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Pacific Edge

(Three Californias Triptych #3)

Kim Stanley Robinson

3.77 · Rating details · 1,264 ratings · 89 reviews

2065: In a world that has rediscovered harmony with nature, the village of El Modena, California, is an ecotopia in the making. Kevin Claiborne, a young builder who has grown up in this "green" world, now finds himself caught up in the struggle to preserve his community's idyllic way of life from the resurgent forces of greed and exploitation.

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Paperback, 336 pages

Published May 15th 1995 by Orb Books (first published 1990)

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Feb 04, 2013 Robert rated it really liked it

Shelves: sf

This is the second of the "Three Californias" series that I've read and it represents a huge improvement over the dull The Gold Coast, which probably would have put me off KSR forever if it had been the first book I'd read by him.

The Three Californias are really Three Orange Counties - three near future visions of what a place beloved to the author could turn out like. Gold Coast is an extrapolation of current trends toward money over everything, particularly environment. This is a "Utopia"; the ...more

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May 04, 2014 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: read2015, sci-fi-fantasy, post-apocalypse-and-dystopia, sff-audio, audiobook

Never reviewed this one but you can hear me discuss it on the SFF Audio Podcast. This one is a utopia. What happens when life is good? Well, not a lot. I do like the parallel future idea that KSR had for this triptych, but I haven't read the other two.

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Jun 26, 2013 Chris Radcliff rated it really liked it

I started re-reading Pacific Edge with some trepidation; I worried it wouldn't stand up to my memory, that its utopian ideas would seem naive compared to my experience of the world. Luckily, the world Robinson builds is complex and nuanced, and the characters are so engaging I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't.

The main story is set in 2065, a time when many of our big problems – war, income inequality, fossil fuel dependence, corporatism – have been solved, not by technological breakthroughs, bu ...more

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Mar 26, 2015 Enso rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Despite being a huge Robinson fan, I've never read two out of three books in his "California" trilogy, written back in the 1980s.

This book is full of what clearly became themes in his later works. Lots of detailed descriptions of landscape, hiking, and being out in the open, along with the strange (yet actually normal) interrelationships between normal people. There isn't a lot of overall plot in that it is an utopian novel set in a small town struggling with a legal zoning fight in the city co Despite being a huge Robinson fan, I've never read two out of three books in his "California" trilogy, written back in the 1980s.

This book is full of what clearly became themes in his later works. Lots of detailed descriptions of landscape, hiking, and being out in the open, along with the strange (yet actually normal) interrelationships between normal people. There isn't a lot of overall plot in that it is an utopian novel set in a small town struggling with a legal zoning fight in the city council. Our craftsman carpenter protagonist loves the last hill that is going to be developed if he doesn't win but he's also known most of the other characters, including his antagonist, since childhood. There is a love triangle between the woman that they both love and a bit about his grandfather, a depressed hermit, who is one of the architects of the legal framework of their society. In the sense of plot, there is not a lot of "there" there. It is a book about the people and a kind of dream of southern California life. As a resident of California for almost a decade now, I can kind of dig that and, as a utopia, it sounds like a great place to live, really. It isn't tense except on the interpersonal level though.

The book it not too badly dated. The parts from his grandfather's journal, many years in the past in 2012 (!) don't sound too out of place for our world except for the focus on the AIDS epidemic as a plot point (not surprising for writing in 1988). The 2065 "present" is quaint in ways without networking, outside of people using their TVs to videoconference, and no mobile computing or cell phones. All phones are wired and I feel like a relic just reading that.

I enjoyed it and I think Robinson fans would enjoy it. I'm not sure if this is a book, versus just going to the Mars trilogy, that I'd recommend to people that don't know Robinson. It definitely gives you the early stages of things that are very present in the Mars trilogy, his global warming trilogy, and various other later novels. ...more

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May 21, 2017 Adam McPhee rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, utopias

Must redefine utopia. It isn’t the perfect end-product of our wishes, define it so and it deserves the scorn of those who sneer when they hear the word. No. Utopia is the process of making a better world, the name for one path history can take, a dynamic, tumultuous, agonizing process, with no end. Struggle forever.

