Open Road, a refrain for a new America following the bombs. After America is reduced to ash, the hustle, bustle, and cheapening of life returns to a more dignified, if difficult, way of life. But Robinson's Californians carry knowledge of the old world, however incomplete or misinformed. They know they're *supposed* to have medicine, that their nation once stretched from one end of the continent to the other, making their valley pathetic by comparison. The youth become restless to return: his characters are all hot-blooded boys who speak as if Huckleberry Finn starred in Red Dawn (which was released the same year as this book-- which speaks to how KSR took the temperature of young American boys at the time). It is hard to romanticize a rustic, idyllic life, filling your lamps with whale oil when the ruins of a much cushier civilization wreath your lean-to. And doesn't it make you want to throw a punch at whoever did this?
At the risk of sounding foolish or that I'm prone to ignoring the emperor's nudity-- but I thought that most of the book was doing a "bad on purpose" sort of thing. I still believe this is what Robinson was trying to do: portray how, at a certain point in their evolution, American Boys, all rolic and shout, will get restless in their enclosure and try to violently expand their borders.
Later in the book, we find out that the Japanese are at least visibly better off than the Americans (how much better is unclear), and America itself may be in a kind of political quarantine enforced by the rest of the world to make sure that the spirit of America doesn't break containment as if it were some kind of virus. This, I thought, was a way of juxtaposing Robinson's clear literary influences in Twain's and Whitman's love of the American landscape and adventurous spirit (thought of lovingly, with no hint of irony) with the political realities and historical evidence that there appears to be something nefarious in the American character etched not in its constitution, but in its DNA. It is something about this enterprising spirit that contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Are you *supposed* to find the protagonist annoying and stupid, all of his ideas bad? I couldn't imagine a positive interpretation of this novel that opts for a different reading. I was waiting impatiently for Robinson to yank the rug and reveal that all this machismo leads to America's undoing every time, that whatever endearing qualities America might have reach an inevitable expiration date at a certain age in its maturity whenever the experiment gets reset.
This rug pull *sort of* happens, but what follows neither addresses the thesis I assumed the novel was building throughout, nor does it accentuate the ideas without directly addressing it a la Hemingway and Sallinger. It's caught in between, and in the end, Robinson can't land the plane when it comes to his plot *or* his themes, and those are two tough barrels to take to the chest at the end of a long book that is not particularly enjoyable to read.
The architecture of a fascinating, mature, complex, subtle book is here, but a young KSR couldn't fasten the beams together. I have great hopes that he will improve. My next Robinson will definitely be from the other end of his bibliography.
January 9, 2023
My first experience with KSR and if this is an early publication I think I will really like the more recent releases.
The Wild Shore is a very different take on a post nuclear apocalypse America to what I have been used to reading and frequently goes against expectations in a good way.
I enjoyed Robinson's style and fresh ideas and wish that this story was later in his career, some of the bigger plot reveals and revelations didn't quite go far enough or feel fully developed and although the characters were mostly well written it could have been an amazing coming of age journey with a larger page count and more time to breathe.
However, always great to try new authors that I have not previously read before and no doubt I will be picking my way through the KSR back catalogue in good time...
The Wild Shore is a very different take on a post nuclear apocalypse America to what I have been used to reading and frequently goes against expectations in a good way.
I enjoyed Robinson's style and fresh ideas and wish that this story was later in his career, some of the bigger plot reveals and revelations didn't quite go far enough or feel fully developed and although the characters were mostly well written it could have been an amazing coming of age journey with a larger page count and more time to breathe.
However, always great to try new authors that I have not previously read before and no doubt I will be picking my way through the KSR back catalogue in good time...
February 3, 2017
Not so much a Sci-Fi or Post Apocalyptic novel as a coming of age adventure, the story of a young man Hank in a small community struggling to survive years after the bombs went off. Life has regressed to fishing and farming, with limited contact with other communities to trade the few things any of them have to offer. Hank and his buddies dream of better times but when opportunities present themselves are they all what they seem? Written in an easy, fairly old-fashioned style (it is over 30 years old), The Wild Shore is a pleasant read that ambles along but never drags. Kim Stanley Robinson has created a complete and credible world for this tale that anyone interested in a good yarn should enjoy.
