2312

KSR seems to have been in slow decline since sometime near the beginning of Blue Mars. I tried three times to get through this novel and just didn't have the stamina. Gripping science fiction must, first of all, be gripping fiction. He's lost his grip and run his course, I'm afraid.

Having read every single one of KSR's previous novels, I looked forward to 2312 since I heard of its existence. And I began reading it on the day that it came out on May 22. Nineteen days later I am finished. To put that into context, I normally read about 1 book per week. But there were so many ideas to think about in 2312 that I had to keep putting the Kindle down to think about the words on the page. This book will challenge you. It is thoughtful science-fiction that both entertains and feeds the mind. If that is what you enjoy, then read this book. The book itself is a Gesamtkunstwek, a total work of art, to borrow a word from the Germans. The book's narrative occurs within chapters that are interspersed with Lists and Extracts that fill you in on the 24th century (a century we have come to imagine within the Star-Trek narrative, but that here is quite different from that vision). The weave that this creates within the book is like that of a tapestry where the threads come together to form a beautiful image (and to those who have already read the book, then a better metaphor would be a symphony's movements or individual rocks that come together).

2312 is a long account of the past. Oh it is set in the year 2312, thus the title, but if you pay close attention, you will notice that there are details that indicate that it is some future author writing this history of the past - an author many decades out from the events of 2312. 2312 is apparently a crucial year - a turning point. The book concerns itself with the momentous events of 2312 that begin with the death of the protagonist's grandmother. We meet the protagonist, Swan Er Hong, an artist, already in her second century, living on Terminator - a moving city on Mercury that is propelled forward on tracks heated by the light of dawn. Swan remains the nexus of the story, although the viewpoint does change on occasion to some other characters. What is the book about? Humanity and its attempts in the 24th century to better the human condition.

In the year 2312 humanity has balkanized (to use KSR's terminology). Humans live on Mercury, Venus, Mars, in the Saturn System, on many thousands of asteroids, and on an Earth that continues to spin and continues to support billions of humanity. Yes, life is not perfect on Earth, but it is not the apocalyptic doomsday that so many current authors seem to imagine a future Earth will look like. For that I am already thankful (because I consider the lack of progressive vision of future humanities currently being written about by many science-fiction authors to be distressing). So this is not a dystopia. Nor is this a utopia either. It is a future still driven by the human condition, with everything that entails.

Reading Kim Stanley Robinson is not for everyone. But I happen to love his works because they transplant me to futures (or in the case of the Years of Rice and Salt - the past) that I want to experience. I can imagine myself in the time and place. That is how effective KSR is at world-building. Many have complained that while his world building is impressive, he lacks the ability at effective characterization. I don't consider this to be true. The character of Swan Er Hong, a 24th century artist from Mercury, is one of the better anti-hero characters that I have seen fleshed out.

This is a book that you will find yourself returning to. Why? To think about its ideas and to reexperience its story. This is what science-fiction can be - an effective mirror of humanity that seeks to comment on current trends. Kim Stanley Robinson's history of the future does that. Now if only his history of the future were already our past . . .

Incredibly deep book. Maybe too deep for some people's tastes. Does a nice balance of seeming relateable and feeling foreign. Much of the science is more plausible than many scifi novels, making the foreign more engaging for me.

This is one of my top 10 books of all time. Not sure why it has only 3 stars. :(

I have a big fear of my own mortality and 2312 in a way is like time travel. I feel like I have lived 2-3 lifetimes and get to see a real possibility of what post-scarcity life is like (at least off of Earth).

This by far one of the worst novels I have come across in a very long time. I was unable to finish it. It is a story told very badly with so many digressions and needless BS that it is nearly impossible to read. Absolute junk!!! I would have given this one a zero or even negative star rating if possible. I recommend that you pass this one by.

My words are entirely inadequate for describing the journey that the reading of this book becomes. Robinson's prose has, over the years, become almost painfully beautiful to read. An art form in its own right. Enthralling, entertaining, and thought-provoking! If you enjoy being fully immersed in a story, read this!

Boring...Boring...Boring.... Often unintelligible and character development is.... missing. I read a lot of SF - and I stopped mid-way through this one. Not worth the effort to hit the "next page button". Heavy handed poly-sci. Disappointing.

I enjoyed reading about the descriptions of the solar system imagined by Robinson, but spent the whole book waiting for a real plot I could get swept up in, and about 3/4 of the way through that the somewhat independent stories that strictly didn't need each other was all the plot that I'd get. I think I'd rate this a 3 or 4 as a collection of short stories/novellas with the same universe and characters, but as a novel it didn't cut it.

My second issue was the 137 y/o central character was basically written to have the personality of a petulant teenager, yet be a world renown figure. This seems unlikely, but maybe I just don't know enough moody self absorbed adrenaline junky centenarians.

This half-baked attempt at political intrigue in space falls flat. Anyone who has a college level liberal arts background should avoid this work at all costs.

If this is one of the top scifi writers out there, I may have to jump in the game.

I absolutely loved this novel and found it hard to put down. I thought KSR balanced everything very nicely and I felt like I was getting an interesting story revolving around the human and AI elements, while at the same time being treated to a VIP tour of a potential future vision of the solar system.

I'm only disappointed that it is a stand alone and not the first part of a series!

After the Mars trilogy I looked forward to KSR's new book; wrong. As others have commented, the terraforming is interesting (albeit fanciful), the characters flat, the science incomplete and sometimes silly, and the plot tedious. The random "lists" and ramblings reminded me of the hybrid on BSG; I kept expecting the word "jump" to pop up.
KSR has certainly joined those whose believe that science should "plot the points then draw the line" to make an answer fit a preconceived belief.
What a disappointment. This could have been a very good book, or series of books.

What 5 stars were designed for. Beautifully written, great prose. There's a quest, a journey, a murder mystery, a love story, dystropic society, and the meaning of life in this tour de force. Funny, tragic, poetic. I loved this book!

Update: I saw a comment about the interludes. They are very valuable for filling in back stories, giving POV and states of mind and providing thumbnail streams of thought. The first time I saw this in SF was when Robert Heinlein inserted a page of newspaper headlines in the middle of a story. It's a common technique now so I was surprised when a reader criticised it.

I would mention that before 2312, I had just reread RAH's Friday and Charlie Stross's Saturn's Children. I think Robinson was influenced by both books. His vision of Mercury was quite familiar.

Wonderful record and a great service, this record is a concept record, and sounds beautiful, much like "Dark Side of the Moon" with a modern 2016 twist! a great record, enjoyable to listen to over and over with a book, newspaper and coffee! great for the morning, and night!

I am attempting to slog thru this thing. The story is disjointed with no real continuity. The story exists to pull the reader thru amazing explanations of the scientific advances that have happened... but this appears to be the only bright spot... and these are hardly believable. The colonization of space, the morphing of gender... all in 200 years? Don't buy it.

The elaborate descriptions stop there... character development is weak to a point of laugh-ability. One guy is described as being toad-like... figuratively or literally? How is this possible? Amphibians/humans? Oh... I guess the book is moving on to describe surfing on Saturn at GREAT lengths. Meh, guess it didn't matter. People come and go, Swan flits between worlds... with little purpose or sense. Meanwhile, Swan is not even close to like-able... she's worse than a moody teen... but she's OLD and has learned nothing in her life. Why do I even care about this woman/man who is so self absorbed?

The book had a promising start, but I'm stuck at 50%... why are they even at the rings of Saturn anyways? Moving on to something more fun.

Two separate reviews in one, here: one for people that have read Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR) before, and one for those who have not.

Review 1: For those that have read and enjoyed KSR in the past (e.g. veterans of the massive Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars trilogy), the message is simple. Get your hands on this book, kick back, and enjoy. KSR is at his terraforming best here; the Solar System a fabulous playground for the relentless expansion of Earth's most potent primate species. If you liked what KSR did with Mars, you'll find what he does with the rest of the Solar System breathtaking. And, you'll get, almost as an afterthought, a plot involving the elements of murder mystery, romance, political intrigue, and thriller all in one. 2312, in several senses, outdoes the Mars Trilogy, and builds on it. There is not a trace of succinctness in the entire book. But, fan, you already knew that about KSR.

Review 2: Never read KSR? KSR is a must read, if you think of yourself as a sci-fi buff. Not doing so would be like claiming to be a fan of English literature, but not having read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (or if length is a criteria, George Eliot's Mill on the Floss). And if you're going to read KSR, 2312 is a wonderful place to start.

KSR writes hard sci-fi. Virtually nothing included in this deeply imaginative exploration of what mankind's expansion throughout our solar system might look like by 2312, is without scientific foundation. KSR is a modern day polymath, with a knowledge base that is spectacularly broad, and not lacking in depth. What you'll be treated to in 2312 is page after page (after page, after page, after page) of KSR's informed and spectacularly innovative vision of where the marriage of technology and the human genome is headed. And if such speculation fascinates you, stop right here and order the book: if anyone does it better than KSR, I haven't yet encountered them.

Plot? Ah. You're one of those: you want a STORY along with the spectacularly high-tech scaffolding. Hmm. Well, there IS a story here. And a good one. One that could have been related in about one third of the 576 pages in this book. There is a romance, and a mystery, and an AI thriller that triggers recall of Asimov's I Robot. KSR is an excellent writer, and his opening scene of going for a walk on Mercury as the terrifying, searing light of the oh-so-close Sun creeps over the horizon is flat out astounding. But plot is not his predominant strength, providing in this book just enough cohesion to graft KSR's stunningly visionary prognostications together. I liked the plot. Enjoyed it thoroughly. But if plot is your most-prized quality for choosing a sci-fi novel, on the stellar scale, think white dwarf rather than supernova here: it sheds light, but won't vaporize you with its intensity.

Overall? KSR fan: do it. You won't regret it. KSR on steroids. New KSR reader: great place to start, and if you're a sci-fi reader, you most definitely owe yourself a KSR novel at least once in life.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this 650-page book in early 2014. I abandoned a long, detailed review at the time and moved on to other things. Four years later, the book has left vivid images in my mind, mainly of the deep, black space surrounding the archipelago of human settlements through the Solar System. Robinson's Mercury especially, one of the major locations, home of the central character and thus the center of perspective, burned itself into my memory.

As others have noted, KSR's strength is world-building. This 300-years-from-now future is vividly imagined and described. The sections are brief, and the story is interrupted by all sorts of chunks of information -- lists, history, technology -- the structure reminding me of the John Dos Passos technique adopted by John Brunner in the great "Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep Look Up."

The sweep of the book is audacious, reminding me of a combination of Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy" and Sterling's "Schismatrix." Robinson is strong on power politics and economics, though as others have noted, much of the plot with those elements is sandwiched into the last part of the novel. I had bigger problems with other aspects of this vision of the future: 1) The colonization of the Solar System is made possible by nuclear fusion engines. Of course this is 300 years in the future, but it seems highly unlikely that fusion power will ever be a reality. 2) Endangered species from Earth are kept alive in terraria constructed from hollowed-out asteroids, and then dramatically released back into the Earth. I share KSR's ecological commitment, but I found this scenario to be preposterous.

On the upside, Beethoven figures prominently, as a major character loves his music. Philip Glass's opera "Satyagraha" is also featured as the installed music for a permanent gravity well elevator from Earth out into orbit.

*** *** ***
In junior high and high school in the late Sixties and early Seventies, I used to read massive quantities of science fiction. I started with Verne and Wells, and moved on to Asimov, Aldiss, Bradbury, Clarke, Delany, Heinlein, Lafferty, Laumer, LeGuinn, Simak (my favorite), and many others.

I haven't read that much science fiction since then -- I went through a Philip K. Dick phase at one point, and then later a cyberpunk phase, reading Gibson, Sterling, Rucker and others. Despite its flaws, 2312 gives me that good old SF rush!

(verified purchase from St. Mark's Bookshop in NYC)

This is an awful book. It’s funny: Kim Stanley Robinson uses the word “autistic” as a mild pejorative in the opening pages, but that might be the single best description of this book’s aesthetic. The author consistently ignores the things that make a novel worth reading — excitement, interesting characterization, original ideas — and instead hangs little essays filled with thoughts (by turns implausible and banal) about terraforming, economics, gender and governance onto a novel-like framework.

As others have noted, nearly all the action occurs outside the narrative, and is simply mentioned off-handedly as having occurred. This might be for the best, since the plot makes absolutely no sense: a seemingly low-stakes real estate dispute on Venus somehow accidentally gives rise to a multi-step mass-murder plot hatched by a new class of artificial beings? But it’s not clear that there’s any intentionality behind this–perhaps it’s just a screwup. Certainly the villain (if there’s a villain?) is barely named and never confronted, seemingly because the author is tired and wants to wrap things up. Then the perpetrators–a new race of beings, maybe, who are somehow detected, surveilled and rounded up from across the solar system in a massive police action that is mentioned but not even slightly described–are shipped into exile by the inspector who was working the case, who gets to declare judgment and sentence because…?

I would like to to bag on the characters, particularly the endless, hammer-it-into-your-head repetition of Wahram’s froggy eyes as his defining trait. But the truth is that I did find that Wahram and Swan eventually emerged as distinct entities. This was particularly true of Swan, whose pervasive neuroticism was both off-putting and fairly believable. This showed the way to the most promising potential theme in the book, I thought: the cultural claustrophobia and exhaustion faced by humanity as it finishes developing the solar system’s resources and realizes that what they’ve built is a prison. Alas, Robinson flirts with this idea briefly and and then abandons it. Instead he sprints toward ridiculous nostalgia, implying mystical spiritual renewal through communion with (wholly manipulated!) nature, along the way spewing a lot of bulls*** about “our horizontal brothers.”

Still, though Wahram and Swan were decently developed, the idea of romantic chemistry between them seemed absurd, and the larger treatment of relationships in the context of massively extended lifespans felt superficial.

Absent a source of excitement (plot) or emotion (compelling character mechanics), we’re left with KSR’s thoughts about the evolution of human civilization.

His musings on speciation and blurring of gender are fine, but never really deployed in a way that made me squirm, which felt like a missed opportunity. It’s all reasonable enough, but kind of boring. When Wahram and Swan finally have their weird and unnecessarily graphic hermaphroditic sex, my reaction was less about alarm over the plumbing that KSR was so anxious to explicate and more a basic dismay at having to read about a boring nebbish (Wahram) sleeping with a sure-to-be-trouble headcase (Swan). Ick.

There is a LOT of time spent talking about terraforming. And there’s a place for that kind of hard sci-fi stuff. But KSR seems to expect to be allowed to waste my time with technical minutiae the way Clarke does in, say, Rendezvous with Rama. Sadly, he doesn’t have the chops. Randall Munroe has helpfully demonstrated the impossibility of one of KSR’s schemes — making Venus rotate faster through planetary bombardment — but there’s plenty more fishiness throughout the book when it comes to masses, energy levels, speeds, distances, problems related to acceleration and docking, venting waste heat and the quantity of astronomical objects in the solar system. I haven’t done the math, but it seems pretty obvious that the author hasn’t, either. He sure pretends like he has, though.

His soft-science ideas are worse. The Mondragon, a cybernetic economy run by AIs that perfectly allocate resources, is laughably utopian — particularly when he introduces a sudden real shock into the economy by destroying the city of Terminator, but never discusses how the system responds. The ideas about governance are incredibly vague. There are plenty of allusions to human civilization’s balkanization. But the only form of government that seems to exist outside of Earth consists of tiny, tiny oligarchies — say, a dozen people on Venus, and maybe a few dozen more throughout the rest of the system. Through robotic, exposition-filled meetings and the occasional conference call these groups are somehow able to organize resources sufficient to terraform planets or stage immensely complex logistical operations (the “reanimation” of Earth). This is all the more ludicrous when one considers how implausibly dependent on human labor much of this hi-tech future activity seems to be. Seriously: Wahram, that tedious milquetoast, would be among the humans with the most governing power in history if he could do what he’s described as doing. It makes absolutely zero sense.

So yeah, it’s just a complete mess. The thing is long and boring, and the ideas on offer are either bland or half-baked. Terrible.

It's difficult to even venture a rating for the book, although it is slow and plodding. The problem is that the Kindle format is off for many of the chapters, which appear to be lists of items but have inaccurate line breaks and blank lines interspersed, making the text totally illegible. Someone did a very bad job of checking the format prior to publishing the Kindle version. Will be asking for a refund and may one day give the hard cover version a try, although the chapters I have managed to read don't inspire much enthusiasm for continuing on, even if it were letter perfect.

I have read many of this author's books before and especially enjoyed his "Science In The Capitol" trilogy. Thus I was looking forward to reading this book with great relish. It did not take long until I knew this was not going to be a good read. I was extremely disappointed. The storyline is okay, I guess, but it was very difficult to read. It was weighed down by needless, scientific jargon, and even made up words, I mean, what the hell is a goldsworthy? The structure of the book with all of the mindless "Extracts" and "Lists", etc. between the chapters was so boring I just flipped through them without reading them and didn't feel like I had missed anything. I don't like to be so negative, but I really have little positive to say about "2312." Perhaps the author was experimenting with a new style, and in that case, in my opinion, it is a complete failure and he should go back to his previous style. There is a definite political / sociological point of view to this book, but that has been present in previous books as well, and given that I am sympathetic to it, that did not bother me. But I can see where it would bother others.

2312 was a complete disappointment. If you want to read this author's better stuff, go to the earlier novels and leave this one alone. It was a waste of my money.

This book worried me because it was so disappointing. Is the author ill? Wa he so rushed he thought his fans wouldn't notice? Although there were a couple intriguing ideas about asteroids, the story was near incomprehensible. Unlike past efforts - the Mars trilogy, or the Washington trilogy - there were no characters to care about. And what's with the jetting around the solar system as though it was taking the New York-DC shuttle? Time and distance had no texture. As others have mentioned, the interlude chapters are near gibberish. It was exactly the kind of big idea, small execution, zero character development which I try to avoid.

I have read a lot of science fiction over the years, frequently exploring other genres before returning to “catch up” on newer authors. I read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy many years ago and remember enjoying them, though apparently not immensely. This novel was a Nebula Award winner, so I gave it a chance.

As many have mentioned, this is a first class example of “world building”, well supported by hard science fiction and in many instances, highly original. As the name suggests, the story takes place roughly 200 years into the future. The solar system has been colonized and there is political discord among the several competing factions and alliances. Artificial intelligence has reached the stage where “replicants” have begun to appear. Life expectancy has reached over 200 years, with potential immortality on the horizon. Acts of interplanetary terrorism set the stage for the story.

The backdrop of the story is about as good as it gets. Only Peter Hamilton can compete in the arena of world building, among the numerous authors I’ve sampled. The hard science fiction is first rate. The story itself, however, simply doesn’t measure up to the scenery. It is not bad, by any stretch; it is simply not that good, which is a shame. The story drags at times and the primary characters were just not that interesting to me. Periodically, chapters called “Lists” and “Extracts” are inserted. Some of the Extract chapters contain information dumps, which are helpful. Others are pointless and the List chapters are a complete waste of time. Nevertheless, this novel is a worthwhile investment of your time if you enjoy hard science fiction.

Fans of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy (the only other works by the author I have read) will recognize the general pattern of this book. It is really two intertwined narratives: a travelogue of the Solar System, as envisioned by Robinson in the 2312. It is also the story of a set of characters within that framework. As a vision of the future, Robinson's populated Solar System is a thing of beauty - he has hollowed-out asteroids (essentially each a biodome), a fully-colonized and independent Mars (thankfully not a main location since we've seen his Mars in the aforementioned trilogy), Venus and Titan in the process of being terraformed, etc. We also see the different systems of government that arise - Venus is a frontier society with big-bosses competing with each other for dominance, Saturn's moons form a commonwealth, Mercury contains one big city-state, etc. As with any skilled writer, all of this exposition is interwoven through the main story (there are a few "explanatory" chapters, but they are blessedly short and far between). Robinson also presents an Earth still coping with the ecological disaster of general climate change - desertification, a rise of several metres in sea level (NYC has no streets, only canals.... no word on what happens to Venice!). The main characters travel to and fro throughout this system.