Compare it to the present course of history. If you can.

Some brilliant moments that rise above, but still a lot of prosaic parts that characterize his early work (my fault for saving Must redefine utopia. It isn’t the perfect end-product of our wishes, define it so and it deserves the scorn of those who sneer when they hear the word. No. Utopia is the process of making a better world, the name for one path history can take, a dynamic, tumultuous, agonizing process, with no end. Struggle forever.

Compare it to the present course of history. If you can.

Some brilliant moments that rise above, but still a lot of prosaic parts that characterize his early work (my fault for saving this to near the end). There's a fantastic bit set on a futuristic cargo ship, and you think about a similar one in Aurora and about how he could write a whole book set on one, but it's one chapter that's just disconnected from the rest.

There's too much baseball. The water management stuff and Californian history is boring, and while I think we need to protect wilderness and biodiversity, etc, I can't really get in to this level of deep ecology. I just don't care about them saving the hill from a development. If they'd been fighting it to fight money laundering, sure, I guess. But I suppose that's part of the point: he's setting out to prove there are still underdogs and uphill struggles and chaos in utopia. As a prototype for his future work, it's a fine book.

My only other complaint is how he uses a lot of plain jane names that all run together (Kevin, Tom, Hank, etc). I get that it's a motif in his triptych, but it's a problem in a lot of his novels. Eventually the names just start running together.

I liked the near future elements, of course. And the predictions he gets wrong (the Soviet Union still being a concern, mostly consumer technology stuff like still using VHS tapes) are as interesting as the things he gets right (submarine lifeboats, sort of predicts Skype, solar panel ubiquity, etc). Really weird to think that the first book in the series was written only three years before I was born, and we've already surpassed much of his future stuff in some ways.

In his utopian elements he has an interesting maximum wage law. People top out at a certain point (they're referred to as hundreds, because they're making one hundred percent of what they're allowed, but it's unclear how much wealth they have, and I think the amount a hundred can receive varies regionally). The money they would have been making is (I think) paid to the government as tax, and they can decide how up to 20% of it is spent (one character thinks cynically that a hundred is directing his tax money into the military and biomedical industry, so his related businesses can continue to profit through government contracts). I prefer Jeremy Corbyn's simpler maximum wage proposal: legislate that companies can only pay their highest earning employee X times more than the amount their lowest worker is paid.

Good lines:

Really liked this paragraph on teachers, brought a new perspective: (view spoiler)
Living life versus telling your story: (view spoiler)
On diplomacy: (view spoiler)
On first loves: (view spoiler)
On near-term AI: (view spoiler) ...more

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Nov 09, 2018 Kars rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, fiction

"One of the worst signs of our danger is we can’t imagine the route from here to utopia."

In a review for Tor.com, Jo Walton writes: "Pacific Edge is the only utopian novel that works, that shows you the world, that feels like a nice place to live, and that works as a story."

And that is all you really need to know. It was a pleasure dipping back into KSR after last reading something by him, which must have been the Mars trilogy. This shares some of the ideas later explored at a larger scale in th ...more

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Mar 09, 2010 Steev Hise rated it it was ok

Shelves: own-it, novels, after-the-fall

Of this book my judgment is mixed: the author is exploring something I think we need more of: visualizing a near-future where humanity actually gets its shit together and starts fixing some seriously broken stuff, like our abuse of nature and the out-of-control power of corporate capitalism.

But sadly, as with many science-fiction writers, the prose is sort of low-quality. Well, I'll say medium-quality. I started out reading SF exclusively as a kid, but I guess when you get used to reading top-no Of this book my judgment is mixed: the author is exploring something I think we need more of: visualizing a near-future where humanity actually gets its shit together and starts fixing some seriously broken stuff, like our abuse of nature and the out-of-control power of corporate capitalism.

But sadly, as with many science-fiction writers, the prose is sort of low-quality. Well, I'll say medium-quality. I started out reading SF exclusively as a kid, but I guess when you get used to reading top-notch contemporary literature like Lethem, Bolaño, Eggers, Vonnegut, etc, and then come back to SF, it can be disappointing. SF addresses some important subject matter but really skilled authors in the genre are few and far between... and the thing about that is that Robinson is considered one of the betters ones!

