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christhefur's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
rachel_sherck's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The narrative style of this book was not to my taste, but the worldbuilding was absolutely stunning.
tregina's review against another edition
5.0
This book deserves for me to write several paragraphs about it, because the world is vast and complex and there are so many things to say and talk about, and hopefully I'll be able to come back and do just that, but for now it just gets a brief note.
It gets five stars not because it's perfect, but because of its sheer scope and ambition and because it was exactly what I wanted it to be. It isn't about one thing but about our entire civilization after we strike out for the solar system, in terms of health and lifestyle and politics and geography and technology and sexuality and relationships and everything that comes with being a human being. That's what makes it so gripping and so personal even while it's truly epic in scope.
It gets five stars not because it's perfect, but because of its sheer scope and ambition and because it was exactly what I wanted it to be. It isn't about one thing but about our entire civilization after we strike out for the solar system, in terms of health and lifestyle and politics and geography and technology and sexuality and relationships and everything that comes with being a human being. That's what makes it so gripping and so personal even while it's truly epic in scope.
drollgorg's review
adventurous
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
At this point I've read more deeply into Kim Stanley Robinson's bibliography than most other authors whom I consider myself a reader of, and it's interesting to see how he keeps building out and touching on the same themes and ideas, exploring these similar worlds from slightly different angles. Mars remains peak but I might call this the most quintessentially KSR book yet, containing so many of his favored concepts and character archetypes and ways that people interact with the world around them. The SuperVenice of New York 2140 is already here, the Mondragon is here, there's the moving city of Terminator and the terraforming of Mars and other worlds, there are lots of characters with liberated attitudes towards sex who enjoy bathing in the nude.
The world itself is essentially the book- the plot is mostly a reason to move around the solar system, and while I found things to appreciate about the characters they were never really the thing I was here for. Swan is kind of hard to tolerate, Wahram is easier to rock with but he doesn't really do that much. My favorite viewpoint actually ended up being Kiran- he isn't exactly memorable for himself, but his experience learning to navigate Venus at the street level was a very grounding perspective into this world, with some enjoyable touches of cyberpunk espionage. Venus was a cool society to see as its own thing, where you can feel these shadowy influences who are each pushing for different possible final states of this new world in the making and everyone else is just working to try and make some version of it happen.
I also found the chapters dealing with Earth to be interesting, and very evocative- perhaps tied with everything to do with the terraria, all those thousands of little fractionary or refracted snapshots of Earth itself. I would have liked more inter-world politics and exploration, and found the way that most of said politics got handled neatly off the page in favor of the qube plot to be disappointing. While the handful of "quantum walk" chapters are interesting written, the qubes don't end up doing that much of interest or causing new, unique problems, and they get handled pretty easily without much direct involvement from the viewpoint characters (except Kiran perhaps).
So on the whole, a good ride, just one that is a lot more about experiencing the world than following an interesting plot. I think if the plot resolution of New York 2140 hadn't ended up feeling narrow and unimaginative for me, I would prefer NY 2140 for being such an intimate and evocatively written exploration of one particular place, but I think this ends up falling in about the same place for me, for different reasons.
The world itself is essentially the book- the plot is mostly a reason to move around the solar system, and while I found things to appreciate about the characters they were never really the thing I was here for. Swan is kind of hard to tolerate, Wahram is easier to rock with but he doesn't really do that much. My favorite viewpoint actually ended up being Kiran- he isn't exactly memorable for himself, but his experience learning to navigate Venus at the street level was a very grounding perspective into this world, with some enjoyable touches of cyberpunk espionage. Venus was a cool society to see as its own thing, where you can feel these shadowy influences who are each pushing for different possible final states of this new world in the making and everyone else is just working to try and make some version of it happen.
I also found the chapters dealing with Earth to be interesting, and very evocative- perhaps tied with everything to do with the terraria, all those thousands of little fractionary or refracted snapshots of Earth itself. I would have liked more inter-world politics and exploration, and found the way that most of said politics got handled neatly off the page in favor of the qube plot to be disappointing. While the handful of "quantum walk" chapters are interesting written, the qubes don't end up doing that much of interest or causing new, unique problems, and they get handled pretty easily without much direct involvement from the viewpoint characters (except Kiran perhaps).
So on the whole, a good ride, just one that is a lot more about experiencing the world than following an interesting plot. I think if the plot resolution of New York 2140 hadn't ended up feeling narrow and unimaginative for me, I would prefer NY 2140 for being such an intimate and evocatively written exploration of one particular place, but I think this ends up falling in about the same place for me, for different reasons.
grahamclements's review
4.0
2312 is a different Kim Stanley Robinson novel, but it also follows the ideas of some of his previous books. Let’s start with the same. There is a lot of terraforming of planets and establishing human settlements on them, like his Mars series and Aurora. These settlements have to battle the planetary environment to survive. Each settlement has been constructed and terraformed in a different way. Robinson goes into some detail about how they were developed.
Then there is the big difference. In this case the main character Swan. She is not a typical alpha male or female, at least in her behaviour. She is a wild adventurer who will recklessly try anything. She does have the advantage of an AI quantum computer implanted in her head to help get her out of trouble, and alien bacteria in her blood to help her heal. The other difference she has to Robinson’s normal characters is that she is a chemical altered hermaphrodite.
The story begins on Venus, where Swan is a renowned artist after a career as a designer of the interior of giant space vehicles made from hollowed out asteroids. Venus comes under attack while she is on its surface. Much of the story then is about who attacked Venus and why. Was it the slowly crumbling society on Earth or the rapidly developing and powerful Mars, or rogue artificial intelligence?
There is a fault with this plot, because in the end we are basically just suddenly told who did it and why. But the reason for attacking Venus just does not make sense. There are some other times where I questioned the motives and intelligence of the bad guys.