Thus to the plot: Mercury suffers a catastrophic terrorist attack, the nature of which requires significant manpower and enormous computing power. Combined with some earlier events, a group of people have organized to investigate the possibility that there are self-aware quantum computers behind the attack, perhaps building humanoid robots to enable them to carry out the required physical work. This allows Robinson to bring together people from throughout the Solar System (and to allow the characters to travel around in their investigations). I will not further reveal any more plot details, but instead will focus on the characters, because Robinson spends a lot of time with only a few characters (probably because his locations are each characters themselves!). We also get a wide variety of societal systems - the Saturnian creche, a long list of pseudo-gender identities, and so on, all of which makes Robinson's vision of 2312 very rich and detailed.

After reading about 100 pages, I started flipping through the chapter headings, which are named after the characters featured in that chapter. When I saw that the majority of them contained the character Swan, I almost put the book down. It's the closest I've come to doing that in many a long year. She was simply so unpleasant - narcissistic, untrustworthy, vain, moody - that I couldn't bear the thought of spending another 350 pages with her. It's not that I expect to like every main character - but she was only unpleasant, there was nothing interesting about her. One example of her behaviour, and bear in mind that Swan is 137 years old: when she is not told a security secret, she threatens to start screaming until she's told the secret. Really? This is a 137-year-old woman, with grown children, supposedly sane, and this is how she deals with the world? To make matters worse, she gets away with it! The parts of the book focussing on Swan - and she is the main character - consists of her betraying others' trust, blithely ignoring prudence and good sense, verbally (and physically) abusing her friends and relatives, and sulking. And every time, she ends up being forgiven, getting her way, or having her bad behaviour rewarded. Again, I'll reiterate: I have enjoyed books containing a main character I don't like, even books only containing characters I don't like.

Perhaps I am missing the point - the characters are supposed to be secondary to the locations, perhaps. If so, Robinson should have delved into the political theory of his governments, or detailed much more of the science behind the terraforming, or whatever. Although the locations and societies are imaginative and interesting, there is much more content relating to specific characters and the plot, and therefore not enough interesting "science fiction" to cover over the unpleasantness of the main character. I really did want to like this book, but I just can't.

"Worldbuilding" has been a popular buzz word in the modern era of science fiction, and Kim Stanley Robinson has always scored points for his detailed construction of alien environments. In 2312, he turns his attention to asteroid building: asteroids are captured, hollowed out, fitted with propulsion systems, made into terraria that double as transport vehicles, and populated with animals like arks designed by futuristic Noahs. He also gives Mercury a city that travels on rails to avoid sunlight and imagines an Earth that has seen better days (particularly Florida, which is mostly underwater). Yet worldbuilding alone does not a successful novel make.

2312 gets off to a promising start as a terrarium designer and cutting edge artist named Swan Er Hong, rocked by the unexpected death of her elderly mentor Alex, discovers that Alex left her a message to be delivered to Wang Wei. Accompanied by Saturn's liason, Wahrum, Swan travels to Io where she learns that Alex had a plan to revivify a moribund Earth. Alex was also worried that the quantum computers (qubes) that run everything appeared to be going rogue. Another of Alex's friends, Inspector Genette, enlists Swan's help as he tries to complete the investigation he started with Alex. On a visit to Earth, Swan arranges for a kid named Kiran to escape his dreary life (the reader knows, of course, that Kiran will eventually reappear and play a crucial role in the story) before she returns to Mercury, where either a natural disaster or (more likely) a devastating attack briefly energizes the novel.

The energy, unfortunately, fizzles out, reigniting in spurts from time to time but never sustaining. When the plot moves along -- when things happen -- 2312 is an imaginative and entertaining novel. When, for long stretches, nothing happens, 2312 is a mediocre novel. Most of the text in the initial three-quarters of the book does little to advance the plot. It's a long slog through a deep bog to get to the final quarter where the story finally comes into focus.

Throughout his career, Robinson has demonstrated a tendency to explain his many thoughts -- ranging from physics and geology to economics and politics -- at length, resulting in novels that are needlessly wordy. That's the primary fault that weakens 2312. I often had the impression that Robinson was worried that his plot would get in the way of his ideas so he relegated plot development to the last few chapters. I also had the impression that Robinson was more interested in showing off his considerable knowledge than in telling a tight, compelling story. Knowledge, like worldbuilding, is valuable, but tedious discussions of seemingly random ideas that do little to advance the plot reflect a sort of self-indulgence that detracts from the novel.

Robinson doesn't write with literary flair; sometimes, in fact, his prose reads like a dry textbook. Explanatory sections of the novel entitled "excerpts" are a thinly disguised excuse for the sort of expository pontification that kills a fictional narrative. Fortunately, most of them are mercifully short. Robinson also throws in a few meaningless lists (e.g., names of craters ... who cares?). Breaking up the narrative with these frequent digressions seriously disrupts the story's flow.

Swan is the only character with any personality at all. Robinson takes a stab at human emotion by putting Wahrum and Swan together, but the effort isn't convincing, and the sex scenes (complicated by extra parts) are more silly than passionate. Robinson is clearly more comfortable with ideas than people.

For all the worldbuilding, Robinson is at his best when he focuses on Earth as it exists three hundred years from now. His vision is bleak but credibly grounded in environmental, political, and economic trends. Even here, however, his writing sometimes devolves into a scolding lecture. Some of his chapters would make excellent essays or editorials; as fiction, they are too disconnected from plot or characterization to be riveting.

Alex's creative plan for a revolution and an imaginative means of launching an interstellar attack give the novel its best moments. A shorter, tighter novel that focused on those elements would have been a great read. As it stands, 2312 leaves the reader drowning in ideas and fails to deliver a truly engrossing story. I would give it 3 1/2 stars if I could.

There were many things I loved about 2312. It was filled with imagination and a foretelling of life from the most basic level to the grandest. It had the potential to sweep the reader up and carry them off into a world that was richly detailed in all the right places, and yet left the perfect amount to the imagination. Below are some of my favorite things.

Post-Binary Gender. I loved the idea of a society at ease with post-binary gender. How do things change when toxic displays of masculinity and ridiculous femininity are no longer present? When we’re no longer held back by even the simplest expectation that only ‘girls’ can have the babies? Imagine being able to experience being a parent from both sides of the equation. But even better? Imagine being able to be with large groups of people that don’t judge someone because of their gender or lack thereof. For some of us that would be like heaven. I hope that people that fall into that group one day get a chance to experience it.

Turning asteroids into terrariums. The idea fascinates me. There is estimated to be between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids in the asteroid belt alone that are over a half mile in diameter. It might be a long time before we have the capability to terraform asteroids, but imagine what we can do once we can. Kim Stanley Robinson focuses on the ability to save animals from extinction by breeding them in asteroids. Notice I said “in”. He makes a very good point in 2312 that it would be much easier to hollow out an asteroid and create a protected space than it would be to try to protect people or animals on the outside of one.

While I absolutely love the idea of saving endangered species (and yes, being able to experiment with evolution on different ones), my first thought wasn’t about animals. It was about me. I would love to have my own asteroid that I could go to when I needed to get away from people. Wouldn’t you? Even if it was only a half mile in diameter, I would be fine with that. A half mile with no people besides myself is perfectly fine.

Terraforming the planets. This one just made me do a happy dance because I love Robinson’s visions. A massive city on Mercury that moves on tracks around the center of the planet so that it’s never directly in the sunlight? While it’s one of those things that really only seems like it would be done just to say you can do it, it sounds so cool!! Or putting the much-needed nitrogen into Mars’ atmosphere by freezing chunks of it on Titan, and booting it to Mars? And his speculation about ways to make Venus livable? I absolutely love this man’s mind.

There’s even a huge thread running throughout the book that talks about the evolution of artificial intelligence. That is pretty much a staple of science fiction classics, but the way Robinson puts the pieces in place in 2312 keeps it interesting. After all, there are good and bad humans, so why not the same for artificial intelligence? Even just the possible development of pseudo-emotions is something to set your mind to chewing on.

At the end of 2312 Robinson brings everything together with a timely reminder. That though we may not see the change our actions are making now, decades from now, we will. There will be stumbles, trips, and falls. There will be times when things look hopeless, but as long as we keep pushing forward, things will change. We will enter a new age.

In my opinion, if Kim Stanley Robinson would just learn to throttle back on his output per book, there would be no disputing him as the best science fiction writer alive today. Unfortunately, his tendency to try to do a little too much in each book leads to an unfortunate case of bloat which can put the casual reader off. 2312 was a book full of fascinating ideas and breathtaking visualization. But it was easy to lose sight of that. Especially about halfway through the book where things slow to an ungainly crawl. His imagination is wonderful, but I don’t think the man is capable of writing a book with consistent, good pacing.

I have now put this book down after slogging through 240 pages of tedium. There is simply no plot worthy of the name. The main character is a spoiled female dilletante living in the author's futuristic fantasy world, sort of a jaded hippie chick who designs new worlds like some people throw pottery, then gets bored and runs off to do something truly meaningless. The author seems to have a good grasp of biological topics but utterly fails physics, uses 14 adjectives when one will do, and rambles endlessly off topic in semi-hallucinogenic confusion. I found the book very shallow (until I trashed it) but the author gets kudos for the most extensive use of a thesaurus in 2012.

Somewhere in this 640 page book is a great 300 page novel trying to get out! Distracting "lists" and "extracts" (sort of a "But I digress..."insert) periodically interrupts the flow of the story. Probably worth 4 stars for the creativity - flying over the ocean and seeing the large brown blob below that used to be Florida and New York city is now the new Venice with water to the 4th floor of the buildings and planets are "terraformed" to permit humans to live on them. Interesting description of "reanimation" as animals raised elsewhere in the solar system are released from the sky into their old habitats, transportation issues are described, political and computer issues are dealt with, etc. Economics seem to be ignored except for the big picture like extracting nitrogen from the Saturn system. If it is worth 4 stars for creativity, the writing gets 3 stars as it gets plodding in places. Still, a thought provoking read.

At its heart is a book about world building, geography, lands and their peoples mixed with a crime thriller. I’m glad that I read it, but feel that it was too much work. I have enjoyed the author in the past, but this book was not as good as, say, the Mars Trilogy.

<b>The Good: </b> The author paints a vision of what “humanity” will look like in 2312, and like the present some people are good, some evil. Space Travel is “boring” as the characters regularly scoot back and forth between the planets, but while the traveling is common place the terrarium ships are each unique and entertaining. Most of the planets are occupied, although sometimes that means an enclosed settlement, or a settlement hovering in the clouds. The vision is sweeping and over whelming. I really enjoyed the characters and bought into them and what they were doing. As our protagonists travel, we see the technology and the vistas, and the planets through their eyes, and it’s a rich and abundant view. One of the benefits of such a rich in ideas story, is that you see a lot of great ideas, and how the author thinks the ideas play out in the real world.
<b>The bad: </b>It’s poorly edited in that it’s boring and way too long. Perhaps it should have been two or more books. One of the problems is that the details of the “geography” are overwhelming. Who knew that there would be so much rich detail about the migration of the elk and the efforts that the wolves go to for a meal? These related but unrelated stories are interesting and help with character development, but they are pretty much a distraction from the main story. I usually read a book of this size in a few days. It took me months because I had to set it aside due to lost interest. Then I would read a bit more, get bored and read another book or two before I got back to it. Deeply in the story was an investigation of a crime, but there was so much emphasis on the vistas, the cultures, the re-population of animals on earth that the crime was a foot note.

I had high hopes for this novel in the wake of the writer’s reputation for his Mars trilogy but when I’d finished reading it I had distinctly mixed feelings. Where 2312 soars is when Robinson paints the big picture of humanity’s colonization of the solar system. The author has obviously done extensive research into the technologies and social structures involved, and lovingly portrays plausible settlements on Mercury, Ceres, Titan, Venus and Mars as well as a partially dystopian future Earth reeling from the twin effects of excessive climate change and balkanization. He describes hollowed-out asteroids - which he dubs terraria - in such vivid detail that they really draw you in as a fascinated fly on the wall. Robinson sees his terraria as mobile shuttle worlds flitting between the planets that also happen to function as fantastic wildlife habitats, nomadic hang outs, exotic theme parks and even sexliners. With these the reader’s imagination really takes flight.

Also praiseworthy is the author’s depiction of AI which have become domesticated, personal ‘qubes’, as indispensable as today’s cell phones but much more valuable as expert systems and sensitive personal counsellors. Indeed it is the mysterious rebellion of some of these qubes against humanity that serves as the novel’s main plot element. Robinson has even gone further to delve into the philosophical aspect of whether such AI have in fact attained consciousness rather than just clever simulacra that can answer questions like Alan Turing’s Chinese Room. Trouble is, almost as soon as he has, he drops the speculation to return to his less than engaging main plot, which brings me to the negatives of the book.

Robinson’s main characters Swan and Wahram are bland and it doesn’t help that the author has depicted intimate moments together – such as cleaning up after the bowel movement of one who is unconscious, or sealing a punctured spacesuit of a lover after an emergency evacuation in interplanetary space – with great sensitivity. We just don’t get a deep sense of who Swan or Wahram are or what their motivations are apart from what they are like in dealing with their immediate predicaments or what they’re feeling at the moment.

But I feel the book’s biggest weakness is its plot. Having some AI want to usurp human control of its worlds to do a better job is fine as an idea but Robinson doesn’t invest any of the artificial rebels with a consciousness to tell its side of the tale - I say this as Robinson has gone to the trouble of bestowing personalities to some of the qubes and it would have been a logical progression to have one of the ‘bad’ ones talk about its vision. Further downplaying the revolt of the qubes, in some 560 pages of text there are only two acts of rebellion, one a successful attack and one that is thwarted. A lot of the book feels like padding, which is certainly the case with the Dos Passos-esque lists that punctuate chapters – while some of these lists work, many are just confused, stream-of-consciousness ramblings that don’t.

Robinson’s word painting is occasionally awkward and forced, not vivid and poetic as intended. Here is an example from p.50: “Habits begin to form at the very first repetition. After that there is a tropism toward repetition, for the patterns involved are defenses, bulwarks against time and despair.” Here’s another where Swan is ‘surfing’ the rings of Saturn from p.276: “Then she was in the white stuff and being struck by the bits. She jetted a bit to keep her head out of stuff, as if bodysurfing out of a spume of broken salt water, but it was chunky stuff and she felt herself being thrust forward by little hits from little bits, rather than a mass of water.”

Another awkward aspect was the hermaphrodite gendering of the main protagonists. It seemed more gratuitous than vital to their personalities and I think a real opportunity was lost to explore the possibility of tensions between their male and female personas.

It’s a real shame that only at the end of the book with the wedding on Olympus Mons does Robinson’s craft really match his vision. In this magical episode we really do feel the author’s inspiration again and get caught up in it. If only this were the case the whole book through to go with a tighter and more satisfying plot and a bit more exploration of its philosophical aspects. We’d have a much more satisfying result.

Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312" is a book you will either love or hate & that depends on how well you can follow the main story & the background info presented in it. The main character in the story is Swan Er Hong whose grandmother Alex has died in the opening chapter in the city of Terminator on Mercury. It's against that backdrop & the politics of this era that the story takes place. Humanity itself has colonized the solar system & Earth is a place that people tend to forget about in the aftermath of global warming. We've also not left the solar system since there are no planets within close range of us that we can get to & the only other life found is in the oceans of Europa & Enceladus. Robinson takes us through the history of how we got here & follows along the lines of a terror plot to undo the progress made to reach where the solar system is & additionally throws in a plot involving qubes (which are quantum computers - think along the lines of Siri for the iPhone). The story itself is well written & is a bit complex to follow due to intricacies involving gender, computers, politics & people in general. There are interludes within the story that fill in precise details of the background when & where they are needed most which can either help the reader or confuse the reader even further. No matter what this is a very realistic tale that represents a future that could very well be our own & Robinson has set another year 300 into our future that will change us forever.

2312 is a marvel of engaging hard science fiction that deserves its 2012 Nebula. Robinson's love of the environment, his unusual handling of background exposition, and his twisty plot all shine. In 2312, terraforming is complete on Mars and underway on Venus, while Earth suffers under global warming. Swan, a former designer of enclosed ecosystems, finds herself drawn into a conspiracy to uncover murderous terrorists and to commit daring deeds of civil disobedience. She is a fascinating character, an impulsive daredevil who revels in nature and constantly quarrels with her quantum computer implant. But the real star of the novel is the futuristic setting. Standouts are Mercury's domed city that circles the planet just ahead of lethal sunrise; carving up an entire ice moon for terraforming materials; hollowed-out asteroids with habitats for endangered and extinct animals from Earth; and biotech resulting in longevity and a wide gender spectrum between fully female and fully male. Some reviews say it was too slow, but I happily zipped through it. I especially enjoyed it because well-written hard SF that isn't military is so rare.

This is writing for the new age - disjointed, jerky, different for the sake of being different, random ventures into strange lands and stranger people. My problem is a common one for science fiction - the pace of technological achievement is woefully lagging. If humans can go from riding a horse to outside the Solar System in 100 years, what could they do in 200 years with the current rate of technological acceleration? If anything, the wonders presented seem tame.

A book needs more than a "catch" to be successful. It MUST have interesting and compelling characters that one remembers long after the last page. It MUST present a world that makes sense, where all aspects of technology advance and where current trends are brought to their logical conclusion. Terraforming is an exciting topic but not presented in long, dry essays. It was as if these were notes for a book that nevere were edited. So we get endless factoids about what we think terraforming is like, meandering from scene to scene, 50% blather (that could have been eliminated) and characters that are regrettably forgetful. Robinson commits the unforgivable literary sin - he bores.

I really, really want to like Kim Stanley Robinson. I do. His ideas are beautiful. The Mars trilogy is the most in-depth analysis of Martian terraforming ever committed to print; Mark Watney couldn’t have planted potatoes without it. The Years of Rice and Salt combines a staggering scope (alternate world history, 1300-present) with a thoroughly original structure (following the reincarnations of a jati, a group of souls fated to meet again and again).

But then you actually read the book, and your hopes are dashed. His characters are forgettable, his plots meandering, his prose wooden. I started 2312 full of the apprehensive hope that the last twenty years have made a better storyteller of this brilliant, idiosyncratic Author. But no, sadly. Kim Stanley Robinson is the Arthur C. Clarke of the 21st century: a consummate idea man who isn’t about to let mere writing get in his way.

2312 is full of absolutely amazing ideas. “Terrarium” for a hollowed-out asteroid filled with biosphere seems destined to enter the SF lexicon alongside terms like “ansible,” “waldo,” “hyperspace,” and “robot.”

But his characters? His plotting? It opens with a funeral and closes with a wedding, in fitting comic theater fashion. There’s terrorist attacks, two survival trials as Swan and Wahram are marooned, a romance that takes you from behind, the possibility of emergent AI turning against their masters, and the secret machinations of various factions…but none of them seem to connect to anything. Indeed, it’s hard to connect much of anything to anywhere.

Kim Stanley Robinson has never been easy reading. I got that all the way back in seventh grade. But getting through it has always been interesting, even if I argue with myself about whether it was worth it. The sheer scope of Years of Rice and Salt still dazzles me, the meditations on humanity as cultivator or humanity as witness (Green vs. Red) in the Mars trilogy is some of the best philosophy in commercial fiction. Despite the meandering plot and the forgettable characters, despite the mannered prose and the hollow dialogue, I think 2312 was worth it. In 2012, when the book came out, the vision of a future where hope could be found, a future where humanity increases in genetic, cultural, and artistic diversity while still being human, a future where even Earth could be terraformed, was as alien to the omnipresent Singularity or Apocalypse as the liberal-green philosophy of Red Mars had been at the tail end of cyberpunk. Other authors have since taken up the call, dusted off the terraria, grappled with the intersexed and transcender implications, and explored other ways to terraform Earth. We wouldn’t have Sunvault and Reckoning without 2312, we wouldn’t have Ecopunk! without 2312, we wouldn’t have solarpunk without 2312. For that alone, the book is worth it.