I actually found myself skimming and flipping through big stretches of this novel because they were so bad and uninteresting to me. A lot of the story revolves around a love triangle between the main character, Kevin, Ramona, and the man Ramona's been partners with for many years, Alfredo. Alfredo and Ramona break up and then Kevin moves in, and the author blows many many words describing the bliss Kevin feels when he's successful at getting it on with Ramona, and how it's his first real love ever, etc etc. It's so bad that it reads like a Harlequin Romance! I don't mind a little character driven storyline, but I'm mostly interested in the future vision here, Kim, please spare us!

Sadly, I also find his sort of overexplanatory omniscient style to be a little annoying. The viewpoint switches from one character (always one of the "good" ones) to another fluidly, which is good, but you have to sit and watch each person think through all the back story and personal history that they know in order to get up to speed. I guess the other thing is that maybe as a filmmaker and someone who's been reading s lot of scripts and thinking about "show don't tell" I am less and less interested in that kind of story. And if you're going to stick us inside somebody's head, make that head unique and interesting, maybe a little unreliable, maybe profoundly different from the last head we were just in! ok? Also, most of Robinson's male characters are thinly-veiled horndogs who spend a lot of time noticing the shiny skin and muscled legs of the women they're crushing out on in this way that the author thinks is subtle but isn't really. "Insert gradually rising romantic tension here"... sigh.

Finally, even the future vision that drew me to this book was ultimately disappointing. Part of this can be forgiven by the fact that the book was published way back in 1988, before the dire situation with climate change and peak oil was really understood. Robinson actually alludes to these issues but for the most part the change he posits has mostly to do with limiting the size of corporations and limiting the incomes of individuals. These legal changes were made sometime about a generation before the events of the book take place, but there are still some rogue companies that are trying to grow bigger than they're supposed to, and some people trying to get richer than is legal.

The environment is nodded to, and there's plenty of bike riding. But there are still cars, mostly used via car-share type arrangements, and there are still genetic engineering companies, and high-tech materials companies, and they're getting ready to divert water down a huge aquaduct from the Columbia River in order to provide for the entire West now that the Colorado River isn't enough. It's typical sci-fi crap where horrid technological solutions are posited to solve the horrid problems created by the last round of technology, and people's lifestyles are somewhat more "green" but everyone still talks comfortably over video phones and travels the world in computerized super sailing ships and re-roofs their hip homes with wacky wonder-substances like "cloud gel"...

I just don't buy it anymore. The future won't look like that, not in 2065 as this book says, and not even in 2025. If we're to save the planet and humanity, the change must be much more profound. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll still have books and bikes, but we won't be diverting the Columbia or designing heart valves. Hopefully.
...more

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Jul 25, 2008 Brian rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Kevin, Bryan, Jill, Melisa

Recommended to Brian by: Lee Hendricks

Recommended by dear friend Lee as one of his top-10 fave novels of all time, I was a bit disappointed with it. Certainly unique to imagine a (literal, not negative) utopia with intrusive government, heavy taxation, lots of lawyers and byzantine land-use zoning regulations. And also somewhat rewarding to find repeated characters/themes in the trilogy -- but not overwhelming in the end.

A lot more romance/sex/relationships than the first two, which caught me off-guard and seemed to distract from hi ...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Ben rated it liked it

I liked a lot about this book. How many novels do you read where the local Green Party stops developers and engages with local residents in heated political arguments that are fairly sane?

But, as sometimes happens with KSR, the characters are not as sharply defined as they could be and it's easy to lose track of who is doing what. Hence I didn't like it as much as the great left activist/teacher/writer Mike Davis did.

Of the three books in the "Wild Shore Triptych" I liked The Gold Coast best, I ...more

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Sep 10, 2015 Candace rated it liked it · review of another edition

I liked what KSR was doing with this, but was a bit mixed on a lot of the particulars. I'll be making a video review very soon!