March 15, 2019
Un post-apocalittico solido e ben strutturato, con una ambientazione molto convincente e un'ottima caratterizzazione dei personaggi. L'ho scoperto per puro caso, mi stupisce che sia sostanzialmente sconosciuto anche agli appassionati del genere, ai quali lo consiglio senz'altro. Il mio voto: 4 stelle.
December 1, 2020
I'm usually a big Kim Stanley Robinson fan, but this one left me kind of cold. I think if it had been novella-length I'd have been totally sold. It's an interesting concept, skillfully built world, a compelling narrator, but it just dragged! I wasn't 500-pages levels of invested in the story, so he really lost me in the second half of the book.
June 23, 2022
In the year 2047 The United states is still recovering from a devastating nuclear attack. The attack has killed a vast percentage of the population, and in addition to this, the rest of the world powers have put the U.S in a quarantine, and basically, are preventing the U.S from building itself back. Any attempt to do basic things like build bridges, trade or develop technology are answered by missile attacks by technologically superior Japanese forces. The U.S is basically living with mostly 19th century technology.
Hank Fletcher is young, still in his teens and when people from San Diego arrive to the small community of San Onofre on the West Coast, where he lives a life of survival, he is exposed to news from other parts of the country and to the existence of a resistance movement.
The concept of the book is interesting, the plot is to some extent partial and unfinished.
Hank Fletcher is young, still in his teens and when people from San Diego arrive to the small community of San Onofre on the West Coast, where he lives a life of survival, he is exposed to news from other parts of the country and to the existence of a resistance movement.
The concept of the book is interesting, the plot is to some extent partial and unfinished.
March 16, 2025
Flawed but earnest, The Wild Shore is a solid—albeit overly long—post-apocalyptic coming-of-age novel about an America crippled by nuclear destruction. Kim Stanley Robinson envisions a world where the country has fractured into isolated towns, each living in a state of primitive, almost American Revolutionary-era, survival. Perhaps most strikingly, it possesses a fresh, unique voice that draws you in.
Yet the novel struggles to keep you there.
Not a whole lot happens in this nearly 400 page book. Sure, we see a full character development from our leads. There’s some interesting set pieces in the different sections. But it all feels so drawn out and repetitive.
Thematically, we’re treated with isolationism versus interventionism, the youthful naivety versus aged disillusionment, and even the question of whether America deserves its quarantine. These are compelling ideas, but the novel doesn’t do enough with them. Instead, it meanders, spending nearly 90% of its time on introspection and description rather than actually exploring these themes in any meaningful way.
This is especially frustrating because the worldbuilding is so interesting. Robinson envisions this ruined, disconnected, and fractured America—and there are moments when you can really feel the weight of its worldbuilding pressing down on the characters. But just when you think the story is about to go somewhere, it quickly stops.
Take Henry’s capture by the Japanese, for example. As a reader, you’d think this moment would shift the narrative into high gear. Finally, cries the reader, we’re about to get some real answers, and the stakes have never been higher!
But no. Robinson swerves the story away from anything remotely interesting. Henry literally runs away from anything remotely revelatory. So, just like that, all momentum grinds to a halt. And as if that weren’t frustrating enough, we’re then subjected to twenty pages of Henry describing himself swimming, nearly drowning, and repeating the same phrases over and over and over again.
There’s no tension because 1) he’s writing it in the first person, 2) it goes on for far too long.
This isn’t the only scene like that. This novel is marked by its stop-and-go pacing, relegating The Wild Shore to an uneven book. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if there wasn’t so much potential. But there is, and it’s never fully realized.
That said, I didn’t hate the book. Robinson’s writing has an earnestness to it that keeps you engaged, even when the story drags. And despite my frustrations, I’m still curious enough to read more from him and to see where this thematic series goes. But as a debut novel? It’s just meh. A solid concept weighed down by sluggish execution.
Yet the novel struggles to keep you there.
Not a whole lot happens in this nearly 400 page book. Sure, we see a full character development from our leads. There’s some interesting set pieces in the different sections. But it all feels so drawn out and repetitive.