I am a long-time fan of KSR and looked forward to reading this book. It was a gift and one of those books which you postpone reading as you think it will be such a great read that you don't want it to end. What a disappointment! It is the first book in which I have had to use the Kindle dictionary to look up words. KSR seems to think that using big words was important to make the story more interesting. Sorry, it just made it sound somewhat pedantic in places. There was very little character development. The book was disjointed as multiple plots occurred simultaneously. The flow of the book was interrupted by a significant number of inserts called Lists and Extracts which don't seem to connect to the plot. At the end of the book, they do make a little more sense, I usually read a book in two or three days. A really good, complicated story might take me five days. This one took me about a month as I kept putting it down to read other books which were more interesting. I have read the Mars trilogy three times; I struggled to find this book interesting enough to read once.

Plot, what plot, where, did I miss something?!! I've been an avid reader all my life. I was the kid that hid under the bed covers with a flashlight and my library book, until I was caught and the flashlight confiscated, but this book is 568 pages of my life that I'll never get back. My husband bought it and never came close to finishing it, but I persisted just because I was SURE it had to get better. I was SO wrong!

Spaced in between pages, and pages, of weird "stream of consciousness" nonsense were a few, very few, interesting chapters that wanted to be a honest to goodness storyline, but totally failed in the end. My advice if you see this book....run, Forest, run!

I'm a huge fan of Robinson's Mars Trilogy and pre-ordered 2312 the moment it became available. I was thrilled when it showed up on my kindle and I dug in immediately. Perhaps my expectations were too high, or perhaps my appetite was spoiled after reading Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey, a story superior to 2312 in every way, but I am finding 2312 a real chore to work through. I'm 20% of my way through and have no real sense of what the story is about. The main character comes off as entitled and unlikable - not enough to qualify as an anti-hero, though - and I really don't like being in her head. Perhaps Robinson has reached the point in his career where he feels he can dispense with an editor, or perhaps his editor lacks a spine, but much of what I've read so far could have been redlined away, thus revealing whatever story is currently hidden by this bloated mass of words for words' sake.

I don't normally review a work I've not finished, but it seems unlikely that I'll slog through much more. I'll try, but every time I pick up the work and start reading, I suddenly remember some other chore that unexpectedly seems more pressing or potentially more engaging - like cleaning gutters or dusting mini-blinds. Either that or I fall asleep.

Not recommended.

If you'd like to see words used more artfully and economically to propel a truly engaging story with characters you can care about, check out Wool - Omnibus Edition by Hugh Howey.

The world building in this novel is good. It is highly detailed, imaginative, and futuristically strange.

The charters are also well constructed. These are not like people of today who just happen to be living in the future with a bunch of high-tech gizmos. They have different attitudes, beliefs, tastes, and concerns. Many are physically different in strange and interesting ways. They are not us. They are our descendants, about as different from us as we are from Homo erectus--in some ways, more so.

As science fiction, this book succeeds where many fail. It presents a fictional future that really seems futuristic. I can't honestly say I enjoyed the book much, though.

The reason little to do with the futuristic setting, although I could not quite understand how any of the grand projects it mentions were being funded. But economics aside, it is the plot--or lack thereof that bothered me the most.

This 561 page tome shows us lovely and, I assume, scientifically reasonable views from various locations in space, sometimes in exhausting detail. It describes various interesting methods of terraforming and of creating habitable environments in space, but what it does mostly is document the existential wanderings of the main character, Swan Er Hong.

She (for lack of a better pronoun) is certainly an interesting character. We get to know her quite well, or as well as anyone can, but she's not likeable. In fact, she should come with a warning label that says something like `Caution! Approach at Your Own Risk.' Even in this strange world of the future, she's a nut job, and her erratic behavior and self-absorbed musings become annoying in short order.

I appreciate the skill of a writer who can create a fictional character that can evoke an emotion in a reader, but I don't think annoyance is the emotion one should probably be shooting for. That's really the only one I personally felt for Swan, and her romance with a man (again, gender designation is only an approximation) she describes as looking like a toad is, at best, hard to imagine. I could believe that someone might find her interesting, maybe even fascinating, but I couldn't understand how anyone could consider a long-term romantic relationship with her. It would take a special kind of masochist to do that, and toad-man wasn't presented as such.

There was an effort at a plot stemming from a power play on Venus and even a bit of mystery about almost sentient androids, but it felt like these were tacked on almost as an afterthought in order to justify the lengthy account of Swan's dysfunctional emotional journey.

Despite the excellent description of a believable future that this book provides, it's not an enjoyable story. I can't recommend it.

Man, I cannot believe I finished this book. It was so "So-so". Just so long or as the author would put it - laborious. I get it, the guy is bright and likes to use long words. Done get me wrong, I think that's fine but sometimes his word choice was such a stretch and then mix in it is a SciFi world where he makes up some words...well it was exhausting. I put it down 3 times but finished over the course of 2+ months.
Biggest problem is you just never bond with any of the main characters. I just found myself mildly interested in them.
I can go on and on but if you want than just buy this book. Not for me.

After reading the Red Mars trilogy I was left wondering about the other events that transpired in the Solar System. Green and Blue Mars lightly touched on Mercury, Venus, the outer planets, and the political and military struggles between Mars and Earth. 2312, I should state, is not a sequel to the Red Mars trilogy and not even in the same timeline. However, Kim gives us the pleasure of introducing an entirely new universe with its own unique history yet oddly... familiar.

Kim is just a phenomenal author. He once again demonstrates his extensive knowledge of not only the "hard" sciences, but also of history, sociology, and economics just to name a few. His descriptions of planetary geographies are absolutely vivid and can be rivaled only by a handful of authors. He routinely takes complex and diverging disciplines and puts them together in such a way that readers can understand and appreciate. As a hard sci-fi writer, Kim attempts to keep 2312 somewhat believable and one might even say plausible.
Kim, as he did in "The Years of Rice and Salt", revisits many East Asian and Indian themes as most of the main characters hail from these communities. We see the type of future the Chinese may have in space exploration and effects and influences it may have on other space communities as well as those still on Earth. Finally, 2312 has many recurring sexual themes. Some are the obvious heterosexual and homosexual relations, but others are a bit more unusual. This in turn leads to some interesting social relations and community structures.

One may occasionally feel lost as the story expands the entire solar system and tends to jump from plot to plot. Ironically, the main story tends to move very slowly even though the characters have the ability to travel at astronomical speeds.

Overall, a really great read. I highly recommend, especially to fans of the Mars trilogy.

I really enjoyed reading The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, but I'm afraid that I didn't really enjoy this novel much at all really.
First of all, the things I liked. There were some glorious descriptions of the solar system, natural events, processes, objects and history of formation and so on. This was clearly well researched, and obviously something that Robinson is interested in and knows a lot about. I enjoyed all the arguments and results of the various terraforming techniques across the planets, particularly Venus. There was a beautiful section where the characters are actually surfing a ring of ice crystals around Saturn. That was awesome.
Other than that, not a lot actually happens. I would characterize it as a little bit of intrigue as some of the independent AIs become more involved, self aware and self motivated, but not provably so. Pfft. I suppose it was all relatively realistic and believable, but really, not very exciting. It was 25% through before the city on Mercury was nearly bombed (derailed), and I was thinking "finally!" but then the next 10% was a description of two of the characters walking down a tunnel dealing with radiation poisoning. And then the pace slows down.
There are 14 small chapters called Lists(N) which iterate over a bunch of related concepts or words related to the chapter. Really? You want me to read these? For what?
There are 18 chapters called Extracts(N) which contain a series of completely disconnected paragraphs taken from either news or books of the period, each of which related to the topic, trying to further the readers understanding with a bit of flavour and detail. I found these very jarring to read, and had to force myself to make a sound like an old TV channel change between each paragraph so that I wouldn't be tricked into trying to connect them. It would have been better to find a way to write some of the more interesting ones of these into the story somehow.
There were 3 chapters called Quantum Walk(N), which were essentially stream of consciousness style, but from a primitive AI intelligence. Annoying, but at least they gave you an insight into the level of intelligence involved.
Overall, really, I was just waiting for it to be over.

[...]

As I read “2312” by Kim Stanley Robinson,
I felt like a first year student that had wandered into the wrong advanced graduate
class. This was a tough “read”. I had a hard time following Robinson’s style, especially the “Lists” and “Extracts” between each chapter,
i.e., (Extract 18), “to form a sentence is to collapse many superposed wave functions to a single thought universe. Multiplying the lost universes word by word, we can say that each sentence extinguishes 10n universes, where ‘n’ is the number of words in the sentence. Each thought condenses trillions of potential thoughts. Thus we get verbal overshadowing, where the language we use structures the reality we inhabit. Maybe this is a blessing. Maybe this is why we need to keep making sentences”….. This was just one of the “Lists” and “Extracts”
which I found puzzling, incomprehensible and frustrated with because I couldn’t fully grasp how it connected with the story.

I nearly quit “2312”, except that I have to know how a book
ends and I WAS intrigued by Robinson’s concept of the future, knowledge of technology, space travel, colonization of our solar system, politics, social movements, ecology, classical music, vocabulary, etc.
I struggled through much of the
600+ pages, but still gave “2312” 5 stars because I liked the plot, the characters
(especially Swan and Wahram) and found the conclusion satisfying.

Some are calling “2312” a “masterpiece”, a “monumental tour de force”, and, one of the “best books of the year”. I can see how it should appeal to avid sci-fi- fans.

This isn't really a novel, it's a meandering vacation in a plausible (not probable) near future. Instead of creating one really cool world and repeating it over and over again with a few pasted on variations, KSR lets us experience each new world in myriad detail, and what it means to be a human navigating the uncharted realms of the solar system. Even earth is an unrecognizable creation, as it should be, since the earth of 300 years from now will certainly be unrecognizable to those of us living today. It's fascinating how humans find ways to circumvent the inhospitable places and thrive on them. Even the means of traveling are graphically described worlds unto themselves. They are ingeniously carved out asteroids that serve as transportation, places to grow food and revive extinct animals, and lest we forget we're humans, have lots of kinky sex.

The lack of plot is annoying, but it also frees the characters to go roaming about in these worlds of big g, little g, hot and cold, and play with all the neat toys available to them. A plot would require the characters to stop what they are doing every once in a while and wave the plot carrot in front of the reader's nose to keep them going (or hit them on the butt with a stick if it's that kind of book). It'd be helpful if this book had a stamp on the front of it that said, caution no twists, but lists. You have to accept that it's all journey.
The walk through the utilidor is a dazzling exploration of a protracted instance of human experience. It covers the gamut of human experience, all those moments that seem insignificant as they are happening but define who you become afterward. This section, the futility of a quick resolution, then the abandonment by the sunwalkers, then walking, whistling, purring and dying by slow degrees, gels the relationship between Wahram and Swan and affects every interaction they have afterwards.

KSR spends a lot of time on gender. Both main characters have a mix of phenotypes and both have experienced fatherhood and motherhood in the past. For all that they each acted for the most part according to the gender that they showed the world. That is, Swan acted female and Wahram acted male. However, one of the secondary was never referred to by any gender-specific pronouns and was never described physically enough to make an assumption. We knew that this person had a relationship with Swan that produced a child but not who acted as father. I became aware of this because I had no way of making a picture in my mind of what this person looked like. I ended up with a blank spot whenever they spoke, and although I think it may have been intentional, it fell kind of flat for me. The other gender twist worked a little better. Here we have a character that has a name, Jean, with both strong female and male associations, but while this character isn't referred to with (at least not many) gender specific pronouns it is described in terms of traditionally very feminine terms. Petite, beautiful, blond, etc. Eventually this character is given the `he' attribute, but it is disconcerting. Overall, I found the plays on gender a fun aspect of the novel.

The weakest sections were the lists and fractured excerpts of the extracts. Maybe they were supposed to add some poetic insight, but I found them tedious and less than elucidating.

Normally I'm not a fan of novels without plot unless the characters are so engaging I just love spending time with them. I can't say I loved Swan. I like Wahram a little more, but ultimately it was getting to hang out in the local system that made the read worthwhile.

There are alot of possibilities with this book, colonization of the other planets in our solar system, technology that allows wandering habitats to be created in asteroids and renewable energy sources (a whole city on the planet Mercury that rolls on tracks which power the city.) The characters one meets along the way are associates of a recently deceased matriarch that was working on a problem involving artificial intelligences and so have some science background and the related sense of proportion within their lives. Most of those are concerned about what the matriarch was working on and this brings them to a troubled character, Swan Er Hong. I really liked most of the other characters in the book, even Hwarum with his litanies of concerto minutia, but it was if Swan were stumbling between greetings carrying valued information in her artificial intelligence which is implanted in her brain. Swan has really messed herself up with trendy enhancements and infusions of alien microbes. I couldn't help but liken her situation to a drug addict which has been entrusted with some valuable research papers. While I enjoyed the possibilities of future technology and cultures, I really began to dislike the interactions between Swan and her associates. It reads like a solar system of reasoning, thoughtful individuals who are trying to take care of a dysfunctional member of their circle upon whom the fate of worlds might be entrusted.

(I read the hardback version.)

Too long; too much fluff. About ninety per cent of the book could have been omitted without any loss to the story.

There are several places where the gender of a newly introduced character is not immediately made clear by the author, e.g., p.435, ¶1.

Interspersed between the story chapters are brief chapters of “Lists,” “Extracts” and “Quantum Walks” which seem to be the author’s brain dumps and have little, if anything, to do with the story.

The story borrows concepts and phrases from other stories. The asteroid-terrarium-ships (p.36-42) are from Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin and Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. Spacers (p.92, ¶1) are from the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. The Quito space elevator (p.89, ¶2) and other space elevators are from Friday by Robert A Heinlein. The City and the Stars (p.103, ¶1) is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke. The terraforming of Venus (pp.117-9) is reminiscent of the creation of Ringworld by Larry Niven. The phrase, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” (p.133, ¶6) was used several times in the motion picture, Gravity. The cone of silence (p.256, ¶1) is from the sixties television program, Get Smart. The ansible (p.262, ¶6) is from Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. The Green Hills of Earth (p.390, ¶5) is a story by Robert A. Heinlein. The phrase star child (p.489, bot) is from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. The Screen Game (p.503, bot) is a story from the anthology, The Voices of Time and Other Stories by J. G. Ballard. The qubanoids (p.519, ¶7,8) are similar to the androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Kipple is a term coined by Philip K. Dick in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (p.65, line 1). A waldo is a remote manipulator, named after the eponymous man in the 1942 short story, Waldo by Robert A. Heinlein.

If 2312 was to be summed up in a single word, it would be "leisurely". My parents are of an age where they travel abroad twice a year for weeks at a time, taking guided tours of historically or culturally important areas. This book feels exactly like that, in book form, in the future. The descriptions are gorgeous, every aspect of any given location - from the physical to the political - is worked with loving care. There is a plot and characters in this book as well, but they mainly function as a way of getting you from one place to another so you can take in the sights and wonders. The whole thing is very relaxing and rather enjoyable. The lack of urgency is sometimes very conspicuous - it can be a little jolting to go from interplanetary terrorist intrigue on one page to a Victorian Tea Party discussing sentience a few pages later, especially as the tea party is given a higher word count. But the book lulls you into its rhythm. This certainly isn't a bad read, but ultimately there's nothing here that will stick with me when I'm done. It is a much higher caliber of popcorn, but I can only recommend it as popcorn reading, to be enjoyed in delightful lulls between other books.

I never read anything written by Kim Stanley Robinson before. Yet I had great expectations about this novel. Robinson is the winner of both Hugo and Nebula award, so he knows how to set an environment and how to tell a story.

Indeed, the environment set is huge, detailed and well thought through. Robinson paints a solar system where mankind has setup habitats on a number of planets and moons. At the start of the novel we learn to know Swan, who is mourning her grandmothers death on Mercury. Her grandmother, Alex, was the one who gave great impulses in setting up habitats and terraforming projects throughout the solar system. Swan is following her footsteps in engineering worlds for humanity to live in. Necessary, since on Earth sea level has risen a lot due to global heating. When Mercury's moving city, Terminator, is sabotaged all is set for an exciting storyline full of intrigues and space opera, pursuing the bandits and bringing them to trial. Unfortunately this does not happen...

What follows is a journey along the space habitats with endless descriptions of their environments and discussions about how bad people on Earth treated their planet. Turning Swan slowly into a fanatic environmentalist, taking justice in her own hands to recreate Earth as is should be, and falling in love with the wrong person. So it seems. When the storyline finally continues its too late and too short. Suddenly it's over, leaving the reader in confusion: Was this all? It looks like the author is only interested in bringing this message: Be careful with this world, chose wisely in your relations, know that you and only you are responsible for your actions... Don't get me wrong: everything is written well. But the only thing that counts is whether the reader likes it or not. And as a lover of Science Fiction I prefer more action and suspense.

Not a series of books yet. Hopefully not but was left open to make into a series. Note that this book was nominated for the 2013 Hugo award which I find astonishing.

Ummm, what a slog! It is quite a long book, 672 pages in trade paperback. Very much hard science and no detectable hand wavium here. I kept on waiting for it to get better but it never did.

I really enjoyed the future presentations by Mr. Robinson, 54 space elevators on Earth, Mars has been fully terraformed, 2 billion people living on Mars and another billion living around the Solar System, an ongoing terraforming project for Venus, wearable / implantable quantum computers, tens of thousands of space rocks hollowed out for transport up to 30 km in size using Orion space drives, etc.

I did not like the global warming picture presented by Mr. Robinson though as it was fairly preachy. 11 meters of sea rise, mass extinctions of most of the Earths species, etc. His previous works concerning Mars were much better.

Coming from reading Red Mars, I had a favorable impression on KSR. Even after reading some alarming reviews I figured all I really wanted to get out of it are the ideas and I would skim over the (bad) plot. Unfortunately, there is a lot to skim over, and most of it is not the plot.

First, the ideas. There are many beautiful and almost poetic descriptions of sceneries: sunrise on Mercury, body surfing on rings of Saturn, all the interesting terrariums (that's a word!..?). I find myself wadding through page after page just to get to another scenery. There are chapters on the moons, planets, history up to the 24th century as well as lists of things, some times random verbs, other times lists of craters or other names, and yet others like space propulsion (!!) or other interesting things. Overall these chapters are by fall the most interesting and are good stand alone articles. However...

Then there are the non-plot fillers. These include philosophical quibs, mostly lectures delivered from one character to another that would make sense if only the intended receiver isn't 140 years old and has done everything there is to do and most definitely should've known or thought about by then. Other fillers include random musical related descriptions (not that big a fan of classical music, at least not interested enough to read pages of descriptions that means nothing to the non-initated, though same could be said about the descriptions of space, but why would you read this book if you weren't interested in space?).

Third, there is the plot. A trio of events occur in the first third of the book, all with easily linked yet the protagonist (Swan) thinks nothing of it and proceeds to do all sorts of random things, traveling across the solar system on a string of random pretexts, and then 40% through another person mentions the possibility that the events are not accidents and freaks Swan out. Only she doesn't do anything about it and makes no real moves to figure it out, only spending her time chilling and doing random things (going to concerts, body surfing) while languidly traveling from one astro body to another.

And then there are the characters. Neither of the two 100+ year olds act particularly wise. One acts spoiled and confused, filled with angst like a teenager while the other just tries to not get bored because apparently he's been alive for so long.

On the up side, I'm learning to skim.

KSR's writing is soaring and incredibly at some moments, then completely falls into a tedious vacuum that could suck you into space. Swan, the main character, starts out as interesting and compelling. By the end of the book I kinda hated her a bit. She grows to be somewhat selfish, arrogant and not very thoughtful. Her friend Wahram has no real growth arc. The world building is expansive, but also leaves some to be desired. This is a fun book to pick up as a used paperback from a bookstore for like, $5, but I wouldn't aspire to reading it.