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Feb 07, 2016 Maynard Handley rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm not sure quite how to read this novel (and the entire triptych project) so I'll give an initial review (with spoilers), then some comments on an alternative reading.

So: the straight reading.
This is a deeply unsatisfying novel, clearly a very early effort. I'm not going to dwell on how it's unsatisfying as "literature", plenty of others have done that, but on how it's unsatisfying as a utopian novel. The basic problem is that such a novel has to explain how and why its society works, somethin I'm not sure quite how to read this novel (and the entire triptych project) so I'll give an initial review (with spoilers), then some comments on an alternative reading.

So: the straight reading.
This is a deeply unsatisfying novel, clearly a very early effort. I'm not going to dwell on how it's unsatisfying as "literature", plenty of others have done that, but on how it's unsatisfying as a utopian novel. The basic problem is that such a novel has to explain how and why its society works, something of a theory of human relations that allows the setup to work; even the most (literally) juvenile utopias, something like The Twenty-One Balloons, understand that this is an essential convention of the genre.

But KSR omits these details, making the story, what, an uninteresting soap opera? The mental model he seems to be working with is that "evil developers destroyed Orange County in the early 21st C because of the evil evilness of their hearts and the greedy greediness of their desires". There's no discussion, for example, of the issue of population pressures. In the real world, as opposed to his fantasy, if every couple wants four kids, then where are those kids going to live? It is THAT growth in population that leads to things like massive development of OC, and yet in his utopia he says nothing about what happened to the excess population, and what restrains it from again growing out of bounds.

There's a similar lack of interest in thinking about issues that actually matter vs issues of minor importance. The central focus of the book is some minor hill in an area that already has plenty of undeveloped land. What does it matter if it gets developed? OK, it's supposed to be a symbol of a slippery slope or whatever, but it's only a slippery slope if that development is not replaced by another empty hill. If the population is stable and small (as it has to be if the whole system is going to work) then there is no slippery slope; there's simply not going to be any indefinitely increasing demand for ever-more development. Once again we see a refusal to actually confront root issues.

The impression I got, I'm sorry to say, is not of someone who wants to take ecology seriously, but of, in fact, the worst sort of obsession with property right --- "I got mine, and tough for everyone else". There seems to be an expectation that if Kevin is enjoying "his" hill, it's thereby his and no-one else deserves to consider alternative ways to use it. We see a more striking version of this in the constant re-iteration of the Owens Valley/LA water business, with the implication that it is reasonable for a tiny number of people in the Owens Valley to use (or not use) as they wish, a resource that could otherwise benefit millions of people in Los Angeles. My point is not to choose sides, it is to point out the utterly muddled thinking throughout the book. Half the time KSR is complaining that property rights are too strong, that we should all be communal, should share, should look at the big picture; the other half of the time he is complaining that "the system" is taking stuff away from its "natural owners" to benefit other people who "don't deserve it".
(By the way, an obsession with Owens Valley, IMHO, shows too much time spent watching Chinatown and not enough time spent studying actual California water. The flows from the Colorado [to LA and the Imperial Valley irrigation], and from the Sacramento area to the Central Valley are just as interesting, and far larger and more important --- but they can't as easily be cast into some sort of moralizing mold.)

We see this same sort of muddled thinking throughout the triptych. The Gold Coast is supposed to show out of control development, but, what's actually so bad about it? Look at the whole LA/OC area in Apple Maps. You'll see plenty of mountain land that is not developed today, and seems unlikely to be developed in the next twenty years for very practical reasons. Even in the novel, the Sierra Nevada is still there, undeveloped. So what exactly is the complaint? There are real ecological complaints about development, to do with carrying capacity, with destroying species, with using up resources. But those are not the arguments of the book. The arguments of the book appear to be "I personally find a certain type of development ugly and I wish it would go away". OK, but other people disagree with you, they like living in this type of built environment -- and by the way, it's a big country. If you want to live a rural life, what's stopping you? Go move to the very north of CA, or central Oregon, or into the desert, or to Iowa? Once again, a muddled argument that seems to boil down to the worst sort of "Everyone must want what I want, and those who don't are evil".

