Pacific Edge: Three Californias (Three Californias Series) [Paperback]

Kim Stanley Robinson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Three Californias Series | Publication Date: May 15, 1995

2065: In a world that has rediscovered harmony with nature, the village of El Modena, California, is an ecotopia in the making. Kevin Claiborne, a young builder who has grown up in this "green" world, now finds himself caught up in the struggle to preserve his community's idyllic way of life from the resurgent forces of greed and exploitation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An outstanding achievement, the concluding volume in Robinson's Orange County, Calif., trilogy again takes place in the middle of the next century. The books are not strict sequels, providing instead several versions of an alternate world. While The Wild Shore depicted a postnuclear holocaust society and The Gold Coast reflected a period of uncontrolled technological growth, this novel is set in an ecological utopia with a reduced population and rational use of renewable resources. Because utopias can be boring, Robinson generates action through several intertwined conflicts, combining the political and personal lives of his characters. The introduction of the newly hired town attorney provides a fresh insight into the community of El Modena and an external viewpoint on its citizens' "usual array of Machiavellian battles," as do excerpts from a diary writtten in the past. The characters are fully developed and individually motivated; the reader identifies with them easily. Robinson's writing ranks in the highest levels of the genre, and the last sentences of the book generate a soaring optimism. Taken together, the books of the trilogy invite interesting comparisons or their several worlds, but separately each is a completely independent, excellent story.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"An outstanding achievement....Robinson's writing ranks in the highest levels of the genre. The book generates a soaring optimism." --Publishers Weekly

"Through a blend of dirt-under-fingernails naturalism and lyrical magical realism, Robinson invites us to share his characters' intensely personal, intensely loyal attachment to what they have. The result is a bittersweet utopia that may shame you into entertaining new hope for the future." --The New York Times Book Review

"[Pacific Edge is] the outstanding utopia of the last ten years and more." --Foundation

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Orb Books; First Edition. first paper edition (May 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312890389
• ISBN-13: 978-0312890384
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kim Stanley Robinson is a winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. He is the author of eleven previous books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed Fifty Degrees Below, Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt, and Antarctica--for which he was sent to the Antarctic by the U.S. National Science Foundation as part of their Antarctic Artists and Writers' Program. He lives in Davis, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing story, fine writing and characterization., December 25, 1998

By 

Thomas O. Gray "tomgray" (Norwich, VT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Pacific Edge: Three Californias (Three Californias Series) (Paperback)

This book is fantastic--I'm amazed that no one has reviewed it. The setting is Southern California in a future following an ecological collapse. Some will find it utopian, others will be disappointed to find no galactic empires, but everyone should enjoy this extremely well-written story and its finely-wrought, believable characters. Robinson debates technowhizzery versus the New Age, and finds no easy answers--indeed, the issue is still up for grabs at the end--but this is SF at its best, thought-provoking and intense. Still rates #2 on my all-time list, and I've read a ton of SF.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I FELL IN LOVE WITH THESE CHARACTERS AND THEIR TOWN, August 25, 2005

By 

Paco Rivero "Henry" (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pacific Edge: Three Californias (Three Californias Series) (Paperback)

This book is not action-packed and it's not really what I consider science fiction. All that makes it futuristic is that it's set a few decades into the future. If you're looking for high-tech or hard sci-fi, look elsewhere. However, if you want to read a pleasant story about the lives and loves of a small, mid-twenty-first century liberal community in southern California rendered in simple, clear prose that even achieves a certain degree of lyricism at times, then give this a try. You may end up loving it, as I did. Liberals probably more than conservatives will enjoy this book because the good guys are liberal while the one bad guy, if the story can be said to have a bad guy, is a republican-type who lets his greed get the better of him at the expense of the community. But nobody in the story is really all that bad (or completely perfect either); they're just basically decent people trying to do their best given their character flaws. The town, while not exactly a shangri-la, is a pleasant, healthy place to live. I really grew to like this community and its simple, back-to-basics (but without being primitive) way of living. In a sense, reading this book is therapeutic; there's nothing morbid here, but lots that is beautiful and uncomplicated, even spiritually uplifting (God is not banned from this liberal community). I found the plot compelling. It kept me turning the pages. The characters were mostly likable, some even adorable. When I finished this book, I got the sense of having visited a place in which I would like to live. Instead of giving a doom-day scenario of the future, the book allows the reader to imagine a future that, while not perfect, is still better than the past. If you are a parent looking to find a book to share with your young adult, this book is good because it works for both adults and kids (over fourteen, I'd say). Notwithstanding the somewhat melancholy ending, this novel is a very pleasant, light-hearted read. If innocence is not your thing, you may not like this book. But I am usually into much darker stuff and I nonetheless found this book to be like a ray of light shining through a cloudy sky.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One of KSR's weaker books, February 8, 2001

By 

briw "briw" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pacific Edge: Three Californias (Three Californias Series) (Paperback)

I enjoyed the first 2 of KSR's "Three Californias," but this one was disappointing (see my reviews). It is simply not as morally or aesthetically compelling as his other books. The plot drags its anemic self through predictable interludes, leaving the reader surprised at the missed possibilities. The characters, even the lead, come off as rather cardboard-thin.

In fact, it becomes apparent that KSR has more or less a set of stock characters: the athletic idealist who's rather dumb (Kevin = John Boone from the Mars set); a dark scheming male who's Kevin's romantic rival (Alfredo = Chalmers); a sexy Ramona both men fight for, and who uses both ( = Maya), et al.: Doris is the Russian woman from the Mars books, and Oscar is equivalent to the big guy who shows up in Green Mars (I forget his name at the moment - is it Arthur?).

Not only are characters repeated but so are settings. Spas seem of great interest in all 3 Mars and all 3 California books. So are socio-economic-idealistic battles involving the environment + sports + romantic struggles. All very interesting the first time, but rather tiresome by the nth iteration.

One nice point was Tom Barnard's appearance in all 3 books. I liked how this theme character set off colorful motifs in this California "triptych," as KSR terms it. It's interesting to see how KSR puts Tom in relation to the global events of each book: (1) post-apocalyptic storyteller, (2) drowning in the nursing home as a forgotten inmate of suburbia, or (3) the depressed-but-then-revived old attorney who sails off into the wild blue of utopia.

Another point: "Pacific Edge" as a utopia - does it work? I can't speak to this question, since this is the first utopia I've read (not counting Plato's Republic or Critias (?)). I haven't read St. Thomas More's "Utopia," which KSR seems to take as a prime reference. All the same, KSR's points is likely that utopia is actually nowhere in the original sense of the Greek word. The setting's idyllic, but the undercurrents are not. People get hurt, get sad, die, lose. Seen as an experiment or hypothesis rather than as a finished statement, then, "Pacific Edge" does the job.