interview with Kim Stanley Robinson

[isiscolo]

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite SF writers; as a meteorologist and an environmentalist I find his work thought-provoking and scientifically well-researched. Strange Horizons has an interview with KSR here.

Comments

[lolaraincoat]

Thanks for the pointer. Have you read 40 Signs of Rain yet? What did you make of it?

[isiscolo]

I have not! But I want to. I am pretty much behind the curve when it comes to recently-published books, because I tend to rely on the library rather than buying them.

But I loved the two trilogies of his that I read - the Mars one is famous, of course, but there is another that is, er, The Gold Coast and The Wild Shore and I don't remember the title of the third, near-future visions of California, fantastic. I also enjoyed Antarctica, and it was interesting to learn that he'd gone there on an NSF grant to research the story.

[lolaraincoat]

Oh, yes, the Three Californias trilogy! still my favorite of all his work. I love the device wherein only the sociopolitical context changes between the books, with the characters and landscape and even (if you squint) the plots staying nearly the same. That's such a great idea and he works it out so well. And I read them just after moving to southern California myself; his love for the region really improved my experience of being there.

I read 40 Signs of Rain on an airplane while sitting next to Fishwhistle (who is a physicist) and I kept making him read bits of it, because I was so impressed with how sharply KSR had drawn the everyday practice of science, how right he had gotten it -- from my perspective of looking over Fishwhistle's shoulder, anyway.