Not being a regular science fiction reader, or even a regular novel reader, what impressed me the most about 2312 were the mind-expanding scientific ideas/concepts/manifestations on practically every page. Whether they are known science or speculative fiction, practically every page had one or more "aha" moments where i could feel my brain expanding to take in what he was describing. In scene after scene the author is incredibly creative and imaginative. The story takes its time as you travel with the characters around the solar system experiencing "spacers," Earth dwellers, AI's and our "horizontal brothers and sisters." I found the book exhilarating, easy to follow, and engrossing till the last page. Must admit that the extracts, etc. did not hold much interest -- mostly skimmed those after a few hundred pages -- but the plot and cast of characters were very interesting and even endearing in a quirky way. Many books nowadays are written with a film in mind but as i read through 2312 i was gratified to realize that a film of this book would be impossible! Not since reading Rendezvous With Rama decades ago have i been so impressed with a work of science fiction.

2312 is a tale of two books. On one hand KSR does what he always does on these types of things, he paints a vivid picture of what the future could be like so wonderful that you can almost feel the cold of space on the back of your neck. The world he has created draws from the Mars trilogy but stands alone with new and interesting places.

On the other hand this book is boring to the point where if I was actually reading it rather than listening to the audio book I might not finish it. This might also have something to do with it as the narrator’s voice was so calm even the parts which are supposed to be edgy didn’t feel like it. For about half the book I don’t know what the issue is. Should I like swan or not? Was Alex murdered? Is that even the crux of the story? It takes a while for the plot to pan out.

If I could rate this 2.5 stars (right down the middle) I would but since I can’t it gets 3. The world created does enough to make this a worthwhile read as long as you know what you’re getting into.

Seemed like a good 100 page short-story that the publisher talked the author into dragging out into a 650+-where-the-hell-is-this-going drudgery. Whole tangental chapters, that could have been reduced to one paragraph, added nothing to the storyline. Some chapters that did add to the storyline, seemingly dragged on and on with no benefit unless the author wanted his reader to feel as weary and depressed as the protagonist. In that case Robinson succeeded. What the author did not succeed at doing was enticing me to reed the whole book. After what seemed like 3000 or 4000 pages I finally gave up; weary and depressed.

There are three ways to look at 2312. One is as a description of tech and terraforming in 2312. On this level, this is an incredible story. From imaginative description of how worlds might be terraformed to how transportation might work, Kim Stanley combines Arthur C Clarke with other notable authors and his own spin to create a wonderful description which is very engaging and interesting.

On a second level this is purportedly a love story. In some ways the love affair between a 137 year old woman and a 110 year old man, each with their own biological modifications, is curious. Swan though is a very strange character. She is supposed to have be incredibly accomplished, incredibly intelligent and incredibly well liked by several people. Yet, throughout the story she acts in a totally baffling way that seems juvenile, immature and very inexperienced. Her suitor seems rather one dimensional. They go through quite a lot, yet neither seems to grow. Overall, the characters seem stuck and not very engaging.

Finally, there is the mystery. Well, all I can say is that it had great potential. By the end, I was tearing my hair because the whole thing works out in a very contrived manner. There are no thrills. The end is far too convenient. Very sloppy.

Overall, 2312 is worth a read if only for the science.

I have only begun reading this book but am hooked. I always judge a book by its first sentence, the first page. In this case it was the first chapter. I can still remember the first sentence of the best book I ever read. I would have named the first chapter of this work - The Face of God. An amazing insight into the future. The secret to fantasy is < the suspension of disbelief >, and this author does it perfectly. The future created for us here is not only scientifically plausible, but it is beautiful. Truly a great work of sci-fi - up there with the best. Visionary is the word I would use to describe this novel. I have never heard of this author before. I intend to read more. EDITED: I havecto correct my earlier review - as good as the first chapter and other parts are, and how innovative and inspired the novel is, it failed to maintain my reading of it. I gave up half way. The science was great - the moral oblivion-biology part was a bit too out-there for me.

You know how it is: CRITICS love such and such a book (or movie or play or TV show...) but you just don't GET IT? What are you missing?

Well, 2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson, is one of those books. Winner of the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and nominated for the 2013 Hugo, it's a novel that should please those who consider themselves real, serious HARD Sci-Fi readers, tired of reading action-oriented space fantasies they feel merely titillate rather than provide thoughtful material for readers who prefer to pontificate. Simply put: if you prefer your sci-fi to give us memorable, quirky characters who move the story forward on a very definable plot line toward a climactic zowie conclusion, this is NOT the book for you. Nor was it for me.

To that end, 2312 barely HAS a plot. It has one, to be sure, but the book is only SORT OF about that. And as for characters, they are only memorable if your memory is really good. So what DOES 2312 have? And why is it up for these awards, if all those things we value are absent?

Well, for one thing...IDEAS. 2312 has concepts and postulations enough for five novels...a big ol' messy deskful of them. Robinson has thrown together a brainy set of notions and theories that FILL this book, doling them out as readily as Niagara Falls does water. In fact, some of his chapters are literally "Lists," and others are "Extracts" (of what, we're not told), and these are just what they say: bare bones ideas, like brainy doodles. You're not told why these lists are here, nor what they mean exactly, but it's soon evident they contain info that the author wanted you to give you, but just were spilling out of his word processor too quickly for him to find ways to cohesively work them into the context of the book. Or he just didn't' care to - either way. Picture Lieutenant Columbo coming into the room to give you "just one more idea," and as he searches through his pockets all of these papers keep spilling out. They USUALLY have something to do with what's coming up, so they bear checking out, but they do not really advance a story line or characters or anything...they're just IDEAS.

For instance, one such set of "Extracts" (which almost always begin and end in the midst of unfinished sentences) concerns how interested parties might hollow out a relatively large asteroid in order to create a transport vessel between moons or planets. Another "Extract" might concern how space settlements might develop, then another about how one might terraform planets, and still another about how human longevity might be increased through bisexuality. These concepts are promoted through notes that are trotted out in bits and pieces that advance thoughts...but not character or plot, necessarily.

So what IS the plot as it exists in this book? Well, here goes: a key character has died before we get to meet her, and her loss is felt across the solar system - which is in the process of terraforming and investigating the planets - one assumes, toward eventual colonization. All seems to be going according to plan when a terrible thing happens: the destruction of a colony on Mercury, which up until that moment owed its existence to its ability to glide along tracks in order to stay ahead of the sun. Due to a mysterious explosion - which at first seems like a meteor crash - the now stationary city is being inundated by sunlight so strong it has killed everything within its dome with its toxic heat and radiation. An investigation turns up some very interesting evidence about a bizarre plot intent upon destroying an entire way of life. Just WHO has put together such a plot - and what it might mean to the future of exploration - is still to be determined.

Sounds exciting, right? Well, it's not - but that doesn't seem to matter to author Robinson, a well-respected man whose wide-ranging intellect apparently likes to run like a stallion. His fans don't seem to mind, and are used to this. It isn't that I disliked the book...well, I kind of didn't...but my reason is that I wasn't really invested in it. The central woman is totally dislikeable...she is constantly bitchy and grouches about everything, pushing people away from her every time she blows up - which is always. In fact, I cared more for the little personal "cube" computer she had buried in her neck than I did her. (She was even bitchy to it!) Without my caring about her, and given the protracted dry spells Robinson puts us through, I just felt the book was TOO dry and clinical. It was far-reaching and brilliant, but it's like attending a lecture where YOU have to do the reading, and it's page after page of dry, often clinical, material.

It's the first Kim Stanley Robinson book I've read, and very well might be the last. But then again, the future is unpredictable.

No one does hard science fiction harder than Kim Stanley Robinson. He has a tremendous command of science, nature, and the environments throughout the solar system. He has an amazing capacity to imagine future technology, how it might work and how it might be used. He combines all this in a very fertile imagination. People hollowing out asteroids to make natural habitats. A city rolling around Mercury on tracks to stay ahead of the angry sun. The future of 2312 is very stunning.

BUT, there are elements of 2312 that are nettlesome. The main character, Swan, is perfectly reckless, stubborn, and moody. Why, she’s mercurial. And she’s from Mercury! She’s up for anything, a very convenient quality to have in a main character. There are more interesting characters, like an inspector who’s a tiny French woman, but KSR didn’t want us to read too much about them. Up yours, reader, watch Swan go space surfing with an awkward frog man from Saturn.

Plot is probably the book’s biggest problem. 2312, at its core, tries to be a space whodunit featuring the inspector, but KSR veers into tedious interludes whenever the story gains momentum. And the sections that don’t move the story along run into hundreds of pages, they aren’t just asides. There is a whole big section about dropping animals down to Earth from space for some reason, which makes no sense within the context of the plot itself. Swan chases wolves around Canada wearing a wolf skin on her head during this time. The thing about Sirius was cool, though.

We don’t get back to the plot until the last hundred pages or so, but the mystery is just laid out on a plate at the end. There is none of the joy of discovery. One more final irritating thing about the plot: coincidences. KSR leans on these heavily. Some of them are very maddening. Those who have read the book will get this reference: lawn bowler. The ending was straight up stupid, even the frog man seemed to think so.

So, ultimately, we are left with the life and times of a character, Swan, who is difficult to empathize with. She happens to become involved in important things that are going down in the solar system, but mostly by accident, really.

The bottom line is that 2312 is heavy on futurism and light on story.

I've enjoyed previous books by Kim Robinson but this one was a huge disappointment. For some reason he has gone way overboard on vocabulary with a plethora of words I've never heard of (and I'm 71 and an avid reader). There's also long irrelevant gratuitous diatribes on the technicalities of music that only a obsessive professional would read. Then there's the needless and questionable philosophizing scattered throughout that is more irritating than enlightening. I hung in there waiting for the old Kim to return but he never showed up. I deleted it a quarter of the way through.

A rare unfinished effort for me. I made it to page 470 or so and said 'enough'! Still I feel it was sufficient to push out a short review. This was my first 'KSR' book and while I was intrigued at times with some of the 'science', the 'fiction' part made me want to scream at times it was so boring. The 'romance' of Wharam and Swan was utterly unconvincing and lame. At the end I simply did not care who wiped out a city or why. There was a total lack of tension in the plot. KSR is clearly a smart guy but he needs work on story-telling from my first sampling of his work. Might try one more.

It is not often I delete a book. This book was a significant exception. After thee days of trying to get into the story, I gave up. If you like long rambling descriptions it may be a great book. Unfortunaly it tended to put me asleep.

An interesting sequel to Robinson's Mars Trilogy. This book has many of the strengths and weaknesses of the Mars trilogy. Its a creative and ambitious attempt to imagine human expansion into the solar system with terraforming of Mars, Venus, and a variety of moons. Robinson also imagines multiple changes in human society and biology. Based on what is clearly a good deal of research, this is an imaginative and well articulated future history, though assuming quite a bit of super-science technology like quantum computing. Also like the Mars trilogy, there is some excellent descriptive writing of extra-terrestrial scenes. This book also has the defects of the Mars trilogy with somewhat diffuse plot and character development. Like a lot of fine science fiction, this book is worth reading for its intellectual content and has to be judged by these criteria.

First off I read this book on loan from a library - real hard cover book - how quaint! Second I was totally shocked to see the variety of posts from love to hate. After reading several I understand why people hated the book and I cannot disagree with their major complaints - too long for the underlying story and incomplete character development. There are more complaints, however as a KSR fan, I enjoy his works - Antarctica, Mars Trilogy, 2312 and Aurora. IMO this work is a notch below the others, mostly because of the character development aspect. The wonderful part of 2312 is his vision of the solar system and man's attempt to populate everything and then control resources. KSR builds this "world" based on plausible science and then applies the "what if" and interjects contemporary issues. For me I can see the world he creates and describes, I can see the characters living in it and the problems they face. Almost like a travel log of a vacation in the solar system - wouldn't that be fun! Much like the heavy research in Tom Clancy's books, KSR does his research and makes sure the readers know it. And that is where the love / hate relationship centers. If you would enjoy reading a story about the imagined solar system 300 years from now with some characters thrown in to get you around to these worlds, then you will probably find this book stunning and well conceived. However if you are looking for a solid plot line with strong characters then you may be with the one star reviewers. So I would recommend any of the other books to a first time KSR reader, not this one. If you've read the Mars Trilogy, certainly read 2312 to round out the future. FOOTNOTE: I cannot imagine giving a book a one star rating. What objective criteria would someone use beyond just a dislike of the story?

‘2312’ is a fascinating visualization of what our civilization might possibly look like three hundred years from now.

In this book, Kim Stanley Robinson has made the entire solar system his plaything.

Humans are busy terraforming the planets and the moons.

Asteroids are being converted into hollowed-out terrariums which double as spaceships and ecological preserves.

At a genetic level, humans are rewriting their DNA to suit themselves, and in the process diverging into different species...

...and implanted Artificial Intelligence ‘qubes’ are merging with their human hosts to take that biological divergence even further…

Robinson demonstrates his solid ‘hard science-fiction’ street cred when describing fantastic yet plausible technologies we may be able to employ one day when we decide to re-create our solar system in Earth’s image.

But this book is not just about gadgets and new technologies. There are several interesting, riveting, and nuanced storylines interwoven throughout these pages as well, having to do with a complex interplay of personal stories, an extremely long-distance romance, gender identity, terrorism, environmental disasters, and ruthless politics…

A word of warning:

The author interjects a number of brief chapters in between the longer, plot advancing sections of the book in order to provide the reader with context about this speculative future solar system he has created as the backdrop for the story. Some of these sections are straightforward and interesting; others less so, sometimes being annoyingly vague or allusive. You may want to reserve yourself the right to skip some of these.

...and you never know, turning from page to page, what you’ll run into next. For example, on page 127:

...‘Last time I was on a sexliner,this group of bisexuals ran out to the pool, about twenty of them, all with the biggest t*ts and c**ks you ever saw, and all of them with erections, and they got into a circle one behind the the next and…’

Definitely a recommend for the adventurous reader!

This is one long book! I think that more tightly edited, it could shed 100 pages or so and not miss out on the main themes. On the other hand, it was readable (unlike Green and Blue Mars, which I just couldn't get through).

I also don't think that 2312 will be anything like what is projected in this book. Who's going to spend the money to colonize Mars and Venus and all those asteroids? We will spend the money on welfare and warfare.

An OK book, though (spoiler alert!) they don't solve the murder until the end, if ever.

This is my revised review. I finally managed to finish the book and decided that it wasn't even worthy of two stars. I was drawn in by the awards and the blurb, and indeed, the author has outdone himself in imagining a hard sci-fi universe that is both logical and explained. The trouble is that the book is horridly sloooooow. His descriptions and explanations are too much. He wastes pages on "lists" (who made them? what are they for?) and "excerpts" (excerpts of what? and where's the punctuation?). The description of Swan and Wahram circumnavigating Mercury in the tunnels could have been interesting if he'd cut it back from 50 pages down to five or ten. Trust me, nothing happens in the tunnels. Most of this section deals with how the characters themselves deal with their own boredom! Unbelievable. When I wrote the initial review, I was 300 pages into the book but there was no clear story line. Now I'm finished and there never WAS a clear story line. What you have in the end is an implication that "some" of the "qubes" went haywire and caused some damage. No explanation why or how this occurred. And if you choose to read this, be sure to keep your dictionary handy, because the author is madly in love with "ten-cent words." I am a college grad with the equivalent of a doctorate, and I also read a lot of books, and this author uses hundreds of words I have never even heard of. And NO, I'm not embarrassed to say that ... this is a novel, not a dissertation. A novel is supposed to be fun, not a chore. It's sad to see Mr. Robinson take such a great concept and imaginative universe and then make it so horribly, dreadfully BORING! I read Red and Blue Mars, which had much the same problem but not to this degree. All in all, this is one of the worst books I've ever read. I'm through with Kim Stanley Robinson, and I'm also through with buying books that are nominated for sci-fi awards because it seems like I get burned on them every time.

A lot of te othe reviews hit the nail on the head, this was my first KSR book and I really liked the depth of the "hard" sci-fi essay's on world and terria building. KSR hs a great grasp of scientific principals in various fields like geology, metrology, computer, social and enviromental theroy, and on this alone it makes it to a 3 star rating, however the story is never pulling it's own weight and the climax of the book never really gets there, at least for me it didn't. I think that the hermaphrodite social aspects of the book was very well done but took a bit too much center stage, would rather have a hero/heroine that happened to be androgyn than a androgyn that happens to be the hero.
I do not regret buying this book nor spending the time to read it but it never really delivers on the expectations a good deal.

This is an amazing book written with a scale spanning the Solar System. I have read several other KSR books - Mars Trilogy, Years of Rice and Salt, and the series about climate change. This book is his masterpiece. It provides a focussed vision of a possible Solar System civilization that captures the science, technology, economics and politics that could bring about such a future. The book is profoundly hopeful about a place for humanity in a future of thinking machines that can outthink humans, where robots could do all the work, but there is room for men and women. The gender variation is an issue worth exploring and I am glad that KKR devoted so much text to this aspect. At this point the American space program is stuck without a clear vision of the possible in space. In fact, in this novel there is no significant role for the United States in space. Florida is underwater and in the process of being terraformed back into existance. The Dithering captures the current state of the country with no clear idea about where to go in space or agreement how to deal with climate change. The future that is painted in such glorious colors is plausible. The literary allusions throughout the book give it a rare depth for hard science fiction. I strongly recommend the book and would nominate it for the Pulitzer.

First off. I didn't finish this book. I simply couldn't. The story never took off. The settings were alright in the cool factor but the actual plot wasn't quite there. I read 3/4 of the way through the book and nothing really happened. A city got destroyed okay. Cool.

The actual galaxy of 2312 was pretty neat. Asteroid habitats and flooded NY. But even that wasn't enough to pull me in. If this is enough to grab your attention then maybe this is a perfect book for you. Not for me. KSR has a way with words but for me it seemed like the characters never really engaged me.
That being said. I enjoyed KSR's worldbuilding enough to prompt me to purchase Red Mars in his critically acclaimed Mars Trilogy. I'm quite excited for that.

I started losing hope in this book once it became apparent early on that Swan, ostensibly the main protagonist, is not much more than a manic pixie dream girl. In general, the plot is weak as is the characterization. Sadly, the world-building is unimaginative for KSR.

That said, this book shoe-horns a lot of ideas in about terraforming and gender. Which, as a fan of terraforming and genderqueerness... I was also disappointed by. Here again, KSR failed to think far enough.

I honestly don't see the need to write an in depth review of this, skip it. It suffers from a continual dullness and doesn't live up to the KSR's other writing.

Like many others here I have read Kim's Mars trilogy and really enjoyed it but this left me flat. I persevered through the whole book but it took me a while. Many aspects of the story went on for far to long such as Swan and Wahram's trip through Mercury's tunnels as well as Swan's time with the wolves. The plot never really gets going and those lists and extracts slow the story down even more.

One positive was the Hollowed out asteroids, they were a great idea. A hit in a book full of missed opportunity. Could of been an awesome story but he missed the mark.

Finally the characters were never fully developed and a little boring. Swan isn't particularly likeable, at times she sounds like a whiny teenager rather than a 133 year old main character. If you are thinking about reading this book don't bother, buy his Mars trilogy instead.

Many interesting and intriguing hard science ideas - but trapped in an ideological, overly long, and poorly written book.

