Pacific Edge: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Despair could never touch a morning like this..." (more)
Key Phrases: town shares, town attorney, great solitude, Rattlesnake Hill, Orange County, Santa Ana (more...)

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 (May 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312890389
• ISBN-13: 978-0312890384
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #225,359 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 3 in The Three Californias Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One of KSR's weaker books, February 9, 2001

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

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing story, fine writing and characterization., December 26, 1998

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

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.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Utopian Gnats, February 8, 2002

By	Patrick Shepherd "hyperpat" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This book is part of Robinson's 'Three Californias" triptych about alternate futures seen from the perspective of Orange County, California. Gold Coast is a dystopia, The Wild Shore is post-apocalyptic, and this book completes the thematic triangle as a utopia. Here we find a future that is a melding of socialism, capitalism, democracy, and strong ecological concerns. Personal income and business sizes have strict upper limits, everyone is required to devote some of their labor hours to community projects (usually involving some form of ecological cleanup), most people live as part of communal co-operatives, but at the same time people are free to chose their own jobs, live where they wish, have a voice in community affairs, and can say what they want.

Like most utopias, there are a few flies in the ointment, and it is around these that the story line is based. Here we find Alfredo, the town mayor, scheming a way to go beyond the personal income limit, and the company he is associated with has become involved in shady deals to try and sidestep the limits on company size. The object of the scheming is an undeveloped hill commanding a great aesthetic view of the town and valley it sits in, and the book starts with an attempt to rezone the hill for commercial development. The book's protagonist, Kevin, something of an idealist and nature lover, not terribly politically astute but stubborn, stalls the attempt, but the battle is joined. As counterpoint to the political battle, Kevin becomes romantically involved with Alfredo's long-time lover Ramona, who has just split up with Alfredo.

Unfortunately, these story threads are only mildly interesting. There is little work done to explore either the pluses or minuses of the envisioned society, Kevin's personal problems are not strong enough, do not have enough angst, to make the reader become terribly involved in them, the basic object of the battle, the hill, does not seem deserving of all the energy devoted to it. This seems to be a typical problem with utopian novels - at their heart, utopias are necessarily dull, not having any strong points of contention on which to base a story. All of the actions of this book seem somewhat inconsequential, the object of contention is really a molehill, not a mountain.

The prose style is easy, the main characters are reasonably well developed, the plot line is coherent. But this is at best an average book, not nearly as good as The Wild Shore.