OK, so that's reading it straight. There is an alternative reading, which is to say that the whole thing is a kind of elaborate, not joke exactly, but mockery of the idea of utopia, and in particular the sort of eco-utopia portrayed in Pacific Edge. Arguments you could make for this reading include the way in which there is (really!) not much difference between the first and third novels. One is supposed to be post-nuclear apocalypse, the other eco-utopia, but what the hell is the difference? They are both based on small farming communities, local is beautiful and all that. They both show that hell is other people, that we are most hurt by irreconcilable human differences (boy wants A, girl wants B) regardless of our environment.
Likewise the small arguments between engineer-father and impractical (and ignorant) author-son in The Gold Coast suggest that there's *some* sort of considering of the big picture by KSR; and these sorts of nods to the knowledgeable reader become more striking in Pacific Edge in the form of the weird short "diary entries" from 2012 that talk about things like the futility of writing about utopia, or showing how Oscar, the large lumbering lawyer, wants to achieve flourishing via means and in a direction very different from the priorities of the (let's face it) eternal teenagers of El Modena.
And of course there are the obvious literary flourishes like the openings of all three novels that are variations on a theme, or the old-timer named Tom in each novel.

So which of these is the correct reading? I honestly don't know. I lean towards the second because KSR (in his later work) seems to be a fairly self- and other-aware guy, and because it's the sort of thing you could imagine someone wanting to write SF (but with a degree in literature) might want to do: "I'm going to write what looks like a standard, somewhat cliched, set of SF novels; but there's going to be a second level to them that the rubes will miss but which I and my colleagues will know are there". But this sort of thing is a dangerous game to play --- I've read a number of reviews of the triptych, and they all seem to read them straight, to rave about how, for example, "Pacific Edge shows us such an idyllic world that could be, blah blah". You can't really change the world (and get it to think more sensibly about the big picture) if the message encoded in your writing is so deep that no-one can see it!
And i can't deny the fact that in the (few) interviews I'v seen with KSR on these three novels, I have to admit he hews to the straight reading all the way, without so much as a hint that there's anything deeper there.
...more

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Apr 14, 2018 Athena rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

3.5 stars

Utopia means 'no place' or 'nowhere'. You can't ignore this irony reading K.S.Robinson' s concluding book of Three Californias series about alternate futures seen from the perspective of Orange County, California. Pacific Edge (first published in 1990) is an ecofiction, it portrays a near-future utopian dreaming scenario that it is only slightly shifted from our own reality.

Most of the region has undergone hyper-development but citizen action has limited growth and the expansion of bi ...more

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Aug 29, 2017 Tomislav rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, read-2-times

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 re ...more

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Aug 18, 2017 Katherine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, speculative-fiction

And the last of the Three Californias. Three variations of a future Orange County. Three different fates. This book describes the best possible fate -- a world that's brought unchecked capitalism under control, a world where we are able to live in harmony with the surroundings, a possible utopia.

And yet there's still conflict, there are still people doing bad things and being evil. It's funny that KSR's most recent book dealt with real estate drama, as this one does as well, and it's the main un ...more

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Mar 02, 2017 Phillip rated it it was amazing

This short, unassuming book wormed its way into my imagination and has become one of my favorite books. I can't tell you how many people I've recommended it to and told about its semi-utopian ideal of California. Of what the world could look like if environmental movements "won" and we redefined what efficiency meant, to mirror sustainability. And the fact that regardless of how just and environmental our system is, people are still people and life will still be a tricky maze of broken individua ...more

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Mar 02, 2018 Kim Clarke rated it liked it

Having finally finished the third book I can give a more complete review.

It is hard to say that these books are 'about' anything specific. We are shown three alternate futures for one particular area of California. One after a nuclear war, one a future which looks more like what we could actually get and a third with something of a utopian town.

There is one character is each story, an Elder man by the name of 'Uncle' Tom, who may or may not be supposed to be the same person. What you do have is ...more

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Sep 10, 2017 Erik rated it it was amazing

There's a sort of interstitial bit that I quoted earlier:

"Utopia is the process of making a better world, the name for one path history can take, a dynamic, tumultuous, agonizing process, with no end. Struggle forever."

