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jenlaughs's review against another edition
1.0
I got fifty pages in before my brain begged for me to stop. The writing was just so disjointed. I wanted to like this book, the premise was fascinating. But the storytelling left quite a bit to be desired.
blrosene's review against another edition
4.0
Very atmospheric which some people might find slow but I really enjoyed. A lot of the low scores seem like they're coming from babies who can't cope with the idea of capitalism destroying the planet.
samtast1cal's review against another edition
4.0
"Maybe to say that someone was 'like this' or 'like that' was just an attempt to stock a memory to a board where you organized memories, like butterflies in a lepidopterist's collection."
This book was like LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness influenced by Philip K. Dick. The world-building was on the scale of Dune or larger, but within our familiar solar system. If this was the only SciFi book I'd ever read, I would think that 2312 was the most brilliant book ever written. It's at least a little genius, probably, and a little poetic too.
I did not know what was happening until I got through about 65% of the book. It's a mystery that may involve murder, perhaps genocide, and what may be rogue artificial intelligences hosted in humanlike bodies.
The main character is. strange, and perhaps not human.
What I don't understand even after finishing the book is
I need to join a book club so I can discuss these things with people who have read the book...
This book was like LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness influenced by Philip K. Dick. The world-building was on the scale of Dune or larger, but within our familiar solar system. If this was the only SciFi book I'd ever read, I would think that 2312 was the most brilliant book ever written. It's at least a little genius, probably, and a little poetic too.
I did not know what was happening until I got through about 65% of the book. It's a mystery that may involve murder, perhaps genocide, and what may be rogue artificial intelligences hosted in humanlike bodies.
The main character is. strange, and perhaps not human.
What I don't understand even after finishing the book is
Spoiler
why the bowler attacked Mercury and Io. I don't understand why they didn't punish the Venusian crime lord. And I didn't understand the lists, unless they were the thoughts of an A.I., perhaps even Pauline. Plus, personally I felt like it was building up to something more. The reanimation of course was huge. Enough to write a book about. But I thought that mystery would involve at least one conscious rogue A.I.I need to join a book club so I can discuss these things with people who have read the book...
brian9teen's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
4.75
bkp's review against another edition
4.0
This is my first work from Kim Stanley Robinson, and I can say it won't be my last.
2312 is hard-core science fiction, exploring a future that is oddly bleak and euphoric at the same time. The narrative isn't too overburdened with too much tech, but the flavor that this is world very much unlike our own does sometimes get in the way, until the context dawns on you.
I would give this book full five stars, save for Robinson's use of a plot device that includes very disjointed writing in various interludes that for me got annoying enough to just skip said interludes altogether. When it finally occurred to me what these interludes represented, I really didn't feel too heartbroken I'd skipped and skimmed them.
Good science fiction for the futurists among us.
2312 is hard-core science fiction, exploring a future that is oddly bleak and euphoric at the same time. The narrative isn't too overburdened with too much tech, but the flavor that this is world very much unlike our own does sometimes get in the way, until the context dawns on you.
I would give this book full five stars, save for Robinson's use of a plot device that includes very disjointed writing in various interludes that for me got annoying enough to just skip said interludes altogether. When it finally occurred to me what these interludes represented, I really didn't feel too heartbroken I'd skipped and skimmed them.
Good science fiction for the futurists among us.
tisreece's review against another edition
1.0
The book overall was good I did quite like it, I specifically enjoyed the use of modern science in a lot of the ideas, things that are theoretically possible to do even today. So in that sense I enjoyed the realism of such a future.
The description of the environment was also very well written and it created a very clear picture in my head of how things looked even more so than most other books, however on the flip side the description of almost all the characters was very lacking and much of the basics was just completely absent from the book. One example would be how old the characters look, sure they are over 100 years old but do they look old? Body-shape, hair colour and all the little minor but basic details were not touched on for many characters and it is a shame that the level of detail explored in the environment was not carried over with a great level of detail in the characters themselves. I feel the author spent too much time describing gender/sex rather than what they actually physically looked like and I also feel there was too much focus on gender and sex in general and felt quite repetitive and irritating.