Somehow, in a era of unlimited and cheap (and nonpolluting!) energy, the very small number of "Spacers" live self-actualizing lives while Evil Capitalism on Earth (with its 11 billion people) is a mess. As KSR opines, the population of earth is held back by outmoded ideas such as laws (!), history, religion, and all the other boogeypersons that enviro-progressives like to blame. 2312 - we've got food insecurity! global warming has caused massive coastal flooding and habitat destruction! housing insecurity! income inequality! But boy, do those Spacers live like the reviled 1%ers :)

Since he can't figure out how to get all the explanatory stuff into the text, he intersperses the chapters with "Lists" and "Extracts" which gets annoying really fast. His "solutions" to Earth's problems are comical at best, and unbelievable and ridiculous. And he gets very close to the "A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy" when he describes as an outcome of the aforementioned ridiculous solution, more animals died than humans - so it really is the humans that are dangerous... Oh yeah, and for some reason the people on earth are suspicious of tinkering with the earth's atmosphere, etc - just because a 100 years before the time of the book there was a little tinkering that lead to a "Small Ice Age" that caused the deaths of about 1 billion people. My oh my, those silly earth-bound humans with their laws and history!

And while he has some very interesting and downright intriguing ideas about the plasticity of gender and sexuality, when his female character is finally allowed to be consummate the relationship - KSR proves once again that many male SF writers simply can't write a good female character once it is sexy-time.

On the other hand, I really liked "The Years of Rice and Salt" - which is why I picked this one up. But the structure of that book was essentially a series of 10 or so short stories that were tightly linked over millenia - and the writing style of each chapter was reflective of the era when it was taking place. Interesting ideas, interesting writing, no obnoxious devices... That one is 5 stars. This book, one star.

One reason I like SF short stories is that it seems that it is easier for a less-talented writer to produce a good read, rather than when they have to sustain it over the long haul. And 2312 is LONG HAUL. I skimmed the last 50 pages, because by that point I had completely lost interest in the characters and the resolution of the plot. It's really too bad, because this could have been an excellent novel in the hands of a competent and less ideological writer!

This was catnip for the engineer in me. Robinson constructs his futures from the science we now know or at least that a logical-minded person can comfortably imagine. From perpetual pilgrimages chasing the sunrise on Mercury, to the terraforming of the moons of Saturn, these realities are extrapolated with a verve for human ingenuity and a desire for utopian landscapes not unlike Eden. There is no 'beaming' across the galaxy, but rather a leisurely cruise within our solar system stuck to the insides of hollowed-out asteroid that has been spun up to your favorite gravity. Stan is not a writer of fantasy or thriller, and some readers may even find him a bit dry, but for me he finds the right balance between action and contemplative refrains. The incredible variety of situations and 'outlandish' (pun intended) environments in his futures get my brain whirring often with a philosophical edge and a lot of attention to the experiential side of the journey.

From the author of the Mars trilogy, as well as many other bestsellers, comes a science fiction novel that pushes the boundaries of the genre through story and character and writing to keep the reader hooked from start until finish. 2312 is a lengthy book that will stay with you long after you have turned and read the final page.

It is the future of the twenty-fourth century where humanity has come a long way and colonized a number of planets in our solar system, as well as their moons. Technology is impressive and inter-planetary travel a common event. In fact, one of the new aesthetic ways to travel is on a moving asteroid that has been colonized and terra-formed, with each of these traveling planetoids representing a unique architectural style. Swan Er Hong is one of these talented designers, but having lost a close person in her life is now adrift, uncertain what to do. But after a series of attacks and catastrophic events, beginning with the great protected city of Terminator on Mercury, she realizes there is something going on here much greater than she can conceive.

Robinson has outdone himself with 2312, blending a story of gripping science fiction, a captivating plot, and unique characters that exist in a future world of acceptance and normalcy to them that seems advanced and developed when compared to our. A delight to read, 2312 will be keeping you up late.

Originally written on November 10, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.

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I'm an ardent fan of Robinson's work. Aurora and Red Mars in particular are in my top 5 favorite books of all time. However, this work was just... bad. The protagonist is an awful person who inexplicably gets a pass from the other characters for her immature, sulky, at times even abusive behavior. The digressions into history, imagined future history, and philosophy break the flow of the book and are tedious. As always, the authors imagination has produced some incredible world-building but it can't save this mediocre book.

I keep underestimating Kim Stanley Robinson. I read The Wild Shore when it came out, and was frankly unimpressed -- partly, I think, because it came in the middle of such an amazing series of "Ace Science Fiction Specials." But Icehenge blew me away, and then I didn't read anything until the Colorful Mars trilogy ... which I thought, well, kind of boring, though certainly an amazing achievement in its own way.

And now there's 2312.

It's a consolidation and updating of all that was being done in SF in the late '60s and early '70s: references and even namechecks include Ballard, Le Guin, Delany, Dick and many others.

But the most obvious influence is Brunner (by way of Dos Passos); Robinson has reified the technique used in the (both) USA trilogy(ies), of interspersing chapters from multiple points of view with pieces that don't exactly fit the main narrative: in this case, "Lists," "Extracts," and "Quantum Walks." (Incidentally, you may be at the last Quantum Walk chapter before you figure out what they actually contribute, which is as good an excuse for rereading as any I can think of. Certainly this book will pay rereading.)

In a future not entirely descended from that of Delany's Triton, the Solar system has been heavily colonized and altered to fit human needs. Several characters -- of whom the foremost, and most personable, is a Mercurial woman named Swan Er Hong -- meet, mix, part, meet again, in a kaleidoscoped collidoscape where the various parts add up to much more than a whole. We are told at times that the "events of 2312" are crucial to the history of the Solar system and of humanity -- well, we get several views of some of those events, but it's clear that much more is going on than we can see, and that the book actually takes place over several years, not just the titular 2312: exactly the kind of meaning-slippage that this book is, in part, about.

What is sentience? What is human?

What rights does a person, a community, a jurisdiction, have as over against those of the whole?

Can Earth be saved? Even terraformed? Should it? And by whom, and how, and what gives them the right, and who can say no?

Hard questions which the book doesn't so much answer as address. Meanings slip and characters evolve, or fail to.

An attack on Mercury's only city -- which results in that city's near-destruction but only a relatively few deaths -- launches Swan into the investigation of things she never knew were happening. The action will bring her to Saturn, to Mars, to Earth, to Venus, and back to Mercury several times, and into and out of contact with a fascinating cast of characters. There are plots that succeed, others that are foiled, and in the end something like justice is done to some of the perpetrators, but the question of what justice is, or should be, remains unanswered, as it should. Slippage.

If you can't tell, this book hit me just right in almost every possible way. It's smart, clever, and engaging all at once, and moving into the bargain. I can't recommend it highly enough.

This may just have the most even distribution of star ratings I've ever seen for a book.

Unfortunately, most of the "most helpful" reviews (who voted them helpful? Have you read it yourself, or is it all of you reviewers just voting for each other in a giant circle j***? (I can just imagine Swan's Pauline lecturing me about rhetoric & fallacy)) may as well begin like so:

"This review is for other retired, worldly physicists such as myself, who've read every published sci-fi since the invention of the genre. Read: jaded."

OR:

"This review is for other physics or philosophy undergrad students such as myself, who think they know everything. Read: like to believe they are jaded."

Honestly, put it back in your pants and allow for the idea that some other readers are not so knowledgeable as yourself, and like to learn while reading (even if it's just a new word or idea here and there). These other readers are (hopefully) aware that they are reading a work of FICTION. It's advised that one does not gain one's entire physics education through such a work, and that one should avoid believing everything one reads. That circumnavigating city on Mercury? Maybe a "childish" idea, but no one is suggesting we actually try to build one. Just think of it as an opportunity to imagine a fun visual, like Howl's Moving Castle. Or like the wonderful imagery in Einstein's Dreams.

If the above sounds like something you like/can handle, you don't mind if story sometimes takes a back seat to pure ideas (kind of like in Neal Stephenson books), you're interested in sci-fi and science/physics/biology, and you know a bit about art, it's likely you'll enjoy this book.

If you're a creative person, you'll probably LOVE the terraforming sections and can empathize with the main character's (Swan's) change of heart about her past work and her attraction to strange activities as a method of exploration of life. After all, that's the avant-garde, isn't it? Who else is going to explore life's possibilities to their fullest, if not artists? Everyone else has already written them off as "useless" or "impractical" or "abnormal".

This is probably not for those of you who are looking for totally-realistic suggestions for space colonization (again, it's science-FICTION, let it be) or who want some Shakespearean human-focused story (although if you understand something about our time and the opportunities that humans have (futurism, transhumanism) and possible drawbacks thereof, as well as the damage we're causing (environmental, social, political, financial), you may find some parts of this story will move you, e.g. "How could they have let this happen? Why didn't they try harder?").

Also, this is specific, but the reviewer who's read sci-fi for over 50 years pointed out that a thorough physical description of the main character was not given until 20% through the book. Personally, I found that interesting. At first I was confused, sure. But, POSSIBLE SPOILER: her personality was full-on put out there from the beginning -- I found her a little annoying, like a teenager, and at first thought she was one. While gradually learning that she's older than anyone alive today, I had to wonder: is this the effect of extreme lifespans and alien lives, and/or her brain augmentations? Might maturity take longer, then? I'd like to give the author credit in thinking this "food for thought" was the intention. /SPOILER.

Speaking of purpose, if you're reading on Kindle and wondering if your book is missing text/paragraphs/pages in the interval chapters/lists, apparently it's supposed to be like that. I wouldn't say it's the author's fault that it's unclear; we just expect formatting issues with digital books.

So for those of you out there wondering whether you should invest time in this book regardless of all the intelligent old farts complaining on the store: if you find yourself in the "can handle this" categories mentioned above, then YES. Try it.

Also, read Daniel Murphy's review (top one) -- it's fair. Based my decision on that and haven't regretted it.

I know nothing about KSR, the author. I saw this book in my library and brought it home once before, but I was intimidated by it's length. The next time I took it out I almost did not begin reading it because somehow I got the impression from the cover that it was going to be a liberal lefty eco story about Africa in the future. I am so glad I persevered and finally cracked the spine. This book is so good that I am amazed to see that there are reviewers who give it less than 5 stars. I would give it 6 or more if I could. There is nothing wrong or disappointing with this book... it is perfect!!!! Great characters, great story arcs, great imagined disasters, great situations... and, through it all,... great science and great future possibilities. KSR must be a genius, or the best researcher and note taker on the planet. I recently read Larry Niven's newest, and I was impressed. But as much as I love it I was not Bowled-over ( pun intended ), then I read David Brin's EXISTENCE, and I thought it was the best new concept story ever written in science fiction... and now I have to say that 2312 is my favorite newest science fiction book ever. There is so much good in this book that a review could never encompass it all. KSR weaves great story-telling with a vivid imagination of brilliant ideas fully described in accurate detail. SWAN, the mainest character, is the Lisbeth Salander of the future, a fully realized wonderful character. There are 3 main characters, a couple more minor ones, and the story follows them through a few years of happenings. Some of the situations that KSR imagines and realizes for us will be with me forever. KSR's description of the two main characters walking through an underground tunnel on Mercury after the city was attacked and destroyed and the sunlight was ravaging the surface is so realistic that I actually experience a panic attack everytime I remember it. Ditto for the description of the same two characters marooned in outer space in only their spacesuits waiting for rescue. The quantum computers alone would be enough to recommend this story, but the wonders go on and on and on...

There was a lot I liked about this science fiction story- the vision of our human. expansion, creativity, fantastic imagination, great use of future Tech. The book reminded me of an all inclusive resort tackling futures of morality, politics, class struggles, evolutions of capitalism, gender, sex and struggles with poverty and food distribution.I wish the plot had been thicker- part mystery and part love story these were themes.

There were parts of the book I just skipped as over the top, musings, bad poetry and over indulgence in word gymnastics. The author needs a better editor .

However the descriptions and beauty and vision of how we evolved in our solar system
Was enough for me to recommend this book and carry m e to its finish.

It is not a 'perfect' book, but the 'good' far outweighs the not so good. Good: The author covers a LOT of current science (and did it in a novel way - the 'cube'), in many disciplines. In fact I was content with only 'human-environment' conflict, so when he introduced human-human conflict (especially the romance), I initially thought it was over-kill, or gratuitous - and it did get off to a slow start - but it picked-up and became interesting, other than the love scenes, which he describes like... a scientist! (so those scenes will not get your romantic blood stirring). THEN he introduced a sleuthing story thread, which was actually very good, gratuitous though it may have been, and which offered a vehicle to delve into more current science, and offered one more aspect that kept the reader engaged (though I listened to the audiobook, which made the slow parts more bearable - as listening allows for multitasking, unlike reading). I'm sure it won the Hugo for its breadth in current science, and for managing to weave-in in human interest, romance, action, and mystery story threads - a good template for any sci-fi novel.

Fluid and detailed ideas, technology, and places drive 2312, with a unique character in Swan at the center of it all. It's immersive, imaginative, and a cool place to visit, which to me is good sci-fi. Admittedly, the plot or narrative is simple and hung on what's really the star of the book - the future worlds built by KSR.

From the Title, Hoped for Better- but the long rambling paragraphs do little to progress the plot. So you keep reading to see where it goes. The author throws in a quirk (like a she who is a he/she) that isn't relevant at the time. Why? The plot line of brain enhancements isn't completed well and it is an ongoing discussion that leaves you looking for a more complete description of the how's and why's. Character development is also lacking and leaves you wanting for a better theme to each, if you will. It isn't lacking for words- just ones that further the story. Too much rambling at times. I did like the descriptions of asteroid development. That was a fun idea. At times it was enjoyable reading, but those times were too few and I was disappointed in the overall book. Read if you must. But I would say save your reading time for all of the other thousands of books out there waiting.....

It pains me to write this review as I am a fan of KSR and think the Mars trilogy is among the top 100 science fiction novels written. Unfortunately I gave up on 2312 after 200 pages or so. I gradually moved from rooting for the book to get better and forgiving its accumulating shortcomings, to resenting the author for expecting me to put up with his lazy writing. Though the book has some imagery, ideas and moments worthy of Robinson, mostly its just very boring. Even the future / world building is not very rigorous. This is one that the author should have been put up a shelf and revisited a few year's later. Interesting minor side note, I have never seen such an even split among the customer star ratings of anything on the store.

The visuals in this book are insane. That being the case, the characters were left on the back burner. The author touched on various cultural trends that we could see in our solar system 300 years from now.

I liked how he talked about how AIs would gradually evolve from Quantum Computers not in some large action packed all of a sudden way as portrayed in most science fiction stories about AIs. They would evolve over time and implement themselves into society maybe without us even knowing about it.

A part of the book I liked was when the Inspector explained that no, banishing these AI/Humanoids from the Solar System does not guarantee that they will be gone forever. They could create their own society somewhere on some planet that they find and create a whole different race of humans. They could come back, but by then, society would find a way to deal with the problem.

Question about Climate Change and Terraforming: If we already destroyed environments on Earth and terraforming could save it, why not do it? He never really gave a good explanation as to why people were against the terraforming on Earth. If it was working on all the other planets and we had that type of technology to create a better and more stable environment for ourselves. I think we would do it. A liberal who wanted to push his views onto others. Even if the description of what happened to Earth as a result of Climate Change was a little silly. I would think a species with technology to build planets would save their own first. Just saying...

The books starts off really slowly and it takes at least 100 pages to figure out what the story would actually be about! Overall, the book raises some very interesting questions, but it could have been done a bit better. It didn't need nearly 600 pages to tell this little story.

I want to give KSR a 4-5 star rating because as an author he's very much deserves this on merit alone. But I cant, this book has a fabulous idea to build on, but KSR does not build the story he is capable of this time. I found myself flipping through pages of descriptions of things and places which get a little boring. There is not enough development around characters and central plot, which leaves you thinking throughout the book, "what just happened and to who?" The good is that its a Kim Stanley novel and there are definitely moments you enjoy this book, the bad is the laborious descriptions of things and the ugly is that the characters arent given enough goodness. (2.5 stars)

The setting was really fascinating and well explored, especially the little vignettes between chapters exploring various concepts or technologies. Robinson's plotted out a whole future history for this world leading up to the year 2312 and it all feels very believable. Lots of cool ideas, both technological and cultural are presented. Overall that's what kept me hooked. However, this was in spite of the characters, who were poorly done overall. Every section of narrative dealing with their thoughts, concerns, or feelings on stuff were a total slog; every section where they were reacting to things or experiencing something amazing, like the various spaceships/spacestations they fly around in, were super interesting.

I often felt that the author spent too much energy for over-the-top "world development". And that, to the detriment of the storyline. Moreover, what could have been written as 400 pages book has been stretched into 640 pages. But nonetheless, a lot of ideas in this book tickled my imagination such as the asteroids turned into spaceship/terraria. And the author gives an excellent scientific theory (in chapter titled: "Pluto, Charon, Nix and Hydra") on the impossibility of the so-called voyage to other galaxies far far away, via light-year travel.

Just when I think I have a clue what is going on in this mind-numbing, emotionless void of a book, KSR uses the words exergasia, synathroesmus and incrementum in the same sentence. Golly gee, he sure does know how to churn out big words. Taxonomy. Psuedoiterative. Gynandromorph. Very nice. If I was smarter and didn't feel like I was reading the label on package of hot dogs, I might have finished the book. The characters are as stiff and lifeless as the insufferable dialogue. On page 31 Swan, a character of some sort in the book, describes another character in the book as "slow, rude, autistic and boring." An apt description of the book itself.

Years ago I used to consume science fiction in great quantities, but somehow I moved onto other kinds of novels. Then Rav Hisda's Daughter, Book I: Apprentice: A Novel of Love, the Talmud, and Sorcery was selected by Library Journal as Best Historical Fiction for 2012 and while on their website, I saw that Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312" was chosen best Science Fiction. I waited 3 months for my name to get to the top of my library's hold list, and the wait was worth it.

This book is wonderfully creative and superbly crafted, with a tight plot that is not merely science fiction but political thriller, murder mystery, social commentary, and romance all in one story. Robinson takes us into a future world without any information dump, letting us learn about it as his characters experience it. His science is so plausible that I never had to suspend disbelieve, no matter how fantastic the various worlds and inhabitants become. All the various and varied threads come together to form a whole at the finale, with a happy and satisfying ending. And did I mention some very creative sex scenes?

As an author who must bring my readers into ancient worlds almost as bizarre as Robinson's future ones, I learned so much from his writing. For those who like hard science fiction [no fantasy elements], I highly recommend this novel. The author presents such a creative future that I'm filled with admiration and envy for his writing talents

The whole thing is very big. Big movements with big characters and big ideas. And big words. I learned many new things. I tried to put this down at several points because the story got bogged down in some dubious philosophical self gratification. But it kept promising something awesome. Didn't quite have the awesome bang I anticipated, but I credit the author with handling her choices very well. She didn't let anything get too far out of hand. She didn't play sour notes repeatedly and try to convince us it was a far out jazz riff.

I should know better than to buy a book solely on the reviews on the cover. I was killing time at the book store and sadly did exactly that.
Robinson is better than this book. I think. I actually stopped reading after 340+ pages. That may be the 5th time I've done that in my life. I'm 62. It was slow moving, with no compelling plot twists in the pages I read. Imagine 30 pages (or so) about two humanoids walking down a corridor under the baked crust of Mercury discussing what tune they'd whistle next. For 30 pages (or so).
And every other chapter has a "list" of stuff that seems to be totally random . . . no connection to the story. Nice filler, Kim!
Other reviewers have recounted the plot and characters. I'm just here to advise you not to waste your time with this one. And I love science fiction and fantasy.

Without giving the plot away, there were some very interesting concepts about what life in the first two hundred years of planetary colonization might be like, both technically, socially, and politically.
However, it really dragged in places and could have easily been about 100 pages shorter. I liked the writing but the characters of Swan and Wahram seemed artificial and an experiment in literary archetypes rather than people that might exist in 300 years.

The plot is weak... a terrorism act triggers an investigation. After running around the solar system, they found out the evil one behind all this without much of a twist. Everyone lived happily ever after.
The novelty of the future tech/ hardcore sci-fi wears off rather quickly. After that, the book is nearly intolerable. At least a chapter or two has no bearing on the plot at all. What a disappointment.