Thematically, we’re treated with isolationism versus interventionism, the youthful naivety versus aged disillusionment, and even the question of whether America deserves its quarantine. These are compelling ideas, but the novel doesn’t do enough with them. Instead, it meanders, spending nearly 90% of its time on introspection and description rather than actually exploring these themes in any meaningful way.
This is especially frustrating because the worldbuilding is so interesting. Robinson envisions this ruined, disconnected, and fractured America—and there are moments when you can really feel the weight of its worldbuilding pressing down on the characters. But just when you think the story is about to go somewhere, it quickly stops.
Take Henry’s capture by the Japanese, for example. As a reader, you’d think this moment would shift the narrative into high gear. Finally, cries the reader, we’re about to get some real answers, and the stakes have never been higher!
But no. Robinson swerves the story away from anything remotely interesting. Henry literally runs away from anything remotely revelatory. So, just like that, all momentum grinds to a halt. And as if that weren’t frustrating enough, we’re then subjected to twenty pages of Henry describing himself swimming, nearly drowning, and repeating the same phrases over and over and over again.
There’s no tension because 1) he’s writing it in the first person, 2) it goes on for far too long.
This isn’t the only scene like that. This novel is marked by its stop-and-go pacing, relegating The Wild Shore to an uneven book. It wouldn’t be so frustrating if there wasn’t so much potential. But there is, and it’s never fully realized.
That said, I didn’t hate the book. Robinson’s writing has an earnestness to it that keeps you engaged, even when the story drags. And despite my frustrations, I’m still curious enough to read more from him and to see where this thematic series goes. But as a debut novel? It’s just meh. A solid concept weighed down by sluggish execution.
October 10, 2017
This book wasn't what I wanted it to be, but I think I would have found it lacking anyway. I loved Aurora and wanted another that follows the same basic template, ie a slow moving, broad-scoped hard sci-fi novel that is more about process than plot. The Wild Shore had the added bonus of loosely falling into the solarpunk genre, which I've been trying to read more of. Instead though, The Wild Shore is a relatively basic dystopia. The post-apocalyptic pastoral scenes were probably my favorite parts, but they were relatively brief and didn't get too into the nitty-gritty of life in this cataclysmic future California like Robinson did aboard the ship in Aurora.
What's more, I didn't find the dystopic vision that compelling. It was naive at best and xenophobic at worst. Perhaps it's due to the fluctuating nature of dystopia--in the 80s I'd guess the US was back in "duck and cover" mode after anti-detente Reagan came to power--but I found the idea of America as a passive agent bombed to hell without any instigation on our part to be way out of touch with the contemporary American political climate. The remembrances of America as this great and idyllic land weren't particularly nuanced either (a protagonist actually says "make America great again", which was, uh, troubling), though to be fair this is part of a larger thematic point at the end of the novel. Still, if you are going to pay as much attention to the Before Time (TM) and the Event (TM) in a dystopia as much as this one does, it better be believable, and I just didn't really buy it here. And beyond that, I just didn't find these ruminations on the past in this novel that meaningful.
I think this novel didn't really know what themes it wanted to commit to. It feels like a YA coming-of-age story in places, like a more traditionally pointed dystopia in others (almost like the narrator is about to turn to the audience and ask "What will YOU do to prevent this from happening?"). Sometimes it's about the nature and power of storytelling, the uses of facts vs fiction. Sometimes it's about rebellion, class, patriotism, survivalism. Sometimes it's about really, really hating Japanese people (and, for a brief passage, Native Americans). Sometimes it just meanders.
I'm still enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson as an author, but I definitely see that this is his first book. Might have to continue to pursue his later work instead, as it seems to be more of what I'm looking for.
What's more, I didn't find the dystopic vision that compelling. It was naive at best and xenophobic at worst. Perhaps it's due to the fluctuating nature of dystopia--in the 80s I'd guess the US was back in "duck and cover" mode after anti-detente Reagan came to power--but I found the idea of America as a passive agent bombed to hell without any instigation on our part to be way out of touch with the contemporary American political climate. The remembrances of America as this great and idyllic land weren't particularly nuanced either (a protagonist actually says "make America great again", which was, uh, troubling), though to be fair this is part of a larger thematic point at the end of the novel. Still, if you are going to pay as much attention to the Before Time (TM) and the Event (TM) in a dystopia as much as this one does, it better be believable, and I just didn't really buy it here. And beyond that, I just didn't find these ruminations on the past in this novel that meaningful.