That message, and the way that the continual process is demonstrated in this book, despite the pains that accompany that process, is why I'll remember this book for a long time, and recommend it to others.

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Feb 22, 2017 Stefanie rated it liked it

Robinson is one of the few writers who could make an exciting book about land development. However, there are some obvious plot points that were eye roll worthy and some style choices that amounted to shortcut story summaries that were annoying. And everyone in the book seems to be fit and active with no disabilities or other health issues even when the character is well into their 80s. In spite of this, I still enjoyed the book.

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May 12, 2018 Georgi Nikolaev rated it really liked it

I am not really sure if this book deserves a rating so high. But I am giving it because it is such a big improvement compared to the second one. Although there are some parts I read diagonally the characters really touched me. I should give at least one star for them. Another star goes for the interesting writing style at some places, although I think I see more potential in there than it was actually used in the end.

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Apr 01, 2018 Andre Chiasson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Kim Stanley Robinson is at or near the top of my list of favourite authors. This trilogy is his early work and it is not at the quality of his current writing but still excellent. He loves California and would love to see it reach its potential in the future. Still (or always) a master of character development, this book kept me reading and enjoying.

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May 30, 2018 Mike rated it really liked it

The best of the Three Californias series. It's a little looser than KSR's later work, but it's an enjoyable read. I was glad to have a little utopian reading given the distopian leanings real life has had of late. Recommended!

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Aug 09, 2018 Mitchell rated it liked it

When it's good it's very, very good and when it's bad it boring. Needed a strict editor who would have cut the thing by at least a third. Only recommend to those who have nostalgia for the old Orange County landscape -- I do and it kept me going all the way to the end.

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Nov 07, 2018 Cameron rated it it was amazing

This is by far my favorite of the trilogy. A really cool economic and political system, and I never thought I would read a whole book about a future scifi zoning dispute and be so engrossed by it.

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Dec 06, 2018 Paul rated it really liked it

Future Orange County utopia. Or not.

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Nov 26, 2016 Steen Ledet rated it it was amazing

Utopia is not a state but a struggle. And a struggle located in the everyday. Small, not big. Robinson's book convinces us of all this.

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May 14, 2017 Jose Seco Sanz rated it liked it

Shelves: sci-fi

As the rest of the series. There are some interesting ideas, but I think they could have been delivered in another way.

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Jan 30, 2018 Adam Norman rated it liked it

This was okay. Not something I would normally search out. I will likely steer clear of KSR in the future.

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Jul 10, 2016 Zach rated it it was amazing

The final book in the Three Californias triptych is at once the most hopeful and the saddest. Like Aurora, Pacific Edge is a beautifully sad story, made all the sadder by the sense of hope carefully nurtured throughout most of its length. The characters just don't get what they want most, any of them, but at the same time Robinson manages to convey the awe-inspiring grandeur and majesty of their lives, making their personal tragedies seem at once trivial and somehow keener. It's a wonderful, awe The final book in the Three Californias triptych is at once the most hopeful and the saddest. Like Aurora, Pacific Edge is a beautifully sad story, made all the sadder by the sense of hope carefully nurtured throughout most of its length. The characters just don't get what they want most, any of them, but at the same time Robinson manages to convey the awe-inspiring grandeur and majesty of their lives, making their personal tragedies seem at once trivial and somehow keener. It's a wonderful, awesome existence in which to feel such sadness, Robinson seems to say. I found it profoundly affecting, especially coming as it does as the final piece in the triptych, juxtaposed by two much worse future visions for Orange County.

The residents of Pacific Edge live in a utopia, where global democracy has mostly conquered the dehumanizing and impoverishing forces of global capitalism. That all happened decades ago -- it was the life-long fight of Tom Barnard, the grandfather of protagonist Kevin, who grew up without knowing any other way of life. Kevin's central plot struggle is to oppose the development of one of the last wild hilltops in their town, and in doing so discover and defend his own values. Why is it that such development would be bad for the town, despite growing the value of the town's communal shares? It's a hard question to answer, and Kevin spends most of the novel attempting to do so in a way that can convince the town.