There were a few other major points in the book as well that just kept bugging me throughout and one of those was the main character. It seems that almost every book I read suffers with the same problem, but this book more so than others I have read and that is that the main character is completely and utterly unlikable. I do understand that with all the things she has done to her body may have effected her mindset but even with that aside she has to be one of the most insufferable characters in the book and half the time I am not even sure why she is there, she contributes almost nothing to the plot other than being an emotional liability for the rest of the characters.
Additionally, the world that has been laid out to be almost seems like a distopia rather than some kind of futuristic utopia. Now I know the Earth is supposed to be in the shit, but in space I got the feeling that most people were upper class of at least in the middle classes and had a decent quality of life in general, which sounds like a utopia to me. But the way the future has been painted, the details almost seem negative, for example the main character had a child as a result of having sex with a stranger (another reason why the character is unlikable) and the book describes this sort of thing as being almost common, or at least not uncommon. Other things such as many characters not having a normal family and the two mains never experiencing love until the very end and they're both past the 100 year old mark, which again, seems like a very distopian thing. To me it seems that most people in space are equally unhappy as those on Earth. Earth because they live in poverty and in space because they have lost touch with their humanity and the things, like love, are almost absent in their lives and they're too busy having the freedom to pursue anything they want that they're never pursuing happiness and end up hurting those around them. The main character again is a very big example of this, she is so self-absorbed that she is an emotional liability throughout the book and her carefree attitude is a hindrance to everyone else, particularly to those closest to her. A good example is that she doesn't seem to be in close contact with her daughter, to me this seems like her carefree attitude made her daughter's life perhaps unhappy and maybe even herself as Swan herself had a good relationship with Alex which did make her happy, but this lack of humanity means that she will never have a relationship with her child and because none of the characters are family-orientated it does appear that nobody in space is truly fulfilled as they are going against their human nature
Perhaps this parallel of unhappiness between Earth and Space is intended, or maybe the perversion of humanity in space is intended due to being so far away from their unnatural habitat that humans are becoming unnatural themselves, but even with this the contradiction between what appears to be a utopia on the surface and a distopia on an individual level is a big problem and something that I couldn't quite not take my mind off as I was reading and kind of distracted from the main plot.
Speaking of the plot, I do feel it did progress at a very nonrhythmic pace, there would be periods of time, sometimes chapters at a time talking about something completely irrelevant and contributed nothing. For example when Swan was stuck with that Wolf this entire sequence of events, even the ones leading up to it with following the pack contributed nothing to the story in any way whatsoever. It did not develop the plot, it did not tell us anything new about the character that we did not already know, it did not set any kind of scene that we needed and it did not explore any kind of relationship between two characters and being so close to the end of the book I feel these pages could have been filled with the development of the AI side of the plot which needed developing more at this point anyway and in the end I do feel that entire side of the story was very rushed by the end of it. By the time Swan even arrived on Venus there were only 50 pages left of the book, so those entire sequence of events was entirely rushed.
In contrast the time with Swan with Wahram on Mercury in the tunnel was a better, it did set a scene, it did develop a relationship between two characters, and we certainly found a lot more out about the characters that we did not already know. It did drag on ever so slightly but overall this and the start of the book itself was much more evenly paced than other parts of the book that could have been kept out completely, such as her time with the Wolf.
Despite my rambling of heavily criticising the book I did find it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read, although because of how unlikable the character and the society is I probably will not read it again any time.
The description of the environment was also very well written and it created a very clear picture in my head of how things looked even more so than most other books, however on the flip side the description of almost all the characters was very lacking and much of the basics was just completely absent from the book. One example would be how old the characters look, sure they are over 100 years old but do they look old? Body-shape, hair colour and all the little minor but basic details were not touched on for many characters and it is a shame that the level of detail explored in the environment was not carried over with a great level of detail in the characters themselves. I feel the author spent too much time describing gender/sex rather than what they actually physically looked like and I also feel there was too much focus on gender and sex in general and felt quite repetitive and irritating.