I think this novel didn't really know what themes it wanted to commit to. It feels like a YA coming-of-age story in places, like a more traditionally pointed dystopia in others (almost like the narrator is about to turn to the audience and ask "What will YOU do to prevent this from happening?"). Sometimes it's about the nature and power of storytelling, the uses of facts vs fiction. Sometimes it's about rebellion, class, patriotism, survivalism. Sometimes it's about really, really hating Japanese people (and, for a brief passage, Native Americans). Sometimes it just meanders.
I'm still enjoying Kim Stanley Robinson as an author, but I definitely see that this is his first book. Might have to continue to pursue his later work instead, as it seems to be more of what I'm looking for.
August 23, 2018
“La foresta di notte è un posto strano. Gli alberi diventano più grandi, e sembrano diventare vivi, come se durante il giorno si fossero addormentati o allontanati dai loro corpi, e solo di notte si animassero e vivessero, forse persino tirando su le radici e camminanndo lungo il fondovalle. Se sei lì fuori a volte riesci quasi a beccarli, con la coda dell’occhio. Naturalmente in una notte senza luna basta poco vento per immaginare cose del genere. I rami si abbassano per scompigliarti i capelli, e i suoni di acqua corrente delle foglie sono come voci fioche che chiamano in lontananza. Due buchi fanno gli occhi, un sentiero è una bocca sorridente, i rami sono braccia, le foglie mani. Facile. Eppure penso che possano essere davvero un qualche tipo di animale notturno. Sono vivi, dopo tutto (4.21)”.
Dei tre romanzi della trilogia delle “Tre Californie”, questo è quello dedicati a un’umanità ridotta a vivere in assenza di tecnologie. Anche se scritto nell’84, trent’anni prima di NY2140, molti dei temi che caratterizzeranno l’opera di KSR sono già ben sviluppati. E non parlo tanto dell’incidenza della tecnologia nella vita delle persone, quanto soprattutto della proposta di un modello sociale alternativo. Ma vediamo il romanzo.
Narrato in prima persona da Henry, adolescente appartenente alla rinata comunità della valle di San Onofre, potrebbe essere un classico dopobomba: 67 anni prima, infatti, l’inferno atomico si è abbattuto sugli USA, tramite un subdolo attentato nucleare multiplo. Qualunque sia stata la potenza atomica regista della catastrofe, non è stata punita: i responsabili militari USA non hanno voluto o potuto scatenare la rappresaglia, e le nuove Nazioni Unite mantengono gli USA sotto sorveglianza: al “nemico storico” giapponese sono state assegnate le Hawaii, e da lì la California viene tenuta sotto controllo, con attacchi mirati che distruggono ogni tentativo di costituire grandi comunità connesse da ferrovie o simili. Quando la forte e popolosa comunità di San Diego propone a San Onofre di unirsi a una resistenza anti-giapponese, la comunità è divisa: gli adulti votano contro, soprattutto le donne e gli anziani che hanno visto la guerra, ma i giovani ribollono di spirito patriottico e libertario, oltre che della voglia di sfidare i genitori..
Come si vede, KSR usa le ben collaudate tematiche del romanzo post-catastrofe per introdurre temi diversi. Il romanzo è stato scritto nell’84: può apparire una chiara presa di posizione rispetto alla politica Usa di quegli anni, caratterizzata dal riarmo reaganiano e dalla sfida all’URSS tramite le tanto propagandate (ma mai realizzate) “Guerre stellari”, che avrebbero dovuto essere qualcosa di simile ai raggi laser montati su satelliti, che nel romanzo i giapponesi usano per distruggere le ferrovie che i californiani tentano di ricostituire.