Being a tremendous fan of KSR's Mars trilogy, I had high-hopes that 2312 would be equally exciting. Sadly, 2312 misses the mark by an extra-ordinary distance, and I was so disappointed. At best I have to give the book a "mediocre" grade. There certainly are a number of interesting ideas and concepts sprinkled in, but the novel as a whole does little justice to the better concepts. Character development didn't enter into the novel. That is not to say that there is no description of the characters, but they end up being fairly shallow at best. In between chapters there are 1 or 2 page Lists and Extracts that serve to put some degree of context to the 2312 situation, but they tend to fail in general. Much of the novel is nothing but filler conversation between a couple of characters that lends very, very little to the story. As far as "plot" goes, there isn't a lot of it. The main theme is about (beware of plot revelation) computers becoming sentient, and some sentient computers being installed into robots (androids). Not killer ideas on their own, given that these have been done exceptionally well by many authors in the past, such as Asimov over 50 years ago. That seems to be pretty much the plot. There is a backdrop of multi-cultural and sexual differentiation, but not all that interesting. Take out all of the filler dialogue and you have left maybe the makings of a novella if the plot were worked better and the story-line made to actually move, rather than plod along. Being a science fiction fan for more decades than I wish to reveal, this novel doesn't measure up. It is definitely not worth the expenditure to purchase a hard cover volume. Look for a used paperback version. I give it 2 stars. A 1 1/2 is more appropriate, but that rating is not available.

After loving the Mars trilogy this was so incredibly disappointing. I struggled to finish the book and felt that Kim was obsessed with exploring gender identity more than anything else. All the grandeur of the Mars trilogy was gone. This is a small, fringe, boring book.

This novel is more like a notebook of ideas for future technologies and terraforming, with a small story that almost seems to be an afterthought. The actual story parts were interesting, but that's only about 1/4 of the book, and the characters aren't that interesting. I'm half way through and I can't stand it anymore. I don't need to read 50 pages about how asteroids are terraformed and how global warming destroyed the Earth and what the surface of a moon of Saturn looks like. This could be a really great 200 page story of "spacers" trying to solve a mysterious attack, but instead it's a 600 page snoozefest filled with technical jargon.

For a hard SF book the technology was relatively easy to follow. Mixed bag. Very audacious book. The plot skips all over the solar system but is at it's best when it is on the protagonist's home planet of Mercury and on a ecologically collapsed Earth. The story itself serves mainly as a device to explain various technological advance in society 300 years from now. Not an epic but interesting none the less.

I picked this book for some business trip entertainment, unfortunately it turned out that work was much more enjoyable than this book.

I only lasted 150 pages before leaving leaving it on the plane for some unfortunate soul to pick up.

There writing was bland, characters weren't compelling and after 150 pages I still was unclear on any semblance of a plot. While some of the planetary concepts were interesting they couldn't overcome complete lack of interesting storyline or characters

Quite simply: the plot is tragically underdeveloped when it could have been compelling; the characters (particularly the protagonist Swan) behave in entitled, solipsistic, and frankly bewildering ways; and so much of the plot that desperately needed explanation was absolutely ignored.

When Swan's home city is destroyed, a small team of highly private citizens undertake an investigation. Everyone else in the solar system, including those rebuilding the city, apparently don't care to look into the matter.

When Swan is distressed by conditions on earth (which are considerably better than they are in the present day in many ways), she decides, "hey! I'll start a revolution!" No matter that she has never actually lived there- her simplistic solutions requiring untold amounts of capital will save the day, true colonial style!

Also: Maybe/maybe not quantum computers have become sentient and even evil. Who knows, because no characters in this novel apparently care enough to figure it out.

Everything in this novel has a painfully simplistic answer that avoids all of the interesting questions that could have been raised.

Single case in point: quite literally (and I use the word with full awareness of its meaning) everything wrong with the worlds and humanity in general in this book are chalked up to one cause: Balkanization. Mysterious prison breaks? Balkanization. Tech failures? Balkanization. Terraforming problems? Balkanization. Man's inhumanity to man? Balkanization.

Robinson, I don't think this word means as much as you think it means.

On the up side, the descriptions of terraforming the insides of asteroids are terrific.

Post script: I fully endorse this review http://www.the store.com/gp/aw/review/0316098124/RC6OPRVJPB7D7/ref=mw_dp_cr?cursor=3&sort=rd

Oh Gawd! This is not a good book. And I'm clearly not alone to think so, as there are so many unflattering reviews of it. For starters, there is no story. The first thing of note that happens is on page 147. Then we're treated to agonizingly boring march along a tunnel that ends on page 206 only. I switched to fast reading and persevered, but it didn't get any more interesting. Eventually I got to page 482 (out of 657) and decided to give up.

The author presents visions of the Solar System, fully colonized by humans from Mercury to Pluto, the visions being as trite as they are wrong. Nobody in their sane mind will build "a city" on Mercury, moving on rails to stay on the dark side of the planet all the time. This, incidentally, reminds me of "Absolution Gap" by Alastair Reynolds. Robinson's vision of asteroids with their insides scooped up to form rotating habitats, reminds me of "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke.

But, you see, this is all there is to it: visions. As the story's heroine, Swan, hops around the whole solar system (who pays for it?), there is little meaning to her hopping, other than gluing the visions together.

The book is permeated with mundane and tedious enviro-preaching, outlining a catastrophic picture of overheated Earth--a yet another nonsense--and animals, preserved in the Rama-like habitats, being returned to the Canadian Taiga in soap bubbles falling from the sky. The author wrote a half of this book, easily, while on drugs. This much is clear.

I love good SF. But more than anything else, I love a good, tight story, well written, well constructed, displaying true mastery of language, not a word too many, not a word too few. Here though you drown in drivel. Three quarters of the book is unnecessary. Why then should you pay for it?

Very usual story telling style, and very good story line. I got attached to the strange characters in this book and had to keep close attention as I read to keep up with the unstated but closely "alluded to" motivations and cultural standards. This is a great Sci-Fi story and this unusual writing style really enhances the impact to the reader.

Thoroughly unlikable main characters all throughout the novel for me except, ironically, Swan's implanted AI qube.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy was engaging, with accessible characters with accessible relationships and presented the joys/problems associated with terraforming and artificial longevity in a smart, interesting manner.

Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 projection forward just falls flat. The physics and economics of the Mars Trilogy is missing.

Swan is some tedious cranky centenarian+ inter-sexed female world-builder artist (who has given birth to a child that she never sees any more) with a micro-penis.

(Swan "double-docks" with her romantic interest Wahrum...Who is an inter-sexed male with, what I presume has a average penis and a micro-vagina.)

The quick hopping back and forth between Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Saturn is never explained in a satisfactory manner.

And ultimately...Tossing out the qube androids along with the human programmer and the political conspirators in some hollowed-out asteroid made no sense. Qube collective AI are pretty much obviously ensconced in the collective network by then.

I really wanted to like this book. I loved the Mars books, liked the Signs of Rain books, and thought Years of Rice and Salt was good. This book started to bore me, and I found myself disliking the main character. I couldn't finish it. I don't like giving this a 3 star rating because 3 stars is what I rate mediocre writing and KSR is mostly definitely not a mediocre writer. However, this just isn't a 4 no matter how I look at it. Maybe a 3.5?

Publishers Weekly labelled 2312 a `A challenging, compelling masterpiece'. While I think `masterpiece' may be pre-empting its on-going cultural and historical relevance, 2312 is both challenging and compelling.

As the title suggests the novel is set 300 years from the future of its publication date. With 2312 Robinson gives us what many "hard science" science fiction fans consider to be "real" science fiction - an idea or ideas explained, a future imagining to be marvelled at for its vision, its sense of hope and its scientific plausibility.

Historically, character and plot in this kind of work tended to be secondary, a feature which wouldn't float with today's audience who have come to expect more involved plots and well rounded characters.

Thankfully, Robinson gives us a little of everything; epic ideas(the future setting and cultures of our solar system), compelling characters and an intriguing mystery.

The Story
----------
The nature of 2312 makes it difficult to sum up adequately in one or two enticing paragraphs. Sketching the narrative for the reader will not give you a true glimpse of what Robinson has provided, for 2312 is as much about humanity and future history as it is about the central protagonist Swan Er Hong.

Swan is a long lived spacer of altered gender - by 2012 our concept of binary sex and gender has blossomed into a myriad of wonderful possibilities. Once a designer of Terrarium's (a cross between a transport, culture capsule and bio-ark) she has settled on Mercury as a artist, with her mentor Alex.

Swan resides in the city of Terminator which is chased by the sunrise and pushed along on rails that swell and expand with the Sun's rays. Alex's death is the first event in what grows to become solar system changing crisis - a mystery that Swan and former colleagues of her mentor must unravel before catastrophe strikes.

The Grand Tour
-----------------
And so what proceeds is somewhat of a tour of the solar system as Swan and the others dig into this mystery. From a failed Earth, with its flooded shorelines and billions of poor, to surfing in the rings of Saturn.

I was reminded very early on of a children's book called, The First Travel Guide to the Moon, in which the author outlines what the reader will be able to do when the moon is colonised.

2312 manages to evoke a similar sense of wonder, albeit for an adult palate. The narrative is engaging and you come to love and be concerned for Swan and her friends. The mystery encourages the reader to postulate solutions themselves, to guess the perpetrator before the reveal.

All the while, however, Robison lays out the future for us to see and to be inspired by. He does this through the narrative, by revealing aspects of characters, their histories and their work and by presenting Dos Passos-like [1] extracts and lists from unidentified sources, that act to further inform the reader of the "world" of 2312. Indeed sometimes they read like snippets of data culled from the radio waves but the collage works to build a sense of a wider "world" outside of the narrative.

A fine wine
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This is the first Robinson that I have read and other commentators have remarked that this is Robinson doing what he does best. I liked it and I felt pulled along by both the story and the setting at different times.

It's not a book that will set your heart racing, though the narrative holds its own. It is however, the sort of book that should fire synapses in your imagination.

Enjoy this like a quality wine- enjoy the look, feel and taste of 2312 .

This book was provided to me by the publisher at no cost.

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[1]I am indebted to academic Gary K Wolfe for this term, which describes the interleaving of chapters of narrative, with fictional histories, extracts, artefacts, newspaper stories that act to generate a sense of a greater world separate but enclosing the narrative. Brandon Sanderson used this to good effect in Alloy of Law.

I bought this novel in a small book store in Cape May, NJ, never having heard of either the title or the author. But I was there on vacation, and the purchase of a few vacation novels was an essential part of the trip; I scanned the shelves with the utmost care. The reviews on the back cover of 2312 were encouraging, so I ponied up my ten bucks and walked away feeling pretty confident. Well, that was just over a year ago, and in that time I've read this novel 4 times. It has become one of my favorite novels, ever. And I must say, I am utterly baffled by the reviewers who give it anything less than 4 stars.

I will say that 2312 is not a novel for everyone. It is structured along the lines of John Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar," a 1970s science fiction novel written in a curious, nonlinear, multi-path sort of style. But here, as there, this approach works beautifully, painting a richer, deeper, and more engaging picture of the world in which this story takes place. Now, about that world... Nearly every sic-fi story risks making predictions that can be wildly wrong, and we, the readers, really have no way to know. But this author's predictions ring true, and in terms of technology, medicine, culture, art, and the overall human experience, they seem dead on. I believe this world entirely.

Best of all in this book are the characters. The two at the center of the story, Swan and Warham, are among the most interesting, richly drawn characters I've ever encountered in fiction. Swan in particular does so many things wrong, makes so many poor choices, indulges all the wrong impulses, yet you love her by page 50. Just delightful.

I rarely post comments here at the store, but when I saw that 2312 had rated only 3 stars, I felt I had to jump in and tip the balance a bit. Should you believe me? Or believe the harsher critics? I cannot say. Literature is like food, and we like what we like. But I am a pretty tough critic of fiction, and I've been reading sci-fi for nearly 50 years. I absolutely loved 2312.

Non spoiler review: I GOT THIS BOOK FOR FREE, I PAID TOO MUCH.

I should mention I read an ARC version, I doubt the final edition could be any more readable.

Spoilers ahead.

I glanced at some of the other reviews just so I don't duplicate too much.

All the bad stuff about plot, character, etc. Just add my vote.

But some folks felt those flaws countered by some of the "big ideas" used in the book.

One example was the fact that the main character was somewhat post human, ie change gender, brain, and body details by choice. This was countered by the fact that I wanted the main character to die before the end of the first chapter. I admit that the character made somewhat more sense when it was revealed that she was the 2300's equivalent of a junky drop-out rather than a massively spoiled brat, but it made her no more likable. The fact that she was supposed to be part of the folks going up against a secret deadly plot, was laughable. She wouldn't be a match for irate cub scouts.

What some folks held up as a positive was the idea of asteroid ships/colonies/habitats. The idea was pretty much filled out in the 1970s after Gerard O'Neill did his studies on space habitats. Not too many authors use them as a setting, not sure why. Even ones who do (Larry Niven comes to mind) generally just have characters pass through. But in this case what bothered me were some of the "facts" stated in the book:

The book indicated that they were running out of asteroids (and such) to use for habitats. Last studies I saw for using the asteroids for habitats (along with elements from other off-Earth sources) was 300 times the Earth's surface area. The book makes it clear that they don't even have as much as one Earth surface of living area.

I could go on, on so many of the books problems, but why waste any more of my time.

Oh, one positive of sorts, I saw a word used in a way I hadn't before which was somewhat thought provoking. The word was "hawala" in reference to a space elevator. It made me wonder if the Burj Dubai and other big projects were western style financed or more of a non-usury hawala type thing. Pretty thick book to only have one "good" paragraph.

Any novel, including science-fiction, has to have characters who bear some semblance to reality, even when they are wildly strange. (Think of Ursula LeGuin.). And a plot that hangs together. This has neither. I bought it because it won the Nebula Award and was nominated for the Hugo. Must've been a very, very weak year for science-fiction.

This book is not the authors best work. I loved his red mars series and have actually read and reread them several times. 2312 was not on the same level. It failed to develop characters, and the story lacked depth or development. It was attempting to be a hybrid of mystery and sci-fi and failed to do either genre justice.

Sorry to be a party pooper but for me this book was all about the science and little about the story. We get endless lists (why?) that pepper the beginning of chapters and lots of future science facts that have little to do with the plot. I tried to persevere by ignoring these potted knowledge pieces so as to get into the story itself but it did no good. 17% into the read I had enough. I am sure there are fans who love this kind of Science faction (I use the word advisedly) but for me it did not punch ‘my reading as an escape’ buttons.

Another great, optimistic peak of what could be possible for a society that survives the technological bottleneck. A good companion to the Trilogy and New York, with similar themes and moral lessons. All KSR fans are certain to enjoy.

This is a very mediocre book with a very weak story line. The characters are difficult to care about and their adventures are meaningless. The author tried very hard to incorporate some weird ideas about sex, whistling, and Marina Abramović into the story and they were basically superfluous drivel. I liked the author's Mars trilogy, but not this book.

This is hard SF. The world Robinson creates here leads plausibly to the characters in the novel. The characters are often understated, but they are believable. In many ways their actions reflect what their world is.
There is enough depth to the major characters, particularly Swan Er Hong, to make them people I actually care about (inside the book). Besides, anyone who can whistle essentially the entire Beethoven corpus from memory is well worth getting acquainted with.
If you have enjoyed other books by Robinson you owe it to yourself to read this one. If, like me, you grew up with hard science fiction, please bump my rating up to five stars.

If you liked the Mars trilogy, you'll like this. Read Daniel's review, as it pretty much sums up my thoughts as well, and I also commented on it. http://www.the store.com/gp/review/R1FVFS6VMSSK2L/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0316098116#R1FVFS6VMSSK2L

Kim Stanley Robinson gets uber chops for having good science in his novels. His description of terraforming, hollowed out asteroids, zero gravity and orbital mechanics are all good. On the down-side, I was not at all gripped by the story. The story moves along at a glacial pace and there are large chunks which do not appear to advance the plot, I found it difficult to emphasize with the character.

In summary, if you like action filled, space operas, Kim Stanley Robinson is probably not the author you want to be reading. If you enjoy somewhat ponderous novels with excellent science, you should put this one on your list.

This review was originally published in Against the Current magazine here [...]

REVIEWING A SCIENCE fiction novel in a political magazine requires some explanation, but the case of the Nebula Award-winning 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson writes itself. Robinson is a noted socialist science fiction writer, part of a list of contemporary greats including Ken MacLeod, China Mieville and the recently-passed Iain Banks. Furthermore, his previous works, including the celebrated Red Mars trilogy, have all dealt with political issues from social and political revolutions to ecology.

Finally, 2312 concerns the state of a world three hundred years from now in which a twisted version of the dream “another world is possible” has come to pass, where nothing stops the daily grind of class oppression and ecological devastation but the sheer ruin of the Earth itself.

The world built by Robinson throughout the book is closer to a portrait of our own situation than a runaway utopian speculation. Neither utopian nor dystopian, the world of 2312 is one in which the capitalist system limps along on Earth, bolstered by trade with the solar system-wide “Mondragon.”

The economic model of the space settlements developed in part from their origins as scientific stations. In this early model, life in space was not a market economy; once you were in space, your housing and food were provided in an allotment system, as in Antarctic scientific stations. What markets existed tended to be private unregulated individual enterprises in nonessential goods. Capitalism was in effect relegated to the margin, and the necessities of life were a shared commons…one of the most influential forms of economic change had ancient origins in Mondragon, Euskadi, a small Basque town that ran an economic system of nested co-ops organized for mutual support. A growing network of space settlements used Mondragon as a model for adapting beyond their scientific station origins to a larger economic system. (124-25)

In the Mondra­gon humanity is able to flourish, developing scientific knowledge and human creativity. Genetic modifications allow for more fluid sexual expressions; indeed the main characters both possess male and female sex organs.

On Earth however, a different geopolitical reality reigns supreme:

"And there were still powerful nation-states that were also corporate conglomerates, the two overlapping in Keynesian disarray, with the residual but powerful capitalist system ruling much of the planet and containing within it its own residual feudalism, there to fight forever against the serfs, meaning also against the horizontalized economy emerging within the Mondragon. No, Earth was a mess, a sad place. And yet still the center of the story. It had to be dealt with…or nothing done in space was real." (90)

In effect, the world that Robinson constructs is based on the realities of our current global impasse: the old adage “the old is dying but the new cannot be born” writ across the entire solar system.

While those who are privileged enough to be born (or emigrate) in space settlements are free to pursue their creative impulses and labor under common projects, the masses on Earth remain subject to the same old class system that has been victimizing humanity for centuries.

Against the techno-utopian prognostications of thinkers like Ray Kurzweil who peddle century-old arguments about inevitable social progress brought on by technological development, Robinson paints a picture of an Earth riddled with class oppression even in the bright future of space settlements and terraformed planets:

"Wizened by sun, broiled a bit, sure — but it was more than that. Someone had to run the harvesters in the rice and sugarcane fields, check the irrigation canals or robots, install things, fix things. Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked, generation after generation; give them three thousand calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike." (307)

Liberation from Outside?

The main thrust of the story involves a cadre of individuals spread across the solar system who are intent on changing the political reality on Earth by directly intervening to transform its climate. Over the course of the novel much is made of their character development through the emergence of a political consciousness of Earth’s situation:

"No matter what [the spacers] did it seemed that the misery of the forgotten ones would keep pulling civilization down, like an anchor they had tied around their own neck. Terran [Earth] elites would stay on top of an artificial Great Chain of Being until it snapped and everyone fell into the void. A pathetic Gotterdammerung, stupid and banal, and yet still horrible." (378)

A weakness of the novel is the way in which resistance by Earth dwellers is left to oblique references by characters in space, or at best historical overviews given in the breaks between chapters. Nevertheless, the “spacers” remain committed to helping spark more resistance to the hated class order on Earth, and remain politically mature enough to understand that they cannot simply impose an egalitarian order at the barrel of a gun.

