Icehenge

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Icehenge
Ace-Icehenge-1984-MMPB-Cover.jpg
First edition of Icehenge, with cover art by Mark Weber, published by Ace Books as a mass-market paperback
Author Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover artistMark Weber
LanguageEnglish
Genre Science fiction
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date
1984
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages262
ISBN 0-441-35854-3
OCLC 11191345

Icehenge is a science fiction novel by American author Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 1984.

Contents

Though published almost ten years before Robinson's Mars trilogy, and taking place in a different fictional future, Icehenge contains elements that also appear in the trilogy; these elements include extreme human longevity, Martian political revolution, historical revisionism, and shifts in perspective among primary characters.

Plot

Icehenge is set at three distinct time periods, and told from the perspective of three different characters.

The first narrative is the diary of an engineer caught up in a Martian political revolution in 2248. Effectively kidnapped aboard a mutinous Martian spaceship, she provides assistance to the revolutionaries in their quest for interstellar travel, but ultimately chooses not to travel with them but to return to the doomed revolution on Mars.

The second narrative is told from the perspective of an archaeologist three centuries later. He is involved in a project investigating the failed revolution, and during this finds the engineer's diary buried near the remains of a ruined city. At the same time, a mysterious monument is found at the north pole of Pluto, tying up with a passing mention in the engineer's diary.

In the final narrative, the great-grandson of the archaeologist visits the monument on Pluto, a ring of standing slabs of ice. He is investigating the possibility that both the diary and the monument were planted by a reclusive and wealthy businesswoman who lives in the orbit of Saturn.

Development history

The first part of Icehenge was originally published as the novella "To Leave a Mark" in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (November 1982). [1] The third part of the novel was originally published as the novella "On the North Pole of Pluto" in the anthology Orbit 18 (1980), edited by Damon Knight. [2] While Robinson was enrolled in author Ursula K. Le Guin's writing workshop at University of California, San Diego in the spring of 1977, he gave her the novella in rough form to read and edit. [3] In the novel's third section, views of Saturn from the space station visited by the narrator were inspired by images of Saturn taken during Voyager probe flybys in 1980–1981. [4]

Publication history

References

  1. ↑ Robinson, Kim Stanley (November 1982). "To Leave a Mark". The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. 63 (5): 5–54.
  2. ↑ Robinson, Kim Stanley (1980). "On the North Pole of Pluto". In Damon Knight (ed.). Orbit 21 . New York: Harper & Row. ISBN   0-06-012426-1.
  3. ↑ Robinson, Kim Stanley (2010). "Untitled". In Karen Joy Fowler (ed.). 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le. Seattle: Aqueduct Press. p. 18. ISBN   978-1-933500-43-0.
  4. ↑ Robinson, Kim Stanley (2006). "Saturn Sublime". Saturn: A New View. New York: Abrams. p. 16. ISBN   978-0-8109-3090-2.
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