Il fascino di KSR però è che il suo “socialismo” non è tanto “politico” quanto “umano” (altrimenti sarebbe un saggista anzichè un ottimo scrittore): è calato e vissuto nella vita quotidiana delle comunità, in maniera direi anche più convincente dell’anarchia nei “Reietti dell’altro pianeta”. Il romanzo si apre con due grandi scene corali: l’ “incontro di scambio” (“swap meet”), dove le diverse comunità, compresi i detestati “spazzini” (“scavengers”) che non coltivano né allevano ma recuperano merci dalle rovine delle città rischiando la contaminazione atomica, si incontrano per una sagra di più giorni dove nascono anche amori e risse; e la corsa collettiva a mettere al riparo le coltivazioni all’arrivo di una tempesta, per poi finire tutti insieme nelle terme comuni a togliersi il fango e il freddo di dosso. Due scene corali di grande umanità e ricchezza di caratteri e relazioni umane, che fanno pensare a quadri di Bruegel. Subito dopo arriveranno i rappresentanti di San Diego: l’armonia sarà spezzata e inizierà la grande avventura del giovane protagonista, unico prescelto per accompagnare Tom, l’anziano custode della sapienza del villaggio, nel viaggio a San Diego (suscitando le invidie dei coetanei più ambiziosi).
Il romanzo è sostanzialmente un “romanzo di formazione”, con la crescita e la maturazione del protagonista Henry “Hanker”: il più riflessivo dei ragazzi della comunità, lacerato tra la lealtà verso l’amico Steve, leader dei giovani ribelli, e la fidanzata di lui Kathryn, che chiede all’amico di riportare il fidanzato al buonsenso. Indeciso e incredibilmente ingenuo, Henry crede di far contenti tutti a forza di compromessi, anche perché scottato dal tradimento della “fidanzata” Melissa; ma quando avrà luogo la tanto desiderata incursione notturna contro i giapponesi insieme a “quelli di San Diego”, si renderà conto in modo sconvolgente che la realtà della guerra, quella della politica, quella dei rapporti umani, con cui aveva creduto di giocare con disinvoltura, sono ben più complesse e tragiche. A questo si aggiungeranno altre rivelazioni: la vera vita passata di Tom, l’anziano del villaggio; le conseguenze dell’incursione notturna, che continuano a concatenarsi imprevedibili ancora mesi dopo.. tutto il “non detto” che Robinson aveva lasciato tra le righe per la maggior parte del romanzo travolge finalmente il povero protagonista, che ne uscirà trasformato.
Da notare come KSR si limiti ad accennare temi “obbligati” di questo sottogenere: i bambini nati deformi per via delle radiazioni, che devono essere soppressi, con la perplessità delle persone più religiose; i nuovi riti della comunità, come il Giorno del Nome a cui un bambino deve saper arrivare dimostrando abilità normali; temi tipici, che costituivano intere parti persino laceranti di “Un cantico per Leibowitz” oppure del “Dottor Stranamore” dickiano, qui liquidati in una riga, perché interessa la vita quotidiana della persona comune.
Robinson preferisce affrontare temi come l’ambiguità del patriottismo, che nei racconti di Tom non viene mai risolta; l’incertezza dei calcoli politici; il dovere di lealtà verso la propria comunità contrapposto all’indipendenza individuale.
KSR gioca anche con la forma del racconto nel racconto: con i libri di viaggi che scaldano l’ambizione dei giovani ma si scopriranno immaginari; e i racconti del vecchio Tom, che si riveleranno artefatti, ma con un significato.
Belli i personaggi femminili anche se adolescenti: soprattutto la forte Kathryn e l’ambigua Melissa.
Lo stile è ricco, con minuziose descrizioni di paesaggio e delle azioni, ma siamo lontani dalla polifonia e dalle digressioni di “New York 2140”; quello riportato a inizio recensione è l’attacco di uno dei pochi brani davvero lirici e introspettivi.
Dei tre romanzi della trilogia delle “Tre Californie”, questo è quello dedicati a un’umanità ridotta a vivere in assenza di tecnologie. Anche se scritto nell’84, trent’anni prima di NY2140, molti dei temi che caratterizzeranno l’opera di KSR sono già ben sviluppati. E non parlo tanto dell’incidenza della tecnologia nella vita delle persone, quanto soprattutto della proposta di un modello sociale alternativo. Ma vediamo il romanzo.
