Three Californias Trilogy

Last updated

The Three Californias Trilogy (also known as the Wild Shore Triptych and the Orange County Trilogy) is a book by Kim Stanley Robinson, which depict three different possible futures of Orange County, California. The books that make up the trilogy are The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast and Pacific Edge. Each of these books describes the life of young people in the three different near-futures. All three novels begin with an excavation which tells the reader about the world they are entering. [1]

Contents

Summaries

The Wild Shore

The Wild Shore was Robinson's first published novel. The Wild Shore (1984) is the story of survivors of a nuclear war. The nuclear strike consisted of 2,000–3,000 neutron bombs that were detonated in 2,000 of North America's biggest cities in 1987. Survivors have started over, forming villages and living off agriculture and sea. The theme of the first chapters is that of a quite normal pastoral science fiction, which is deconstructed in later chapters. Post-nuclear rural life is hindered from developing further by international treaties imposed by the victorious Soviets, with an unwilling Japan charged with patrolling the West Coast.

The Wild Shore won the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 1985 [2] and was nominated for both the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards in 1984. [3] Algis Budrys described it as "a frontier novel, with rich threads of Steinbeckian populism woven into its cast of characters." Although faulting the novel's "failure to sustain the weight of its undertakings," he concluded that Wild Shore was "a remarkably powerful piece of work, still a good book, almost without doubt a harbinger of great books to come from Robinson. It is also a really interesting and good book." [4]

The Gold Coast

In The Gold Coast (1988) the reader learns about Southern California in 2027, a dystopian extension of the 1980s' Los Angeles and car oriented culture and life-style: "an endless sprawl of condos, freeways and malls." The book follows two groups of characters, connected by 27 year-old Jim McPherson and his father Dennis.

The Gold Coast was nominated for the Campbell, Locus, and British Science Fiction award in 1989. [5]

Pacific Edge

Pacific Edge (1990), set in the El Modena neighborhood of Orange in 2065, narrates a summer in the life of Kevin Clayborne, a young house renovator recently elected for the town council of El Modena. Kevin finds himself at odds with the town mayor, Alfredo Blair, both personally and professionally. On the personal side, both Kevin and Alfredo are vying for the affection of Ramona Alvarez, Alfredo's former long-term girlfriend. On the professional side, Alfredo has been influenced by corporate money and attempts to rezone the last virgin hill inside the town for a commercial development. Kevin loses in all accounts: After attempting a relationship with Kevin, Ramona comes back to Alfredo, and the rezoning of the hill is passed by the council and by a town vote. In a last attempt to save the hill, Kevin turns it into a memorial for his recently deceased grandfather, who was a pillar of the community. This makes the commercial development on the hill an unpalatable project for the town. At the end of the novel, Kevin attends Ramona and Alfredo's wedding, and mourns what he's lost and reflects on what he's achieved.

Pacific Edge was the winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1991. [6]

Development history

In an interview with UCSD, Robinson said that "this was one of my few original ideas" and that he came up with the idea for the novels while still at UCSD on a drive to Orange County, California to visit his parents. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Stanley Robinson</span> American science fiction writer (born 1952)

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer best known for his Mars trilogy. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Powers</span> American science fiction and fantasy author (born 1952)

Timothy Thomas Powers is an American science fiction and fantasy author. His first major novel was The Drawing of the Dark (1979), but the novel that earned him wide praise was The Anubis Gates (1983), which won the Philip K. Dick Award, and has since been published in many other languages. His other written work include Dinner at Deviant's Palace (1985), Last Call (1992), Expiration Date (1996), Earthquake Weather (1997), Declare (2000), and Three Days to Never (2006). Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare. His 1987 novel On Stranger Tides served as inspiration for the Monkey Island franchise of video games and was optioned for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin J. Anderson</span> American science fiction author (born 1962)

Kevin James Anderson is an American science fiction author. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E. and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequel series. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award–nominated Assemblers of Infinity. He has also written several comic books, including the Dark Horse Star Wars series Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Dark Horse Predator titles, and The X-Files titles for Topps. Some of Anderson's superhero novels include Enemies & Allies, about the first meeting of Batman and Superman, and The Last Days of Krypton, telling the story of how Superman's planet Krypton came to be destroyed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Bear</span> American writer and illustrator (1951–2022)

Gregory Dale Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict, parallel universes, consciousness and cultural practices, and accelerated evolution. His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Brin</span> American scientist and science fiction author (born 1950)

Glen David Brin is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards. His novel The Postman was adapted into a 1997 feature film starring Kevin Costner.