Indeed, after a frustrating conversation with an A.I. (artificially intelligent computer), Swan asks it point blank for a mechanical recipe for “successful revolution.” The response:

"Take large masses of injustice, resentment, and frustration. Put them in a weak or failing hegemon. Stir in misery for a generation or two, until the heat rises. Throw in destabilizing circumstances to taste. A tiny pinch of event to catalyze the whole. Once the main goal of the revolution is achieved, cool instantly to institutionalize the new order." (334)

Throughout the book democratic deliberations of various bodies, both clandestine and official, form the backdrop for much of the drama. In this Robinson manages to capture the real power of actually existing democratic practice without waxing utopian or paving over the sad truth that democracy does not guarantee good results.

The crux of the problem for the “spacers” in their attempt to jump start revolution by intervening in Earth’s biosphere is the main source of debate throughout the novel: “They had immensely powerful terraforming techniques off-planet, but here they usually couldn’t be applied. No slamming comets into it, for instance.” (90)

The geography of an Earth transformed by climate change has been discussed ad infinitum by scientists and activists around the world, but placing this geography in the context of a narrative allows for a greater emotional appreciation of this knowledge. 2312 accomplishes this magnificently, particularly when “spacers” visit Earth with its non-regulated atmosphere and harsh gravity.

Our own political period is alluded to only briefly. Known as “the Dithering,” spanning roughly 2005 to 2060, it is simply described as “the wasted years.” The generations of the Dithering are only recalled with contempt by the denizens of Earth in 2312:

"The eleven-meter rise in sea level on Earth had been accommodated all around the world by intensive building on higher ground, but the costs in human suffering had been huge, and no one wanted to have to do it again. People were sick of the sea level rise. How they despised the generations of the Dithering, who had heedlessly pushed the climate into a change with an unstoppable momentum to it, continuing not only into the present but for centuries more to come, as methane clathrate releases and permafrost melting began to outgas the third great wave of greenhouse gases, possibly the largest of them all." (316)

Avoiding the pitfalls of climatic “disaster porn” like the blockbuster film “The Day After Tomorrow,” Robinson paints a picture of ordinary life persisting after disastrous climatic upheaval. In his description of New York City, “A few parts of Manhattan’s ground still stood above the water, but most of it was drowned, the old streets now canals, the city an elongated Venice, a skyscraper Venice, a super Venice — which was a beautiful thing to be.” (92)

Escape to Mars?

Indeed, the origin of humanity’s great leap into space settlements is given as a consequence of the very failure to transform the social order in time to stave off ecological disaster:

"The space project accelerated as it was becoming clear that the Earth was in for a terrible time because of the climate change and general despoliation of the biosphere. Going into space looked like an attempt to escape all that, and there was enough truth in this that defenders of the space project always had to emphasize its humanitarian and environmental value, the ways in which the resources available in the solar system might help Earth limp through its stupendous overshoot." (368)

Of course, the great migration of humanity to space is not without its detractors in the political complexities of Robinson’s work. Jean Genette, a kind of stock character (an inspector straight out of a procedural law enforcement show), notes that “There are more than five hundred organizations on Earth that have expressed opposition to the idea of humans in space…They usually point out that Earth’s problems remain unsolved, and assert that spacers are trying to escape these problems and leave them behind. Often the bodily modifications in spacers are cited as evidence of the beginnings of forced speciation.” (232)

Hope is given by way of reference to the situation on Mars. Mars is the only fully terraformed planetary body in the book (soon to be followed by Venus and the moon Titan) and has gone through a revolutionary tumult. “(W)ith the success of the Martian revolution and the emergence of its single planetwide social-democratic system, the gates were opened for the rest of the solar system to follow. Many space settlements remained colonies of Terran [Earth] nations and combines, however, so the ultimate result was a patchwork of systems somewhat resembling anarchy.” (127)

There are no easy fixes in the realism engineered by Robinson’s novel, however. The success of one revolution does not automatically mean the dominos are set to fall for the rest.

What grounds this work of science fiction and makes it a worthy read for any activist, but particularly for socialists, is its attention to the untidy realities of everyday social systems. There are no complete democratic utopias nor despotic dystopias populating Robinson’s solar system, but rather the complicated mix of various trends and processes making up an entirely believable world. This is explicitly discussed in one of the chapter breaks:

"(I)n residual-emergent models, any given economic system or historical moment is an unstable mix of past and future systems. Capitalism therefore was the combination or battleground of its residual element, feudalism, and its emergent element…" (126)

Robinson’s compelling and too-believable future is also a portrait of our present, in which the development for part of the population in the capitalist core outpaces much of the rest, concerning particularly the “digital divide” but also a whole other range of issues from access to decent healthcare to education. This is a work of science fiction that no good activist can afford to miss.

November/December 2013, ATC 167

This is the first book by Kim I have read so I can't comment on how this compares to his more famous works. This one had some interesting constructs about future of environment, life of spacers versus earthlings but it felt like it could have been tighter and I'm not sure I really went for the use of various literary forms (lists, different viewpoint styles, etc) that seemed almost like they were there just because they were interesting for the author to explore.

There are a lot of detailed and raving reviews out there about 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson and I can appreciate them intellectually, but for me the "writing magic" that makes a book more than a collection of words without special meaning beyond the dictionary one, mostly lacks here.

I wouldn't call the novel disappointing as I did not expect that much from it considering my past experience with the author's style, but I wish the author would write better prose as the book is full of interesting ideas. That however is not enough as the novel is utterly lifeless and it reads like a play on an empty stage where characters rush along and try to engage the spectators in an imagination game: see, now I am traveling to Earth, now I am on Mercury, now we are in a spaceship, while a constant flow of information rolls in the background. In other words 2312 reminded me strongly of the TV play adaptions where characters talk and talk and describe action happening to them, though we actually have to imagine it, rather then see it. That's fine if the actors are great, but here as mentioned we have just a string of words..

So overall, 2312 has no "external reality" and the main characters read like paper constructs than actual living human beings and the book is most liekly the last I will ever attempt from the author as if one of the most interesting subjects possible for me (solar system space opera) and the book reads lifeless, there is no point in wasting time again.

Note: This mini-review has been originally published on Fantasy Book Critic and all links and references are to be found there

One of the finest pieces of science fiction in the past decade. Kim Stanley Robinson builds fascinating and complex characters and devotes much time to imagining what a solar system wide political economy might be like in a few centuries. Spectacular novel.

I love Kim Stanley Robinson's books. Ever since I finished Antartica and the Mars series for the 3rd time I have hoped he would come out with a new major work. This is it. Detailed and speculative in ways that may make some uncomfortable. Robinson's books make you think. This one is no exception.

One of my two favorite writers in hard science fiction. His background with living in dangerous environments on earth gives special zing to his work. He obviously does thorough research, which, along with creative and complex plot-lines, unique characters and top-notch writing, make every one of his books a great read. 2312 is no exception.

This book has amazing ideas. The descriptions of space and the possibilities of human expansion throughout are imaginative and well formed. With all of the good, the story leaves much to be desired, as the promise of this novel is never fully achieved. All of the elements of this book could have lead to a better or more dramatic or more satisfying ending but it never that doesn't happen.

Robinson seems to have wanted to describe a futuristic landscape and threw a plot in at the last minute as an afterthought. The descriptions were good but a bit over the top. I would recommend getting the kindle version so you can use the built in dictionary. At times it felt like he wrote this book with a thesaurus by his sides and inserted unnecessarily exotic words.
What I can't forgive is the plot though. It meanders at best. And at the end ( without spoiling it for those who choose to read it anyways) it is as if he suddenly remembered he has to have a conclusion and throws together a climax to this 500+ novel in two paragraphs.

I absolutely do not recommend reading this novel.

The first one hundred plus pages are slow before the story gets exciting. But be ready for more doldrums as the author is very long winded and likes to ramble on...and on...and on. Also have a dictionary nearby, the novel is peppered with words not commonly used in the vernacular. This 640 page story could easily have been told in 300-350.

So the first third of the novel is about two characters walking under Mercury in real time. And there are a few sex scenes but it's boring.

After that, it gets good. There's a lot of action, a lot of glorious detail, and a lot of fun. And the ending is brilliant, all the dozen or so plots come together.

It's hard to have so many, about a dozen, plots, but Robinson makes it work. It's genius!

Im Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite political scientists. you don't have to go far in his work -- the Mars trilogy, the Washington DC trilogy; this book -- to find tough, sophisticated thinking about how humans can create a just, prosperous, ecologically sustainable world. To me, he is worth reading for that alone.

As a novel, or a scifi work -- however you think of his writing -- I had some problems with this book. Swan to me is not entirely convincing as a character, unlike the completely, vividly engrossing humans in the Mars trilogy. I don't think this is entirely due to her experimental tinkering with herself, either. Wahram is more likeable -- to me, more believable -- but we don't spend nearly as much time inside his head.

However, if you liked or loved the Mars trilogy, I think it is important to read this book, which addresses directly some of the problems with aereoforming that the Mars books glossed over. (And I agree with earlier reviewers that if you haven't read KSR, you are depriving yourself of a wonderful experience. On the other hand, I would recommend that someone new to his work start with Red Mars, not here.)

A tedious and boring slog. I finally gave up trying to read this thing. Not much of a SF reader but thought I would try it after seeing it in the bookstore. Don't really understand how it won so many awards.

Robinson wrote the Red Mars series which is a standout for character, plot and science all and master level in one book. 2312 is just fun. Robinson cranks tons of back-story into single pages, giant ideas that others would have written on for hours Robinson firehoses at you in seconds. This kind of rich detail makes the story credible even when the things that are happening seems inconceivable viewed 300 years behind. The future's of Kim Stanley Robinson are almost always bleak, filled with huge challenges and yet I always wished I lived then.

This reads as if Robinson was trying to consciously create a mashup of Gene Wolfe and John Crowley. Unfortunately, the attempt does not work, as what little plot there is is slow, becomes ridiculously predictable , and limps to an end that holds no emotional investment for the reader.

Save your time.

If someone were to ask people who have one way or another made a career out of science or technology what they read in their childhood, the chances are very good that the common thread would be science fiction. I read a lot of things when I was a kid, but my most beloved book in second grade was a tome called Rusty's Space Ship, which I read in its entirety a number of times that surely contains two digits. I won't bore you with the plot line. Suffice it to say that it involves travel across the solar system by a boy and a girl by unlikely means with an unlikely alien companion, and that it expresses rather well the endemic sexism of the 1950s. A little later, Tom Corbett and his space cadet pals Roger and Astro displaced Rusty and Susie in my affections, and they were in turn followed by Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.

The genre is often dismissed as trash, and indeed there is plenty of evidence to support that. But there are a lot of trashy novels written about rich people and doomed romances too, and that doesn't make The Great Gatsby trash. Any good novel, it seems to me, is an attempt to explore the human condition, to look at how we live our lives, to ask: What If? What if a French wife decided her life needed the excitement of an affair to relieve the boredom of provincial life? How might that play out? What if we put a poor white kid and a runaway slave on a raft and float them down the antebellum Mississippi River? What might that tell us about America? What if time travel were possible?

People who don't really understand science fiction often speak of its power to predict the future, when in fact it is usually really bad at doing so. My hero Robert Heinlein, from whom I learned about orbital mechanics in The Rolling Stones, has his space travelers figuring their trajectory with slide rules! So much for predictive power.

It is that stretching of the imagination in the "what ifs" of science fiction that inspired so many of us. Particularly in so-called "hard" (scientifically plausible if not yet achievable) science fiction, many of us first saw possibilities that intrigued us. The exploration and eventual settling of the solar system has been an enduring interest of mine, from Rusty and Susie through Tom Corbett and the traveling Stone family of Heinlein.

Which brings me to the fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson. He is best known for his Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars), which describes 200 years of future human history on the planet. His most recent book is 2312, in a world where the solar system is mostly settled and Earth is devastated by global climate change. It is a rich interweaving of sociology, economics, psychology and the "hard" sciences that I consumed just as fast as I could read. I found it satisfying both as science and as literature. If you think all science fiction is trash, I offer this as strong evidence to the contrary.

At the onset 2312 ranked in my top ten sci-fi of all time. I was riveted, anxious, flabbergasted, and entertained. Some of the brightest and most novel ideas of the genre. Then it faded into a B-movie love story, leaving many questions and plot lines unanswered. I still recommend the book although it has fallen to my top 50. A brave and ingenious attempt.

Each reading expanded my vocabulary, possibilities of cultures, arts and social constructs. I enjoy Robinsons writings as they all differ and I feel my present is expanded by the art of his writing style.

I'm new to KSR, but I know the name as one of the better writers out there.
Ya know when you go see a movie with lots of big names in it, so it must be good. And you walk out of the theater pissed off at the piece of trash you just wasted two hours on. You realized it was just a payday for those actors, they all got theirs. They were just making buck waiting for the next good story that will catapult them to new heights in their profession.
That is this book.
I'm on page 320, I cannot read further. Maybe the next hundreds of pages are awesome, but they should have begun 300 pages back. I have already scanned through a hundred pages of nothing to get this far. I don't care, and a good writer would have made me care long ago.

The book starts slowly, and often feels like an exposition in world building rather than a cohesive narrative. That being said, the philosophical, sociological, and scientific understanding and postulation that goes into this world has made this one of my favorite books. The narrative is somewhat secondary to the vividness of the world Robinson reveals, which shows an astounding depth of understanding in various disciplines. This world has set me yearning for the future, and fearful of the dead hand of history, habit and prejudice that creates the dark dystopian aspects of the book. This book is ultimately a meditation on humanity's future, and for the philosopher and futurist it doesn't get much better.

Not sure why I stuck with it. Glad I did but not sure why. This may be typical for the genre today?. I am of the Asimov, Clarke, Heinlien generation.

Read more reviews before you buy or at least do the trial.

I have fond memories of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy and was excited to see 2312, which promised to expand his vision to the rest of the solar system. Unfortunately, 2312 comes across as disorganized and bizarre. Rather than evoking a sense of wonder and painting a believable vision of the future, the novel jumps around and is filled with more digressions than substance. The main character, Swan, seems to wander around the solar system somewhat aimlessly. At one minute, she's on Earth getting kidnapped, another battling sabertooth tigers on an asteroid, and then she can't control her bladder because of radiation sickness. Yes, rather than a majesty description of Venus or Jupiter, we get sabertooth tigers and dirty pants.

The people in KSR's solar system come across as remarkably dumb and odd. The book begins with a group of sun walkers who like to walk on Mercury unprotected in order to see the Sun. I can understand somebody maybe want to get a glimpse, but these people walk around the planet for days to look at the Sun. Um, OK. Many people in the future have a computer implanted in their head - which speaks through the skin, so its voice is muffled. I couldn't help but think that if you're going to give a computer in your head a voice, wouldn't you also give it speakers or some way to make sure people could hear it?

Also, KSR seems obsessed with kinky sex. In one scene, the characters gossip about orgy cruises in which a bunch of bisexuals gathered around in a circle and poked each other (I'm not kidding!). All of the major characters seem to have added extra genitals just for kicks. I kind of understand what KSR is trying to do. I guess he's trying to argue that in the future the lines between human sexuality will become blurred. However, we never get a good argument for why that would be the case. Of course, there might be a minority in society who likes to experiment with that stuff, but it's just not what I'm looking for in a sci-fi novel about terraforming the solar system.

I'm about 40% of the way through this book. I will probably have to do something I have never done before - stop reading midway through.

KSR is obviously a very thoughtful man, but as an author he seems to have lost the qualities that made his Mars Trilogy so great. In 2312, the planets and fun exploratory science take a backseat to a meandering thriller plot and odd views on human behavior. The various "lists" he litters throughout the book add nothing for me. Ultimately, I would much rather read a nonfiction work by KSR in which he speculates about the future. His fiction just isn't enjoyable or thoughtful anymore.

UPDATE 7/3/12

I've finished the book and my opinion of it has only gone down. Politics has never been KSR's strength, but I found it amazing how simplemindedly KSR portrayed politics. For example, Swan, being the dilettante that she is, one day decides to start a revolution on Earth and asks her internal computer for information about revolutions. The computer - which mind you is a state of the art quantum computer - essentially says revolutions occur when people are upset at conditions. When Swan asks for "numbers" (presumably statistical data about revolutions), the computer has nothing. Not only was the dialog deplorable, but I simply cannot believe a 24th century computer would have less information about revolutions than a standard political science text, much less Wikipedia. KSR might know his physics and natural science, but it's clear he's never read any political science.

There are other silly sections, such as Swan dropping tens of thousands of animals from the air in bubbles to repopulate Earth (the book does note many were killed by angry farmers, but Swan seems to never take responsibility). Overall, I just couldn't take this book seriously.

A difficult read, but very thought provoking. If you are the person that needs a book to move quickly to keep you engaged. This is not for you.
However, if you like to "tease" the mind with new concepts...read 2312.

I was I was very excited when I began reading this book. When I reached the end I was left with some mixed feelings. Between the intitial plot lead and the books description I was very much looking forward to a resounding climax to put everything in its place. The ending was by no means bad but, if you have similar hopes as I did you may feel a bit shorted. Some may not have this issue, the resolution was decent and insightful, but when a mysterious murder, conscious AIs, destroyed planetary colonies, political tensions, animals from the sky, and the angst of a main character are all promised to be tied together one would expect a bit bigger of a bang.

However I rated this a 4/5 simply due to the amount of food-for-thought contained within, there is enough of it that I will be keeping this book for a long time. Robinson's ideas on colonization, post-scarcity, technological inter-connectivity, and the future of earth give 2312 quite enough merit despite my personal complaints with its plot trajectory.

Destined to become a classic. Scope of the science and engineering portrayed in the novel is staggering. The novel is lengthy and a challenge to read because of the inclusion of supplementary material in "Lists" and "Extracts" sections. However, the supplementary material is integral to the story line. The amount of work that the author must have expended writing 2312 is hard to contemplate.

I enjoyed the book. Very contemplative but with some good action and plot line. This is a great book for anyone who is into a rich vocabulary. I read quite a few books but I have never had to look up so many words in one book.

As another reviewer raved about, the Prologue, all five pages, is riveting. Everything goes downhill once the protagonist is introduced. She is silly, spoiled, petty, temperamental and self centered. Oh, and she happens to also have been a world builder before she got into her current state. Pleez. The book is afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder. I could not get past page 88 when I finally succumbed to the affliction myself.

It is NOT a space opera. An opera needs a plot to tie everything together. It also needs a character the reader can care about. I found myself wishing more than once, before I put this book down forever, that she had fried in the prologue, which would make for a short story, not a book. Someone mentions that a plot develops later but maybe it should have started sooner before the author built such an unsympathetic protagonist, so that it could at least give the reader an excuse to plod on.

I am a woman and I resent that all the secondary characters are male and seem so much more sensible. This attitude was a plague on science fiction awhile back and the author has managed to keep that misogynistic old flame alive.

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I'm not through with it and am not sure I will finish it but since I paid for it I will try. It's dull. It's boring. It's uneventful. It's unrealistic. It's not plausible. And those are the GOOD points! I have read a lot of his books and liked them all but I will no longer buy a book based on his name as the author again! I'll stick with Jack McDevitt. His books are far more believable and entertaining!

I haven't read Kim Stanley Robinson in a long time... And am delighted a friend gave me this book to while away hours recovering from surgery. It has a good story, well drawn characters, hard science and is - sadly - built on on all too plausible scenario for the future. Very much enjoyed.

Extremely long and in-depth view of the thoughts of the characters with very little done to develop the story. The story had a great potential at the beginning but fizzled out halfway through and then ended as though the author forgot what he was trying to do. I was very disappointed

2312 covers a large canvas with possibilities of human achievement and failings but ends up being mostly sedately paced and seems somewhat incomplete. Not sure if a sequel is intended to carry the story further.