Narrato in prima persona da Henry, adolescente appartenente alla rinata comunità della valle di San Onofre, potrebbe essere un classico dopobomba: 67 anni prima, infatti, l’inferno atomico si è abbattuto sugli USA, tramite un subdolo attentato nucleare multiplo. Qualunque sia stata la potenza atomica regista della catastrofe, non è stata punita: i responsabili militari USA non hanno voluto o potuto scatenare la rappresaglia, e le nuove Nazioni Unite mantengono gli USA sotto sorveglianza: al “nemico storico” giapponese sono state assegnate le Hawaii, e da lì la California viene tenuta sotto controllo, con attacchi mirati che distruggono ogni tentativo di costituire grandi comunità connesse da ferrovie o simili. Quando la forte e popolosa comunità di San Diego propone a San Onofre di unirsi a una resistenza anti-giapponese, la comunità è divisa: gli adulti votano contro, soprattutto le donne e gli anziani che hanno visto la guerra, ma i giovani ribollono di spirito patriottico e libertario, oltre che della voglia di sfidare i genitori..
Come si vede, KSR usa le ben collaudate tematiche del romanzo post-catastrofe per introdurre temi diversi. Il romanzo è stato scritto nell’84: può apparire una chiara presa di posizione rispetto alla politica Usa di quegli anni, caratterizzata dal riarmo reaganiano e dalla sfida all’URSS tramite le tanto propagandate (ma mai realizzate) “Guerre stellari”, che avrebbero dovuto essere qualcosa di simile ai raggi laser montati su satelliti, che nel romanzo i giapponesi usano per distruggere le ferrovie che i californiani tentano di ricostituire.
Il fascino di KSR però è che il suo “socialismo” non è tanto “politico” quanto “umano” (altrimenti sarebbe un saggista anzichè un ottimo scrittore): è calato e vissuto nella vita quotidiana delle comunità, in maniera direi anche più convincente dell’anarchia nei “Reietti dell’altro pianeta”. Il romanzo si apre con due grandi scene corali: l’ “incontro di scambio” (“swap meet”), dove le diverse comunità, compresi i detestati “spazzini” (“scavengers”) che non coltivano né allevano ma recuperano merci dalle rovine delle città rischiando la contaminazione atomica, si incontrano per una sagra di più giorni dove nascono anche amori e risse; e la corsa collettiva a mettere al riparo le coltivazioni all’arrivo di una tempesta, per poi finire tutti insieme nelle terme comuni a togliersi il fango e il freddo di dosso. Due scene corali di grande umanità e ricchezza di caratteri e relazioni umane, che fanno pensare a quadri di Bruegel. Subito dopo arriveranno i rappresentanti di San Diego: l’armonia sarà spezzata e inizierà la grande avventura del giovane protagonista, unico prescelto per accompagnare Tom, l’anziano custode della sapienza del villaggio, nel viaggio a San Diego (suscitando le invidie dei coetanei più ambiziosi).
Il romanzo è sostanzialmente un “romanzo di formazione”, con la crescita e la maturazione del protagonista Henry “Hanker”: il più riflessivo dei ragazzi della comunità, lacerato tra la lealtà verso l’amico Steve, leader dei giovani ribelli, e la fidanzata di lui Kathryn, che chiede all’amico di riportare il fidanzato al buonsenso. Indeciso e incredibilmente ingenuo, Henry crede di far contenti tutti a forza di compromessi, anche perché scottato dal tradimento della “fidanzata” Melissa; ma quando avrà luogo la tanto desiderata incursione notturna contro i giapponesi insieme a “quelli di San Diego”, si renderà conto in modo sconvolgente che la realtà della guerra, quella della politica, quella dei rapporti umani, con cui aveva creduto di giocare con disinvoltura, sono ben più complesse e tragiche. A questo si aggiungeranno altre rivelazioni: la vera vita passata di Tom, l’anziano del villaggio; le conseguenze dell’incursione notturna, che continuano a concatenarsi imprevedibili ancora mesi dopo.. tutto il “non detto” che Robinson aveva lasciato tra le righe per la maggior parte del romanzo travolge finalmente il povero protagonista, che ne uscirà trasformato.
Da notare come KSR si limiti ad accennare temi “obbligati” di questo sottogenere: i bambini nati deformi per via delle radiazioni, che devono essere soppressi, con la perplessità delle persone più religiose; i nuovi riti della comunità, come il Giorno del Nome a cui un bambino deve saper arrivare dimostrando abilità normali; temi tipici, che costituivano intere parti persino laceranti di “Un cantico per Leibowitz” oppure del “Dottor Stranamore” dickiano, qui liquidati in una riga, perché interessa la vita quotidiana della persona comune.