The thing is, the townfolk really do live in a strangely credible utopia, achieved by a few important factors. First, they've limited the size of companies to around 100 employees, so everyone works for a small business where they know everyone else. They have also instituted minimum and maximum incomes, so while there are still rich and poor, the differences aren't worth fighting about. Second, most people live communally, in shared housing converted from old apartment buildings. They have only a small amount of private space, typically a bedroom, and share communal cooking and housework duties with their co-residents. At one point the protagonist wonders if they hadn't lost something in the transition away from nuclear families living in isolation, some sense of private intimacy impossible to recreate in a group settings, even while acknowledging that communal living was far better for most people overall. Finally, the community has put a premium value on human-powered transportation, usually on bicycles, and built around that basic assumption. Cars are still around, but are seen as an occasional indulgence to be rented, or when a longer trip is necessary (and since people work for small businesses in their community, there's no such thing as a long commute). These factors have transformed the small towns of Orange County into an intentional space where the residents exercise their values as part of their daily lives, where their daily actions are a direct extension of these values out onto the world.

As other reviewers have pointed out, nothing much happens in terms of plot, just a love triangle and a legal battle. This is typical of Robinson stories, and any fan of his will be used to it -- the important bits take place largely outside the concerns of the plot, in the realm of character and landscape. But more than most Robinson novels, this one is absolutely alive and brimming with feeling, especially of the protagonist experiencing love and loss for the first time. It moved me in a way most literature can't, literally to tears, as I experienced Kevin's triumphs and disappointments as my own. And as with most such books, I have a hard time expressing precisely what it was that moved me so deeply. Part of it is undoubtedly due to the triptych form Robinson chose, where each novel echoes and rhymes with each other, despite being unrelated in terms of plot and characters. This Kevin and this Tom are distinct to this story, but they remind us so firmly of the other Kevins and other Toms from the first two books in the triptych, and we feel like we know more about them than their actions in this sole novel justifiy. We understand them through their archetypes; we know who they are because of who they were in other, very different circumstances. We remember those alternate versions, feel those other selves' pain echoing in plot movements of this panel of the triptych. I'm sure this isn't a first in literature, but it's a new device to me, and I found it uniquely affecting. ...more

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Feb 22, 2017 Charlie rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book is an interesting contrast between a somewhat-utopian world and the disappointment in one of the main characters due to a failed romance and death of a loved one. I liked the contrast of how we can hope for more as a civilization/species, and also that certain things like death and lost love will always be universally sad. I like Kim Stanley Robinson's sort of wandering, character drive plots and laid out universes (some others disliked the lack of more plot). The book is fairly presci This book is an interesting contrast between a somewhat-utopian world and the disappointment in one of the main characters due to a failed romance and death of a loved one. I liked the contrast of how we can hope for more as a civilization/species, and also that certain things like death and lost love will always be universally sad. I like Kim Stanley Robinson's sort of wandering, character drive plots and laid out universes (some others disliked the lack of more plot). The book is fairly prescient for its time, especially the little flashbacks about the period of social upheaval that happened before the current status of the world was reached. Those were kind of chilling given current events. And funny as it sounds, i liked that Kevin's romance didn't work out. In so many books the main character harasses or 'friend zones' his female love interest and eventually she gives in and dates him. Well, in the real world that usually doesn't happen, instead you get over it and later you find someone else. Too many books sending that false message just feed people acting inappropriately. (Sorry, a bit off topic).

Things I didn't like: some minor errors with the plants and ecology of the Santa Ana mountains... mule fat does not have berries, the description of purple sage clearly actually described California sagebrush, and there was mention of mesquite in the Santa Ana Mountains where it doesn't actually grow. And don't cite climate change for it spreading to there, because that was only casually mentioned in the book. also too many santa ana wind events in the spring and summer, when they actually usually occur in the fall and winter. Most readers won't pick up on that stuff though. Also a bit too many loose ends. Who lit the fire that burned Tom's house? I guess the illegal corporation? It wasn't really stated. Did Hank put Peyote in the tequila or something? What about Kevin's weird monkey thing or Oscar's ghosts? I thought those would show up in the plot again and they never did, or else I just missed something.

