Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
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.
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 big corporations. The multi-nationals are disbanded and everything from businesses to homes to transportation, is small scale, sustainable and green. Social arrangements are in place, and citizens’ group manage the healed natural systems with democratic governance. Daily life is quite mundane and it is based in close face-to-face relationships.
In Pacific Edge, KSR underlies a few of his concrete ideas for creating a utopia. The year is 2065 and it involves advanced technologies but the economic systems go beyond capitalism. People are part of the biosphere, but not antitechnological. In the Pacific Edge the story is, perhaps, less exciting than the post-apocalyptic society of The Wild Shore, but it is more real and believable. What KSR give us, in a sense, is how it might feels if we decide to take the first steps of reconfiguring the landscape, the infrastructure, and the social and economic sytems of our societies.
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 big corporations. The multi-nationals are disbanded and everything from businesses to homes to transportation, is small scale, sustainable and green. Social arrangements are in place, and citizens’ group manage the healed natural systems with democratic governance. Daily life is quite mundane and it is based in close face-to-face relationships.
In Pacific Edge, KSR underlies a few of his concrete ideas for creating a utopia. The year is 2065 and it involves advanced technologies but the economic systems go beyond capitalism. People are part of the biosphere, but not antitechnological. In the Pacific Edge the story is, perhaps, less exciting than the post-apocalyptic society of The Wild Shore, but it is more real and believable. What KSR give us, in a sense, is how it might feels if we decide to take the first steps of reconfiguring the landscape, the infrastructure, and the social and economic sytems of our societies.
This is the second of the "Three Californias" series that I've read and it represents a huge improvement over the dull [b:The Gold Coast|41125|The Gold Coast (Three Californias Triptych)|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1312020876s/41125.jpg|3269850], 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 one I haven't read is post-nuclear holocaust. But "Three Orange Counties" is probably not as internationally marketable a title as "Three Californias"... This was back in the days of KSR's optimism, when he thought presenting a choice of futures to people might help. Look at how strident he became when he realised that wasn't going to work: [b:Forty Signs of Rain|41129|Forty Signs of Rain (Science in the Capit0l, #1)|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320445817s/41129.jpg|962345] etc. And how depressed he became when that didn't work, either: [b:Galileo's Dream|6391377|Galileo's Dream|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303142224s/6391377.jpg|6579805]. Gold Coast, here we come.
"Utopia" is in quotes because the point is that whilst this is KSR's optimistic view of how things could turn out, where corporate power is severely limited, the environment is a paramount concern and nobody owns a car as an individual, KSR recognises the will to power within humanity and that the fight against it would have to never stop. That struggle, in microcosm, is the plot of the story - to save an undeveloped hill from organised powers intent on re-asserting control illegally.
It's also a love-story. This aspect of the novel was particularly well done; I don't off-hand remember relating so directly to the descriptions of the emotional state of the protagonist during his love-pangs in any other novel.
There is one flaw, though; KSR's obsession with baseball (strictly soft-ball, in this case) is over-indulged. Indulging it at all being an over-indulgement in my view because the only thing I find more boring in sport than watching baseball is reading about it.
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 one I haven't read is post-nuclear holocaust. But "Three Orange Counties" is probably not as internationally marketable a title as "Three Californias"... This was back in the days of KSR's optimism, when he thought presenting a choice of futures to people might help. Look at how strident he became when he realised that wasn't going to work: [b:Forty Signs of Rain|41129|Forty Signs of Rain (Science in the Capit0l, #1)|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320445817s/41129.jpg|962345] etc. And how depressed he became when that didn't work, either: [b:Galileo's Dream|6391377|Galileo's Dream|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303142224s/6391377.jpg|6579805]. Gold Coast, here we come.
"Utopia" is in quotes because the point is that whilst this is KSR's optimistic view of how things could turn out, where corporate power is severely limited, the environment is a paramount concern and nobody owns a car as an individual, KSR recognises the will to power within humanity and that the fight against it would have to never stop. That struggle, in microcosm, is the plot of the story - to save an undeveloped hill from organised powers intent on re-asserting control illegally.
It's also a love-story. This aspect of the novel was particularly well done; I don't off-hand remember relating so directly to the descriptions of the emotional state of the protagonist during his love-pangs in any other novel.
There is one flaw, though; KSR's obsession with baseball (strictly soft-ball, in this case) is over-indulged. Indulging it at all being an over-indulgement in my view because the only thing I find more boring in sport than watching baseball is reading about it.