Probably the best SF book I have ever read
Warning: this book is not for run of the mill SF readers. It requires an intellectual presence that at times goes to the level of reading Joyce.
The plot is NOT the point, there is enough plot to drive the story to the end, but the book can be described by one of the scenes that just floored me: 2 people are walking in a seemingly endless tunnel for days on end. One of them whistles Beethoven, the other one has some bird thingumujimmies implanted in the brain and weaves bird trillers around the main melody. (this alone made my whole day)
There, in a nutshell, have you got the book.
Scenes like this are galore in this book, the author throws ideas out at a staggering rate. Most other writers would make whole books from ideas he drops out of his sleeve on a single page.
This is NOT an easy read. If you are expecting a STORY to lull you into sleep after a hard days work, look somewhere else.....
The author has earned himself a place in my SF top shelf, together with Lem, Dick and very few others.

2312 is an adventurous experiene.pack lightly. leave your prejudices regrding the scifi construct at home. your expectations will only detract from the fascintion you asked for when trusting this author with your time. blindfold yourself and go where this poem leads. to love. to peace.

this ticked all my boxes, I don't like space opera but this more compact novel did not have that rambling feel that I dread. Great concepts and an easy read so I understand those who say it is "not well written" but for me its just "lightly" written, so a summer holiday read I guess....

Boring beyond tears.
During the first couple of pages of 2312 I thought I might read the 'Mars' book next. Ain't gonna happen.
This book is two weeks out of my reading life that I'll never get back.
OK, I'll give Robinson his due. His physical description of the various planets and instructions for terraforming Venus are well-written. The method of moving Terminator city around Mercury is very clever.
However, I was actually looking for a plot. the main character, Swan Er Hong, elicits zero sympathy from me.
Caution: Story reveal here... So Swan and Wahram are forced into the tunnel after Terminator is destroyed. For God knows how many pages, their monotonous journey underground is meticulously described.
Then, for some trivial reason or another, Swam and Wahram ascend to the surface of Mercury and VOILA !! a rescue shows up right at that very second.
I forced myself through this entire turkey. No more Kim Stanley Robinson for me.
However, 2312 is ever so slightly better than 'Paul Is Undead'.

A fearless, deeply human, and moving work of science fiction. Robinson knows how to weave a tale of what our future can be, not what we fear it will be in our worst dystopian indulgences, but how it might be if we truly face down our fears and shortcomings and build something better.

We need more humanism in our fiction, and less despair. Robinson is the man to deliver it.

Don't know what to say other than this is the usual brilliance from KSR. Visionary, beautifully intricate plot, powerful and deep characters and enough useful information to craft a manifesto for a global revolution.

Never having read any of Kim Stanley Robinson's work before, I was blown away by his detailed world-building and the hard science fiction aspect of this book. The protagonist was annoying and some of the way the plot was resolved was a little shaky, but these did not take away from this imaginative look at our Solar System 300 years into the future. The world building and descriptions of that world make it a far more enjoyable read for me than many other sci-fi novels I've read that are stronger on characters and plot. If you like plot driven, action packed fiction, this isn't the book for you. If you seek intelligent fiction that stretches your mind and your vocabulary, you'll love this one.

The story of a world inside a kilometers long "tin can" , where you can look up to see down, was bad enough, even when told by the unquestioned master of sci fi literature, A. C. Clarke. However, in this story, it's not a tin can but a hollowed out asteroid with a world inside where one can look up to see down. Not enough of a creative distinction to relieve the author of being guilty of lack of originality. (Plagiarism is the highest form of compliment.). I can not bring myself to plodding any further into the non-story that is 2312. Now that I have clearly wasted $10 for 2/3's of a pound of pulp paper, I believe I owe to others to say Do Not Buy This Book!

Tough to get into the story, with in-between chapter irrelevencies called (extracts) and (lists). At best it's not a writing style I like. Really could have been a good story if the chapter breaks didn't push me out the world i was just getting into.

After forcing myself to finish this novel (akin to cleaning my plate, even though I HATE Lima beans...) I can't help but wonder: WHAT the hell did I just read? This book's plot meandered all over the landscape (or Solar System, if you prefer) without getting anywhere--lost in the Sinai Peninsula, without reaching the Promised Land. UGH.

Wish I didn't have to affect the star count (that's why I'm giving it a middle-of-the-road 3) but I HAVE to spread the word that the READER IS GHASTLY. Flat flat flatter than flat. I'm not fond of flashy dramatizations at all, but the opposite is just as bad.

You don't talk. Like this when. You're with your. Friends. So. Why do you. Record a book. This. Way. ... ... Question mark.

I was totally impressed with this novel. It's exploration of the definition of humanity and sexuality were thought provoking and interesting. I've highlighted more passages in this book than any other I've ever read.

I just finished this novel. It contains at least two love stories: the first between the two main characters, and the other between Robinson and the solar system. The descriptions of the planets and other astronomical objects are like no other I've ever read. Stunning, and richly textured!

The other thing I noticed, is that the main characters seemed slightly alien. I was thinking about how people 300 years ago would view us. With our mindsets and views, we'd be as alien to them, as Swan and Wahrum seem to us.

This was a cohesive novel, all parts well considered. The book was long, but it felt like time should be taken to gaze, as one does with the stars. Well done, KSR.

An interesting vision of solar system traveling islands hollowed out from asteroids and terraforming projects on a grand scale. But the story gets chopped up by odd plot points and a fixation on gender modification. Not as enjoyable or as technical as his Red/Blue/Green Mars series.

One of the best sci-fi books I've ever read; it's all about the journey not the destination with Kim Stanley Robinson. I love the development of the characters the descriptions the very detailed analysis of science, people, psychology, politics, you name it.

Anticlimactic from the get. Predictable plot, shallow character development and disappointing especially given the reviews that I had read elsewhere. Perhaps we will see better from him in the future.

I ordered Kim Stanley Robinson's book: 2312 and the invoice said that was what in the box, however, I received the wrong book! The only similar thing to the book I recieved is that its title is a year. This is a Christmas gift and I am very disappointed that I did not get the correct book! How careless of this bookstore. This came from a bookstore in the UK and I had to wait a while to receive it. No effort has been made from the bookstore to send me the correct book in time to give it as a Christmas gift. Again, this is a big disappointment!!!!

Swan Er Hong, a notable performance artist native to Mercury, has her life abruptly changed by the death of her grandmother, Alex. As Swan is asked to investigate the project her grandmother was working on, her home city is subjected to a brutal terrorist attack. This sparks a series of journeys back and forth across the Solar system, from Mercury to terraformed Venus to drowned Earth and out as far as Io and Titan, as Swan and her allies attempt to discover the threat nature of the threat to humanity.

2312 is Kim Stanley Robinson's first widescreen, big-budget, blockbuster SF novel in some considerable time. His recent novels (such as the recent Galileo's Dream or his near-future Science in the Capital trilogy) have been modest in their ambitions, but 2312 trots out the same Robinson who charted the colonisation of Mars in such fascinating, exacting and sometimes-frustrating detail over the course of three books in the 1990s.

The novel works on several levels. On one, it paints a portrait of life in the early 24th Century where the bulk of humanity lives on Earth (and, increasingly, Mars) but the 'spacers' who have settled the rest of the Solar system hold increasing amounts of power, despite their small numbers. This portrait is vivid, rich and compelling. It shows Robinson's imagination at its most fertile, as he depicts Terminator, a city which rolls over Mercury's surface, permanently trying to stay on the nightside of the planet out of the fierce rays of the nearby Sun. Elsewhere he shows the terraforming of Venus as its thick atmosphere is stripped away and politicians debate on slamming giant asteroids into it to increase its rotation. Another section takes us to Greenland, where a huge damming project is underway stop one of the Earth's last few glaciers from melting into the sea. On Io people have to live in settlements which act as gigantic Faraday cages (to hold the immense radiation of Jupiter at bay), whilst in orbit around Saturn people go surfing on plumes of ice pulled out of the rings by the passage of the shepherding moonlets. As a grand tour of the Solar system, 2312 is constantly inventive and fascinating.

On the second level, the book is striving for literary credibility. Robinson has always been one of the finest writers of prose in hard SF (not, it has to be said, a densely-populated field), and that continues here. He may be fascinated by science, by technology and by visions of the future, but he's much more fascinated by people, as individuals and as collective societies, and how they operate. As such the characters are richly-defined and textured, showing surprising depths as the novel develops. The prose is also finely-weaved but Robinson's long-standing tendency to interrupt it with infodumps remains an issue, although much less so than in his Mars Trilogy. Most notably, Robinson's writing keeps two potentially dull sections (one featuring characters having to hike along a thousand mile-long tunnel, the other featuring a character adrift in space) from flatlining and in fact elevates them to two of the strongest sections in the book.

The third level, the actual plot, is where the novel hits the most bumps. In the Mars Trilogy Robinson portrayed a vision of the future where the characters had to deal with scientific hazards and the simple realities of day-to-day life in a hostile environment. Whilst there were antagonists, these were shown to be part of the naturally-arising problems of colonisation and the eventual need for independence. In 2312, however, Robinson has a much more overt and traditional thriller storyline in which mysteries need to be investigated and explored and a resolution reached. To put it mildly, this plot feels half-arsed at best and the novel improves dramatically when Robinson completely drops it for much of its middle third, instead focusing on his grand vision of humanity's possible future.

2312 (****½) is a credible and somewhat optimistic vision of our future, highly detailed and constantly inventive. Coupled with some rich characters and enjoyable prose, this makes for his finest novel in many years. However, some contrived plot twists and a dull thriller element weaken the narrative a little. The novel will be published in the UK and USA on 24 May.

NOTE: The first half or so of the novel strongly indicates that 2312 is set in the same continuity as the Mars Trilogy. However, a detailed timeline given later in the book reveals this is not the case and the two works are separate, although 2312 does borrow a few names and terms from the older work.

2312 is a beautiful novel, a comedy in the old sense of the word, and a grand adventure spanning the entire solar system. The plot has been well described by other reviewers; I'll just add that I didn't find the thriller elements intrusive at all. They contribute an element of danger to the story and deal with several popular SF tropes, but in a unique, thoughtful way that is characteristic of all Robinson's writing.

The characters are beautifully drawn; it seems the more Robinson writes, the more fully realized his characters are (like the moving portrait of Galileo in his previous novel). Swan Er Hong is a delightful, mercurial Mercurian, who is loved by the Saturnian Wahram. These two are a real pair. Seeing their unlikely romance develop is one of the delights of this novel, just as much as the stupendously realized view of humanity's spread into the solar system. And Pauline is probably the funniest AI I have seen in fiction. This balance of the human and the futuristic characterizes all the best science fiction, and in my opinion 2312 is right up there with the best.

Per the subject line, the main character, Swan, is a repulsive, self-aborbed goooe egg... Robinson's science is solid but some of his characters (including main protagonists) are so self-absorbed they appear bereft of the normal suite of human emotions... I did not buy this book, borrowed it from the library, and happily set it aside after 100 pages... Sci fi must have characters we don't loathe... Swan and "Jacquie Boone" from the Mars trilogy are, sorry, loatheable... Robinson does the hard science well.. but his characters are often loatheable, self absorbed gits... One just can't develop an interest in reading further about such creatures, and until Robinson can find a way to fix this and humanize his characters ("Swan" is the sorriest excuse for a human being to appear in his fiction subsequent to "Jacquie Boone! yet... ) I can't see how anyone but hard science geeks enjoy his books.. Kim.. Greg Benford has a doctorate in astrophysics, yet writes books about believable and loveable charactes... learn from him! Why don't you know that your main character, "Swan" is repulsive?!!

2312(published in 2012) starts off well, I could even start to be interested in the characters and story... UNTIL around page 90 - then it all starts to come unraveled, and the author joins the ranks of 90% of the current genre of silly cookie-cutter SciFi authors, who INSIST on including in their works, the same Human-Caused Global Warming NONSENSE... so, this book goes in Garbage Can, along with all the other crud most SciFi authors are putting out these days (the other 10% of reasonable SciFi authors will have to provide enough output to keep me going through this generation dominated by leftist ideological cultist zealotry).

How can you believe ANYTHING a SciFi author writes about the future, if they parrot this wacky global warming zealotry nonsense? For example, in this story the island of Manhattan and State of Florida are almost completely under water in 2312... aint gonna happen folks.

These Global-Warming centric authors should be ASHAMED of themselves. If not for their nitwit Global Warming "visions", then for their uninspired "follow-the-leader" approach. This IS NOT Science Fiction, it is just more Global Warming cultist zealotry propaganda. Junk.

Well, maybe the LA Times thought it was good (it appeals to a liberal climate change doom, gloom, then humanity rises theme), but it's not well developed and has only mildly creative material. If you want beautiful, hand-crafted space opera, try Alastair Reynolds!

This book is full of great ideas about living on the planets in the solar system. That said, the plot is almost non-existent, and is just wordy and full of description (most of which added nothing to the story). After the first 100 pages, I just slogged through it to finish it.

This novel displays both the lack of literary and technical skill of the author, as well as an extremist left-wing speculation about the future of man-kind in 300 years.

In terms of the literary content, this novel has no plot, as a matter of fact, the plot is scattered throughout the book, intertwined with chapters titled "lists" and "extracts". These specific chapters have no connection with the plot and are read as random rambling by the author with absolutely no connection with the plot. The characters experience absolutely no development, are completely bland, predictable, and have identical personalities.

The reason why it happened this way is because the novel has NO CONFLICT. Typically, one encouters various conflitcs in a novel: man-vs-nature, man-vs-man, man-vs-technology, just to name a few. This novel has none of these conflicts. The universe created by the author is bland and boring.

I will now tell you the exact reason why this author wrote this book. You see he had some new ideas about terraforming venus, mercury, and asteroid which he refers to as "terrariums". Instead of writing scientific papers and submitting to respectabke journals and conferences (which the author cannot do because he obviously has no knowledge of science as I will later show you), the author decides to the popularity of his previous Mars Trilogy (red, blue and green) to compose a poorly written novel, just to show-off some of his "concepts".

And on top of all these "concepts" are not even science-fiction, they are pure fantasy. The book does not deserve the word "science" to be applied to it in any ways. To begin the author claims a city called "terminator" self-propells across the Mercurian land-scape using the thermal expansion and contraction of the rails for propulsion. If the authot had any clue about friction forces he would realize that even with super-awesome year 3000 material, this is an impossibility.

Now consider, the "self-replicators" devices which the autho claims can build anything from anything 300 years from now. Well guess what you can only build stuff if you have the proper available materials. How do you expect to drill through an icy asteroid and build a whole city on the interior from ice? This is rediculous. And speaking of these "terrariums" the author claims to use a mass-driver to propel these, well where does the energy come from? from outer space? Not to mentiond, you need at least THREE mass-drivers to spin-stabilize ONE terrarium.

What really killed it for me was the absolute lack of knowledge of the author about space transportation. He claims people will travel between planets in these hollowed out space rocks which are flying through the system in free elliptical trajectories. Yes the author completely neglects, the time and energy required to accelerate and decelerate to these rocks. He also claims to use Orion pusher plates, what?!!?? why would you use 1960 technology in the year 2312? The author also talks about anti-matter lightning engines, does he even know what anti-matter is, does he even know what the output of self-annihilation reaction looks like, obviously not, Ill tell you, it definetly does not look like a lightning strike, thats for sure, lightning occurs only in atmohsphere environments.

In conclusion, to the average reader, these all may seem like minor details, but a true sci-fi fan will be disgusted by this novel. Both the author and the novel are shameful to modern literature. it makes great authors like Jules Vern writhe in their graves. Is this the future of sci-fi? Well its a very bleak future thats fore sure.

After reading many of the reviews here I am not sure we are referring to the same book. KSR has painted such a complex detailed snapshot of the world 300 years from now that is all too possible. I found it to be the most enjoyable read of the year so far, and found it a little short if anything.

I'm well into 2312 and have found it to be quite enjoyable. Unlike several recent reads the characters seem to have good motivation. Haven't seen anyone else comment on this but so far we have found several referrals to Ursula K. Le Guin. Now I have spotted a few I will keep an eye out for more as we pass the half way point. Well done Mr. Robinson

Love the book. the kindle formatting seems to have some issues. Missing a page here and there perhaps, hard to tell, and several pages with only a word or two with the letters of the words spread across the page entire (so far Ive read 16% and come across about six pages like this.) Or perhaps its just part of the book. These glitches seem to be primarily in the "Lists" chapters, so perhaps its deliberate. Cant tell. But I love this book!

2312 is an amazing feat of the imagination: a plausible view of our solar system three centuries from now, one that combines genre and mainstream literary influences to create a rich tapestry of adventure, intrigue, and extrapolation, with strong, strong characters. What holds the whole thing together is the love story--yes, I said it. A love story. As brilliant an interesting a love story as you're likely to find in all of science fiction. I thought this was the best SF novel I've read in the last few years.

Having enjoyed the Mars series I snapped this up when I saw it.
Oh dear.
This is turgid, disjointed, self-indulgent, boring rubbish.
One of the few books on my Kindle which I haven't even bothered to finish.

I've read science fiction for over 50 years. I was excited to see this new Robinson book at the bookstore, and thought I'd give it a read.

I was disappointed.

In the first part, "The dialogue looks like this," he said. "You mean a statement with a simple attribution in the tag?" she said. "Yes." he said. "And it goes on like that for quite a while I suppose," she said. "Yes," he said. "So he doesn't even bury the tag in the text, then" she said. "No, just hangs it on the end," he said. Etc.

"Later in the book, the dialogue tags become infested with adverbs," he said, critically. "Really?" she inquired, doubtfully. "Yes," he said, forcefully. "Are there any Tom Swifties?" she asked, quizzically. "Close," he said, knowingly. Etc.

The characters aren't adequately described. Swan, the key POV character, isn't physically described at all until about 20% of the book has been read.

There are beautiful, lyrical descriptions of some settings, but some of the settings thus described have no bearing on the plot.

The author inserts John Dos Passos-like lists here and there in the text. Not quite sure that works, however (These lists are distorted and truncated in the Kindle edition). John Brunner did that sort of thing much better.

I do not recommend the book.

If one has even the most basic grasp of economics and human motivations, the background, history and plot of this story will seem totally absurd. It is almost as though a communist graduate student wrote this as some kind of anti-capitalist/freedom propaganda.

I hated most of this book but plodded through thinking it would get better. It was written in such a strange way, chapters just titled lists and a string of words were written that did relate in many ways to each other,but added nothing to the over all story. Maybe the author added these lists as a sort of train of thought he was going through, sorry it did nothing for me.
The concept of civilization moving to others planets and moons was interesting, the author seemed to have a very strong scientific background. I believe too much was spent in details many readers just wouldn't understand and frankly could care less about.
The over all story just wasn't that interesting, I knew just where it was all leading and kept hoping for a twist or suprise, there was none.
I'm an avid reader, but this is the first science fiction book I've read in a number of years. This book will not plunge me into that realm again anytime soon.

Early in the twenty-fourth century, mankind has spread across the solar system to other planets, moons and rocks. On Mercury, the city of Terminator is a technological wonder as it moves to elude the sun's lethal rays.

In Terminator, Alex, the Lion Of Mercury, dies from a brain aneurism after a fruitful one hundred and ninety one years. Her impact is far reaching as Alex strongly pushed societal changes to match the advances of technology to insure no one was left behind. Her significant other Mqaret struggles with his grief so he goes to his lab where mourning Biome designer Swan Er Hong visits him as she deals with the death of her beloved grandmother. Mqaret introduces Swan to League investigator Jean Genette. The asteroids cop was on Mercury for a conference. He questions Swan and Mqaret implying that Alex was murdered. Alex's close friend Titan diplomat Fitz Wahram arrives to pay his respects. Soon a series of unexplained phenomena starting with a meteor shower assaulting the city happens. The designer, the diplomat and the cop team to investigate only to find a dangerous scenario that threatens Alex's legacy, the current social, technological and economic interweave throughout the solar system,

This is a superb futuristic science fiction that deftly weaves the vivid Robinson solar system as the background platform for a terrific action-packed investigative conspiracy thriller. The protagonists possess differing personalities partly due to their diverse geography and occupations. Their tour guides the audience on a thought-provoking exciting adventure,

Harriet Klausner