Robinson preferisce affrontare temi come l’ambiguità del patriottismo, che nei racconti di Tom non viene mai risolta; l’incertezza dei calcoli politici; il dovere di lealtà verso la propria comunità contrapposto all’indipendenza individuale.
KSR gioca anche con la forma del racconto nel racconto: con i libri di viaggi che scaldano l’ambizione dei giovani ma si scopriranno immaginari; e i racconti del vecchio Tom, che si riveleranno artefatti, ma con un significato.
Belli i personaggi femminili anche se adolescenti: soprattutto la forte Kathryn e l’ambigua Melissa.
Lo stile è ricco, con minuziose descrizioni di paesaggio e delle azioni, ma siamo lontani dalla polifonia e dalle digressioni di “New York 2140”; quello riportato a inizio recensione è l’attacco di uno dei pochi brani davvero lirici e introspettivi.
May 14, 2015
Henry is a teenager living in a small fishing community on the southern California coast. At least, Onofre is part of a place once called California, but that name has been fairly meaningless for sixty years, since a large-scale disaster decimated the population and isolated the small groups of survivors. Henry is fascinated by the stories of his teacher Tom, still spry at over 100 years old, though he's never quite sure whether to believe the tales. When strangers arrive from San Diego, Henry and Tom have the chance to learn more about what happened to the old America and what's going on in the wider world. It's information that may change their whole way of life.
I was excited when I realized Kim Stanley Robinson had written a novel in my beloved post-apocalyptic genre, since I was blown away by his Mars trilogy. THE WILD SHORE was his first published novel, and it turns out to be a rather less accomplished work. While many aspects of the book are interesting and entertaining (there's an especially exciting action sequence near the middle), the story meanders, and a lot of things are set up that didn't really go anywhere.
This is the first book of the Three Californias trilogy, which speculates on three different possible futures, so the other installments feature entirely separate stories and characters. I do plan to read the rest, and I'll be curious to see how they compare and whether this book works better as a part of the whole.
I was excited when I realized Kim Stanley Robinson had written a novel in my beloved post-apocalyptic genre, since I was blown away by his Mars trilogy. THE WILD SHORE was his first published novel, and it turns out to be a rather less accomplished work. While many aspects of the book are interesting and entertaining (there's an especially exciting action sequence near the middle), the story meanders, and a lot of things are set up that didn't really go anywhere.
This is the first book of the Three Californias trilogy, which speculates on three different possible futures, so the other installments feature entirely separate stories and characters. I do plan to read the rest, and I'll be curious to see how they compare and whether this book works better as a part of the whole.
April 20, 2017
Some teens try go all Red Dawn after a nuclear apocalypse. It's good but not Kim Stanley Robinson good. One of his early novels. The problem is that he's not really interested in the guerrilla war stuff, and I don't blame him. He signals from afar that their big raid is going to fail, and you just want to get it over with as much as KSR does, because of course the fun is in the community and all the dumb anarcho-primitivist shit they come up with to keep themselves going.
One thing I thought interesting, and that you don't see in fiction very often, is that it's a small scale nuclear war that crippled America. The Americans refused to retaliate. So while there's climate change, the rest of the world manages to carry on much as before. Except now the Japanese patrol the Pacific Coast and bomb attempts to restore American civilization.
There are two interesting stories-within-a-story. The first hints at the author he'd become, with a found book detailing the changes a nuclear war would make to the weather patterns of the rest of the planet. The second is a little bit weirder, and reminds you that he did his dissertation on the works of PKD.
The final chapter is where he starts to become the writer of his later books. It just blew me away. Shame it doesn't make up for the run of the mill novel that preceded it.
One thing I thought interesting, and that you don't see in fiction very often, is that it's a small scale nuclear war that crippled America. The Americans refused to retaliate. So while there's climate change, the rest of the world manages to carry on much as before. Except now the Japanese patrol the Pacific Coast and bomb attempts to restore American civilization.
There are two interesting stories-within-a-story. The first hints at the author he'd become, with a found book detailing the changes a nuclear war would make to the weather patterns of the rest of the planet. The second is a little bit weirder, and reminds you that he did his dissertation on the works of PKD.
