2312

Starred review from March 5, 2012
Robinson (Galileo’s Dream) delivers a challenging, compelling masterpiece of science fiction. In a spectacularly depicted future of interplanetary colonization, humanity has spread across the entire solar system, from miniature biomes in hollowed-out asteroids to a moving city racing the fatal rays of the sun on Mercury. Mercurian artist and biome designer Swan Er Hong is struggling to cope with her grandmother’s death and an unexpected meteor strike when she gets caught up in a scientific conspiracy that touches on both the political and economic schemes of space-based humans, including Saturn’s ring-surfing moon dwellers and the secretive factions controlling slowly terraforming Venus, as well as the quasi-independent quantum computers called qubes. As Swan, the saturnine diplomat Fitz Wahram, and interplanetary investigator Jean Genette delve into the possible connections among a series of mysterious incidents, Robinson’s extraordinary completeness of vision results in a magnificently realized, meticulously detailed future in which social and biological changes keep pace with technological developments. Agent: Ralph Vincinanza, Ralph Vincinanza Agency (author now represented by Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists).

March 1, 2012
Another textbook disguised as a novel: the first of a projected trilogy from Robinson (Galileo's Dream, 2009, etc.) set in a future similar to that envisioned in his Mars trilogy from the 1990s. By the 24th century, humanity has established settlements throughout the solar system on terraformed moons and planets and inside habitats hollowed from conveniently orbiting asteroids. Travel to the most remote destination takes mere weeks; quantum computers, qubes, are ubiquitous but have not yet reached true sentience. Former habitat designer Swan Er Hong makes her home on Mercury, where the city of Terminator crawls around the planet on rails, perpetually keeping just ahead of the rising sun. Her beloved grandmother, Alex, has just died. Two individuals, diminutive investigator Jean Genette and Wahram, a huge, froglike negotiator, wonder whether Swan's recently deceased, beloved grandmother Alex left any information about her work--Alex studied Earth which, despite mass emigration, remains a basket case of environmental degradation, climate change and vampire capitalism. Then Swan, who has a qube named Pauline inside her head and once swallowed a cocktail of alien bacteria from Enceladus, and Wahram narrowly escape when Terminator is destroyed by an undetectable shower of meteorites directed from somewhere in space. Seems Alex, who distrusted qubes and all forms of electronic communication, had good reason for her paranoia: apart from the mysterious group who destroyed Terminator, somebody is building humanoid bodies operated by qubes, for purposes none of the three can guess. Other than Robinson's usual novelistic virtues, the narrative offers a grand tour of the inhabited worlds, often to excess, plus padding with 18 future-factual "extracts" to fill in the background, 15 rather bizarre "lists" (e.g. space accidents, propulsion systems) and three passages representing the mental processes of the humanoid qubes. A small, clever novel obscured rather than enlightened by philosophy, synthesis, analysis and travelogue.

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March 15, 2012

In the year 2312, humans have developed the technology to colonize most of the solar system, including Mercury, which boasts a single city that travels on rails around the planet just ahead of the rising sun. When Swan Er Hong arrives to mourn her recently deceased grandmother Alex, one of Mercury's movers and shakers, Swan realizes how little she knew about the woman who raised her. Meeting some of Alex's scientific friends reveals to Swan that mysterious projects were in the works and that she must uncover her grandmother's secrets before they destroy not only Mercury but the entire solar system. VERDICT The award-winning Robinson ("The Mars Trilogy"; Fifty Degrees Below) delivers a feast for advanced technology fans and future history aficionados with this intriguing portrait of a solar system economy based on the mining of the asteroid belt. Despite their genetically engineered adaptations to their galactic colonies, his well-drawn characters resonate with traits that emphasize their humanity.

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