So, I loved the characters, the settings, the technology, how the other planets and moons in the solar system are made habitable, but the conclusion did not stand up.
Then there is the big difference. In this case the main character Swan. She is not a typical alpha male or female, at least in her behaviour. She is a wild adventurer who will recklessly try anything. She does have the advantage of an AI quantum computer implanted in her head to help get her out of trouble, and alien bacteria in her blood to help her heal. The other difference she has to Robinson’s normal characters is that she is a chemical altered hermaphrodite.
The story begins on Venus, where Swan is a renowned artist after a career as a designer of the interior of giant space vehicles made from hollowed out asteroids. Venus comes under attack while she is on its surface. Much of the story then is about who attacked Venus and why. Was it the slowly crumbling society on Earth or the rapidly developing and powerful Mars, or rogue artificial intelligence?
There is a fault with this plot, because in the end we are basically just suddenly told who did it and why. But the reason for attacking Venus just does not make sense. There are some other times where I questioned the motives and intelligence of the bad guys.
So, I loved the characters, the settings, the technology, how the other planets and moons in the solar system are made habitable, but the conclusion did not stand up.
robrogan's review
2.0
Just couldn’t finish it. The point I got to was basically a wandering tour of various friends in solar system.
sadieros73's review
2.0
This book was painful to slog through. If you like philosophy and detailed descriptions of planets, this book is for you. The overall format reminds me of a textbook or other scientific journal where there are little data dumps all over the place breaking up the main story arc. Unfortunately, you need to read them to understand what's going on.
There is a scene early on in the book describing a 31 day journey through a tunnel and you feel like you've been on every boring day of the trip with them. I found the characters disturbing, hard to bond with and a little unsettling.
There is a scene early on in the book describing a 31 day journey through a tunnel and you feel like you've been on every boring day of the trip with them. I found the characters disturbing, hard to bond with and a little unsettling.
midici's review
4.0
This book somewhat defies explanation. Is it a story about Swan, her life as a Spacer, and the complicated dynamics and politics between the various planets, terrariums, asteroids and Earth? Is it about Swan and Wahram's romance? Is it about terrorism on a planetary scale? Is it about the limitations of intelligence in AIs - or lack thereof - or what it means to be sentient? Who knows; it's all of that and more at once.
The lack of coherency is addressed by separating chapters by who is in them or by what they contain. The extracts provided interesting information about how this future was made, how it works, and what the intellectuals of this future have to say about themselves. The Lists are more ambiguous, listing actions or examples that relate at least somewhat to what is happening to the characters. Some chapters just describe certain planets, or moons, or places. The Quantum Walks (I correctly guessed!) were a sort of stream of consciousness from one of the huminoid qubes, a quantum AI in bipedal form.
There was a lot I liked about this book. The vivid descriptions of the landscapes and cities that were created in space was one of them. The fantastically weird ways people chose to bioengineer themselves and small worlds, contained in terrariums, and the sort of culture that springs up when people now live for up to 200 years and can change virtually anything about themselves that they want. The decision to bomb Earth with all the species that had gone extinct there hundres of years before without asking for permission or planning - and wathcing people argue if it was a gift or a curse or just chaos.
Things I disliked - Swan and her most pointedly annoying, some of the disturbing things Swan did (to herself and to others), Wahram when he comes off as being superior to others, all the loose ends (though they were clearly on purpose), and the way I don't have an satisfactory sense that Swan learned anything from her misadventures at all. She comes across as very immature for someone who is 137 and a parent twice over. The sort of spacer lif she describes herself as living is one without any sense of responsibility and that dosn't really change at all.
This is a book that makes me think - about my own assumptions and culture for one, about future possibilities for another. I think that's what pushed it up to a four for me, rather than the plot itself. If it wasn't a library book and I had more time with it I might have started googling all of the numerous references to all sorts of things that were sort of brought together and swirled around in the mess of science, technology, and humanity that makes up this book.
The lack of coherency is addressed by separating chapters by who is in them or by what they contain. The extracts provided interesting information about how this future was made, how it works, and what the intellectuals of this future have to say about themselves. The Lists are more ambiguous, listing actions or examples that relate at least somewhat to what is happening to the characters. Some chapters just describe certain planets, or moons, or places. The Quantum Walks (I correctly guessed!) were a sort of stream of consciousness from one of the huminoid qubes, a quantum AI in bipedal form.
There was a lot I liked about this book. The vivid descriptions of the landscapes and cities that were created in space was one of them. The fantastically weird ways people chose to bioengineer themselves and small worlds, contained in terrariums, and the sort of culture that springs up when people now live for up to 200 years and can change virtually anything about themselves that they want. The decision to bomb Earth with all the species that had gone extinct there hundres of years before without asking for permission or planning - and wathcing people argue if it was a gift or a curse or just chaos.
Things I disliked - Swan and her most pointedly annoying, some of the disturbing things Swan did (to herself and to others), Wahram when he comes off as being superior to others, all the loose ends (though they were clearly on purpose), and the way I don't have an satisfactory sense that Swan learned anything from her misadventures at all. She comes across as very immature for someone who is 137 and a parent twice over. The sort of spacer lif she describes herself as living is one without any sense of responsibility and that dosn't really change at all.
This is a book that makes me think - about my own assumptions and culture for one, about future possibilities for another. I think that's what pushed it up to a four for me, rather than the plot itself. If it wasn't a library book and I had more time with it I might have started googling all of the numerous references to all sorts of things that were sort of brought together and swirled around in the mess of science, technology, and humanity that makes up this book.
booksbooksbooks42's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
ohclaire's review
3.0
I liked the lists and excerpts, but honestly did not care about anyone or anything in this book. Also love how it's 10 years old and already feels almost outdated lol