But yeah, overall i definitely liked it. And if you look at the utopia in the right light, in some ways it looks a little bit like Vermont. As a pocket utopia at least. Though we've got a long ways to go of course. ...more

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Mar 08, 2015 Bjorn Larsen rated it really liked it

Back when I felt a little closer to writing rather than just reading, I always thought to myself: "I love speculative fiction. I love Jane Austen. Why couldn't characters in 'sci-fi' novels have rich and important emotional lives as well?" Since then, I've read a lot of talented "sci-fi" authors that do just that: Ursula Le Guin, Robert Charles Wilson ... and one of my favourites, Kim Stanley Robinson. Mr. Robinson wrote the seminal Mars trilogy - THE BEST, hands down, "hard sci-fi" account of t Back when I felt a little closer to writing rather than just reading, I always thought to myself: "I love speculative fiction. I love Jane Austen. Why couldn't characters in 'sci-fi' novels have rich and important emotional lives as well?" Since then, I've read a lot of talented "sci-fi" authors that do just that: Ursula Le Guin, Robert Charles Wilson ... and one of my favourites, Kim Stanley Robinson. Mr. Robinson wrote the seminal Mars trilogy - THE BEST, hands down, "hard sci-fi" account of the colonization of our solar system. But he's also written amazing novels along the way like "The Years of Rice and Salt," an alternate history wherein the bubonic plague actually finishes off Western Europe and Buddhism and Islam inherit the earth. This novel, "Pacific Edge," is part of the "Three Californias" trilogy: a trio of novels that imagine possible futures of Orange County. "The Wild Shore," one I read years ago, deals with the survivors of nuclear war. This novel imagines a future ecotopia set after the abolishment of multinational corporations and some unavoidable cataclysms of the early 21st century.

I loved it. This novel reminds me that you don't actually have to like the main character to admire the writer's skill in portraying them: a "forever 9 year old," naive, thirty-something, softball playing, eco-architect with no real responsibilities, thriving in a future of health and greenery, and experiencing his first case of heartbreak. The emotional arc was convincing, and had wise things to say about what we take to be hardships. As with many KSR titles, we're not only treated to future science, but future politics and sociology. I appreciated his balanced tone: though he's describing the Green Party's shangri-la, there are still monster truck rallies and pro-wrestling, albeit intentionally camp preservations of said entertainments. I feel as though the novel wasn't meant to describe an ideal to strive for, but one possibility with it's advantages and drawbacks. There is a consistent them of loneliness across the book's major characters, as though a balance with the environment has been reached that's not necessarily been reached within it's human occupants: they are sleek, uber healthy and creatively inspired by their futuristic professions, but they struggle with an inner emptiness, possibly a result of the absence of close families or families at all. In Pacific Edge, we've regained the planet, but are perhaps noticing some other things we've lost along the way.

Kim Stanley Robinson is a seriously underrated author of our time. I wonder if he'll be looked back on later as a Verne or an Asimov. Because he's miles above either of them: his lyrical prose is magical, whether describing the wonders of the solar system, or the different types of sage growing on a disputed hilltop in the OC; his portraits of flawed, idealistic, believable individuals are far superior to many of the seamy, coming-of-age bestsellers that make the front tables in book stores simply because they've not been associated with the Science Fiction "kid's table."

Final Grade: A/A-. Well worth the read - a soulful reading experience, start to finish. ...more

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About Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson

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Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer, probably best known for his award-winning Mars trilogy.

His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the 15 years of research and lifelong fascination with Mars which culminated in his most famous work. He has, due to his ...more

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Three Californias Triptych (3 books)

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Quotes from Pacific Edge

“I grew up in a utopia, I did. California when I was a child was a child's paradise, I was healthy, well fed, well clothed, well housed. I went to school and there were libraries with all the world in them and after school I played in orange groves and in Little League and in the band and down at the beach and every day was an adventure. . . . I grew up in utopia.” — 15 likes

“Utopia is the process of making a better world, the name for one path history can take, a dynamic, tumultuous, agonizing process, with no end. Struggle forever.” — 14 likes

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