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| Saturn as seen from Titan |
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I should say straight off the bat that there are a few problems with the book which didn't bother me but which may annoy some readers. First, to be honest, its barely a novel at all, the plot such as it is is wafer thin and pretty obvious. The characters are not terribly interesting and the detective story at 2312's heart is merely an excuse to travel to lots of fascinating moons and hollowed out asteroids in a grand tour of the solar system. I actually think 2312 might have worked even better as a non fiction book: it already contains chapters which are just info dumps in the style of John Dos Passos and ditching the "plot" might have freed KSR to really let loose with his speculations. Despite the terrific reviews in the USA I also think that perhaps KSR's sincere hippytech style might not play that well in the UK where we like our sci-fi a bit more cynical, sarky and ironic...
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But, like I say, none of this bothered me that much and I don't want to sound too negative here. What makes 2312 so great is the smart and very reachable vision of the future that KSR presents. It's not a utopia by any means but if mankind doesnt destroy itself first, the image of a solar system populated by brave, innovative and clever people is a very attractive one. In KSR's 2312 Mars has been terraformed, Mercury and Titan are inhabited, there's a base on Europa and Io and the Chinese have the biggest prize of all, having somehow grabbed Venus and are halfway through terraforming that. Every conceivable kind of habitat exists inside hollowed out asteroids and only Earth gets a thumbs down from KSR because we couldnt get our shit together over the whole global warming thing.
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If you like futurism, the art of the great Andy Goldsworthy and TED talks you'll probably like 2312. No one knows what the future is going to be like but if you're as clever as KSR you can probably guess a lot better than most of us.
26 comments:
Have you been a fan of his previous books, Adrian?
Matt
Not a superfan. There have been so many books but I have managed to read the Mars Trilogy and the Years of Rice and Salt.
One wonders what Iain Banks would ahve made of this material.
Ken
Well Iain Banks did blurb the edition that I have so he and KSR are probably friends, but yes I take your point...with Iain Banks writing this kind of book it would have been a lot darker, funnier and much more ironic.
It is a Very nice post and I really Enjoying when read this post. I specially like the theme hoe our solar system might look like 300 years from now. the photo is Excellent sounds Interesting.
You like Andy Goldsworthy? I walked on his Moonlite Path at Petworth when i was about 17. Sounds like the same night as the Telegraph reviwer.Its a nice little piece.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3579925/Moonlight-promenade.html
I happened to be listening to KSR interviewed on the radio last night, and he mentioned Dos Passos, but admitted that he hadn't read him before he tackled this book and actually came to him by way of John Brunner.
Peter Carey was the other interview on the show and he actually came across as a more charming person than I would have thought.
Mark
Well, if KSR is right its going to be a fun place.
Seana
Being devils advocate: there is I think a bit of a danger of wearing your influences on your sleeve. If KSR had read Dos Passos in college like the rest of us he'd be over the whole info dump thing now and the book might have moved a bit faster. However, I've got to say that the Dos Passos info dump chapters were my favourite part of the book!
Frankie
Love A.G. That film Rivers and Tides? really blew me away.
He did say that he was aware that he often took a risk of information overload, but he had found his core readers kind of stuck with him through this, and that he was appreciative of that.
I've never read Dos Passos--I can't say the style really appeals to me, but I think I'd rather read it freely than for a college course, if I ever get to it at all.
Seana
If they didnt make people read him in college he'd vanish as an interesting curio. The style is very difficult.
Interesting that KSR said that, because as I said, I think this book would have worked even better as non fiction. The fictional elements didnt really add anything to the story.
My experience is that there is a certain kind of science fiction reader for whom a non-fiction book masquerading as a novel is exactly right.
One of my co-workers who has recently completed some advanced degree in anthropology is a big fan, for instance.
Seana
Sort of on the sci-fi thread, I saw Guy Pearce at the gym this morning. I didnt hassle him.
I saw that in the Twitter sidebar. Just don't tell him your opinion on his films while he's spotting you with the dumbells and it should work out okay.
Speaking of Aussie actors, there is yet another doing a convincing impression of an American in Longmire, which is based on the Craig Johnson Walt Kelly novels. My friend who is the most excited about this has a house up in Montana or Wyoming which they go to when they can, and she says he has the Wyoming sheriff type down cold. I watched an episode last night. It wasn't bad.
Seana
I know its a cliche but I was surprised how short he was. He's actually about the same height as me 5/9 5/10 or thereabouts but somehow I thought he was a lot taller.
Because so many of them are short, I'm actually more surprised when one of them turns out to be tall.
Although I do blame Tom Cruise's shortness for my completely failing to notice that he was standing at our information desk asking a question not two feet away from me.
I like the River and Tides video. His work is pretty cool. Not a bad way to spend life - in the woods making stone walls and massive beehive looking objects. Yep.
Frankie
And copping off with young female art groupies...
Very true. My art teacher was batting well above his average with a girl in my class. She got a first.
I read about half of Red Mars, and I found the info dumps very annoying. I feel like sci-fi moved past that stuff 40 years ago. I think the bit that stopped me dead was when one of the characters decided to re-invent psychology. That sort of thing comes across as KSR deciding to re-invent psychology without wanting to put in the work of actually writing a good paper on the subject.
Just so that I don't come across as a total sourpuss, I'll throw in two recommendations for guys I think who do it better. Peter Watts' Blindsight ends up with at least as much info dumped as Red Mars (plus a bibliography), but he scatters it more smoothly into the plot. And Alisdair Reynolds' Revelation Space has some really cool ideas, but he manages to keep the plot going well enough so that none of the ideas stops you cold. He also sometimes has the cool stuff happening for a while before he loops back to explain it, which is nice.
Frankie
I think Andy Goldsworthy actually left his wife for a graduate student.
Gav
Yeah its a very old fashioned writing style. American sci-fi writing seems a few years behind British writing at the moment, in thrall as it is to the giants of the 50s. British sci-fi led by Iain Banks and China Mieville seems a bit more nimble. I think this is largely due to the influence of JG Ballard.
Adrian,
I gotta disagree with you on that; I think KSR is not particularly representative of American science fiction. Just for example (though it's not so recent any more), I've been re-reading Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun", and I'd say it's at least as subtle as anything by Banks or Mieville. Peter Watts is American (though Canadian, which I guess puts him in some other category). Kelly Link is mostly fantasy, but she's written a couple of science fiction stories, and she's (a) very American, and (b) very nimble/literary/odd.
Absolutely didn't care for it. I especially didn't care for his description of Africa as a "development sink" even throwing in the bone that Earth was in the same state. Seriously? The colonialist mentality will be there forever? Given the UK's present state and Africa evolving position as the last, best mineral rich area of the planet, I think it could easily be extrapolated that that attitude is quickly headed for the dustbin. As to your other points -- on the money. Threadbare plot, silly "mystery", unlikeable characters (Ooh, mercurial and saturnine -- a 550 page pun!) but some mildly interesting ideas about future society -- minus, of course, the racist undertone.
JaeB
The Africa stuff was troublesome and very out of date. Hasn't he ever watched Hans Rosling at the TED conferences?
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