There were a few other major points in the book as well that just kept bugging me throughout and one of those was the main character. It seems that almost every book I read suffers with the same problem, but this book more so than others I have read and that is that the main character is completely and utterly unlikable. I do understand that with all the things she has done to her body may have effected her mindset but even with that aside she has to be one of the most insufferable characters in the book and half the time I am not even sure why she is there, she contributes almost nothing to the plot other than being an emotional liability for the rest of the characters.
Additionally, the world that has been laid out to be almost seems like a distopia rather than some kind of futuristic utopia. Now I know the Earth is supposed to be in the shit, but in space I got the feeling that most people were upper class of at least in the middle classes and had a decent quality of life in general, which sounds like a utopia to me. But the way the future has been painted, the details almost seem negative, for example the main character had a child as a result of having sex with a stranger (another reason why the character is unlikable) and the book describes this sort of thing as being almost common, or at least not uncommon. Other things such as many characters not having a normal family and the two mains never experiencing love until the very end and they're both past the 100 year old mark, which again, seems like a very distopian thing. To me it seems that most people in space are equally unhappy as those on Earth. Earth because they live in poverty and in space because they have lost touch with their humanity and the things, like love, are almost absent in their lives and they're too busy having the freedom to pursue anything they want that they're never pursuing happiness and end up hurting those around them. The main character again is a very big example of this, she is so self-absorbed that she is an emotional liability throughout the book and her carefree attitude is a hindrance to everyone else, particularly to those closest to her. A good example is that she doesn't seem to be in close contact with her daughter, to me this seems like her carefree attitude made her daughter's life perhaps unhappy and maybe even herself as Swan herself had a good relationship with Alex which did make her happy, but this lack of humanity means that she will never have a relationship with her child and because none of the characters are family-orientated it does appear that nobody in space is truly fulfilled as they are going against their human nature
Perhaps this parallel of unhappiness between Earth and Space is intended, or maybe the perversion of humanity in space is intended due to being so far away from their unnatural habitat that humans are becoming unnatural themselves, but even with this the contradiction between what appears to be a utopia on the surface and a distopia on an individual level is a big problem and something that I couldn't quite not take my mind off as I was reading and kind of distracted from the main plot.
Speaking of the plot, I do feel it did progress at a very nonrhythmic pace, there would be periods of time, sometimes chapters at a time talking about something completely irrelevant and contributed nothing. For example when Swan was stuck with that Wolf this entire sequence of events, even the ones leading up to it with following the pack contributed nothing to the story in any way whatsoever. It did not develop the plot, it did not tell us anything new about the character that we did not already know, it did not set any kind of scene that we needed and it did not explore any kind of relationship between two characters and being so close to the end of the book I feel these pages could have been filled with the development of the AI side of the plot which needed developing more at this point anyway and in the end I do feel that entire side of the story was very rushed by the end of it. By the time Swan even arrived on Venus there were only 50 pages left of the book, so those entire sequence of events was entirely rushed.
In contrast the time with Swan with Wahram on Mercury in the tunnel was a better, it did set a scene, it did develop a relationship between two characters, and we certainly found a lot more out about the characters that we did not already know. It did drag on ever so slightly but overall this and the start of the book itself was much more evenly paced than other parts of the book that could have been kept out completely, such as her time with the Wolf.
Despite my rambling of heavily criticising the book I did find it to be a thoroughly enjoyable read, although because of how unlikable the character and the society is I probably will not read it again any time.
jenmarta's review against another edition
2.0
The scientific details are plentiful. Everything else that makes a good sci-fi novel? Not so much. Character development is poor and too scattered. Robinson clearly tries to be progressive with gender but ends up voyeuristic and remains heteronormative. It's so long that I kept reading in hopes it would redeem itself, but it never did.
ppigg81's review against another edition
4.0
A bit slow at times, but very much makes you think about the course we humans are on.
librarian_of_trantor's review against another edition
5.0
This Nebula award winning novel 2312 creates a stunning future where Mars is terraformed, Venus is terraforming, and there are thousands of asteroids crafted into terraria. The protagonist Swan Er Hong tracks a conspiracy across this balkanized solar system while humanity speciates before her eyes. My favorite character is Pauline, Swan’s subdurally implanted quantum computer who admits that she may or may not pass a Turing test, depending on who’s asking the questions.