<i>Mars</i> trilogy Series of science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Mars trilogy is a series of science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost two centuries. Ultimately more utopian than dystopian, the story focuses on egalitarian, sociological, and scientific advances made on Mars, while Earth suffers from overpopulation and ecological disaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Charles Wilson</span> American-Canadian science fiction author (born 1953)

Robert Charles Wilson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.

The Sprawl trilogy is William Gibson's first set of novels, and is composed of Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia A. McKillip</span> American fantasy and science fiction author (1948–2022)

Patricia Anne McKillip was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She wrote predominantly standalone fantasy novels and has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre". Her work won many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008.

Barbara Hambly is an American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction. She is the author of the bestselling Benjamin January mystery series featuring a free man of color, a musician and physician, in New Orleans in the antebellum years. She also wrote a novel about Mary Todd Lincoln.

The Bridge trilogy is a series of novels by William Gibson, his second after the successful Sprawl trilogy. The trilogy comprises the novels Virtual Light (1993), Idoru, (1996) and All Tomorrow's Parties (1999). A short story, "Skinner's Room", was originally composed for Visionary San Francisco, a 1990 museum exhibition exploring the future of San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian McDonald (British author)</span> British science fiction novelist

Ian McDonald is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies.

<i>Antarctica</i> (novel) Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson

Antarctica (1997) is a science fiction novel by American writer Kim Stanley Robinson. It deals with a variety of characters living at or visiting an Antarctic research station. It incorporates many of Robinson's common themes, including scientific process and the importance of environmental protection.

<i>Heechee Rendezvous</i> 1984 science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl

Heechee Rendezvous is a science fiction novel by the American writer Frederik Pohl, published in 1984 by the Del Rey imprint of Ballantine Books. It is a sequel to Gateway (1977) and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1981) and is set about three decades after Gateway. It has been cataloged as the third book in a six-book series called Heechee or The Heechee Saga but Kirkus reviewed it as completing a trilogy and a German-language edition of the three books was published as the Gateway trilogy after all six were out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. J. Cherryh bibliography</span>

American writer C. J. Cherryh's career began with publication of her first books in 1976, Gate of Ivrel and Brothers of Earth. She has been a prolific science fiction and fantasy author since then, publishing over 80 novels, short-story compilations, with continuing production as her blog attests. Cherryh has received the Hugo and Locus Awards for some of her novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">N. K. Jemisin</span> American science fiction and fantasy writer

Nora Keita Jemisin is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict and oppression. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and the subsequent books in her Inheritance Trilogy received critical acclaim. She has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award. The three books of her Broken Earth series made her the first author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years, as well as the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy. She won a fourth Hugo Award, for Best Novelette, in 2020 for Emergency Skin, and a fifth Hugo Award, for Best Graphic Story, in 2022 for Far Sector. Jemisin was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant in 2020.

<i>2312</i> (novel) Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson

2312 is a hard science fiction novel by American writer Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 2012. It is set in the year 2312 when society has spread out across the Solar System. The novel won the 2013 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

<i>Nebula Awards 33</i> 1999 anthology of science fiction short works edited by Connie Willis

Nebula Awards 33 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Connie Willis. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1999.

<i>Nebula Awards 28</i> 1994 anthology edited by James Morrow

Nebula Awards 28 is an anthology of award winning science fiction short works edited by James Morrow, the third of three successive volumes under his editorship. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt Brace in April 1994. The book has also been translated into Polish.

<i>Nebula Awards Showcase 2002</i> 2002 anthology edited by Kim Stanley Robinson

Nebula Awards Showcase 2002 is an anthology of award-winning science fiction short works edited by Kim Stanley Robinson. It was first published in trade paperback by Roc/New American Library in April 2002.

References

  1. ↑ Potts, Stephen. "UCSD Guestbook: Kim Stanley Robinson". UCTV. University of California Television. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
  2. ↑ Langford, David (August 9, 2021). "Locus Award". In Clute, John; Langford, David (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (4th ed.). Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  3. ↑ "2003 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
  4. ↑ "Books," F&SF , May 1984, p. 39-40
  5. ↑ "1989 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
  6. ↑ "1991 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
  7. ↑ Potts, Stephen. "UCSD Guestbook: Kim Stanley Robinson". UCTV. University of California Television. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.