The final chapter is where he starts to become the writer of his later books. It just blew me away. Shame it doesn't make up for the run of the mill novel that preceded it.
August 29, 2017
second read - 2009 October 15 - ***** I first read all three of Kim Stanley Robinson's Orange County novels as they came out, which was spread out over a few years in the 1980s. In the past two months, I re-read all three of them, and still like them quite a bit. They are related to each other, not sequentially, but as three alternate futures for the same Orange County (extensive suburban area of Los Angeles). The first time I read them, I was not aware of the extent to which subtle geographic references, a few plot events, and one character, were re-used in different ways in each. But watching for that now just added to my interest. They can be read stand-alone, or in any order. They are -
The Wild Shore - a post-apocalypse novel set in a world where the US was nuclear bombed, and then quarantined by the rest of the world for 100 years. A first-person narrative, and coming of age story.
The Gold Cost - a future of overdevelopment and overpopulation where some individuals try to find meaning in their lives. A dystopia.
Pacific Edge - a future where deliberate population reduction and choice of sustainable lifestyles has led to a technological but low key network of villages in Orange County. A utopia, but still with human drama.
first read - 1984 May 2
The Wild Shore - a post-apocalypse novel set in a world where the US was nuclear bombed, and then quarantined by the rest of the world for 100 years. A first-person narrative, and coming of age story.
The Gold Cost - a future of overdevelopment and overpopulation where some individuals try to find meaning in their lives. A dystopia.
Pacific Edge - a future where deliberate population reduction and choice of sustainable lifestyles has led to a technological but low key network of villages in Orange County. A utopia, but still with human drama.
first read - 1984 May 2
November 11, 2013
(Spoilers alert!)
Here is the premise: in 2047, America is gone. Having suffered a sneak attack at the hands of the Russians forty years earlier, America no long exists as a political entity, and has been isolated by the United Nations. On the West Coast, in a small village in what was once Orange County, a young man writes down a narrative history of his life during an eventful summer when survivors in nearby San Diego try to begin knitting California, and the United States, back together again.
I can't say that this book was depressing so much as it was resigned. By the end you realize that the dreams of this young man and his fellow teenage friends are simply not going to come true: America is finished, and the narrator realizes it. What was once will never be again.
Mr. Robinson writes imaginative and thoughtful realistic science fiction. There is a haunting quality to his work; he writes well, and you end up actually caring about what happens to his characters. In this instance, the narrator learns a very hard lesson about what war is, and about being thankful for what you have.
Well done.
Here is the premise: in 2047, America is gone. Having suffered a sneak attack at the hands of the Russians forty years earlier, America no long exists as a political entity, and has been isolated by the United Nations. On the West Coast, in a small village in what was once Orange County, a young man writes down a narrative history of his life during an eventful summer when survivors in nearby San Diego try to begin knitting California, and the United States, back together again.
I can't say that this book was depressing so much as it was resigned. By the end you realize that the dreams of this young man and his fellow teenage friends are simply not going to come true: America is finished, and the narrator realizes it. What was once will never be again.
Mr. Robinson writes imaginative and thoughtful realistic science fiction. There is a haunting quality to his work; he writes well, and you end up actually caring about what happens to his characters. In this instance, the narrator learns a very hard lesson about what war is, and about being thankful for what you have.
Well done.
January 3, 2023
So, I'm a bit biased cause I love dystopian novels and I'm from California which means other readers may not have the same enjoyment level as myself. This book is about what happens after the end of America. The actual destruction is kind of vague but nuclear bombs are involved and life as we know it is destroyed. As far as the reader knows the rest of the world is fine, but its not really proven because the residents of the book have no access to outside information. The book centers on young Hank and his friend Old Tom and the small community they have formed in San Onofre. The day to day life in the community is simple and centers on doing what is needed to see the community survive. When visitors from San Diego come to visit they invite Tom and Hank on an adventure that leaves the community of San Onofre changed forever. I really liked this book for its simplicity. The main focus of the book wasn't on the destruction of America or the evil of people but more so about how much people can care and how communities form against all odds. I will continue with this series in hopes of learning more.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 371 reviews