Kim Stanley Robinson Books In Order

Publication Order of Three Californias Triptych Books

Publication Order of Mars Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Mars Collections

Publication Order of Capital Code/Science In The Capital Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Universe Books

Publication Order of Outspoken Authors Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Kim Stanley Robinson is the award winning author of several science fiction novels; including the novels that make up the “Three Californias” series, “The Mars” trilogy (an award winning series for which he is probably best known for writing), and the “Science in the Capital” series. Robinson has also written dozens of short stories and several other standalone novels. Robinson has won many awards in his career as an author; the awards he has won include: British Science Fiction Association Award, World Fantasy Award, Nebula, Ignotus Award, Seium Award, Hugo, John W. Campbell Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and Locus Awards (which he has won six times: 1985, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003). Robinson has been nominated for many others. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois on March 23, 1952.

He obtained his BA in literature from University of California- San Diego, in 1974, and the next year, earned his MA in English from Boston University; Robinson would later go on to get his PhD in English from University of California- San Diego. His doctoral thesis was called “The Novels of Phillip K. Dick”, after his first PhD adviser told him to read the works of Phillip K. Dick, that later got published, a hardcover version was even released. He married an environmental chemist named Lisa Howland Nowell in 1982 and together they have two kids together. He has lived in Switzerland, various parts of California (the place that he spent his childhood). and Washington D. C.

A lot of his stories deal with ideas of ecological and nature issues. In “The Gold Coast” he talks about over development and the drawbacks. The rest of the “Southern California” trilogy explores ideas of nature and technology intersecting, asserting that it is highly important that the two are separate from one another. Sustainability is his biggest themes and the nature of a plausible utopia. Robinson also explores ideas that capitalism is a replaceable system. Robinson’s work features a group of characters that try to preserve, or at times, try to make their environment around them a better place to live in.

‘The Wild Shore” is the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Three Californias” trilogy; it is also the first novel that Robinson ever had published. This book is set in 2047 and is set in San Onofre, a small town on the Pacific Coast. The book is something of a coming of age story, as most of the principal characters in the book are young and are faced with a lot of the problems that kids face at their ages. In 1987, two thousand to three thousand neutron bombs were detonated in two thousand of the biggest cities in America. There is no way that America can rebuild, due to the fact that Russia imposed so many rules and Japan watching America’s every move. Living life after a nuclear attack is a day to day struggle to live. Hank Fletcher is a dreamer, someone who wonders what the world was and what it might be again. He tries to imagine what it might be like to remake America and turn it into something worthwhile again. A man named Tom tells people what the world was like before all the bombs were dropped. Books are in high demand and of high trade value, as they are rare.

Fans of this book praised it for its believeable premise that an attack on America involving nuclear missiles being dropped, the novel has great plot, fascinating characters, and the depiction of a realistic future world. Fans of the book also liked that it has some of Robinson’s best writing, including some of the best lines that have ever appeared in a novel that close out the book. Readers liked that Robinson fleshed out his society completely, has interesting characters, and the way the novel is able to combine science fiction with a philosophical bend to it. This book does take some patience on the part of the reader and is not for every reader. Readers who did not like the book said that the story goes bad, and becomes incoherent. Some felt like this book resembled a whodunnit, but it never tells the reader who the killer was. Some readers were disappointed in Robinson’s storytelling in this novel.

‘The Gold Coast” is the second book in Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Three Californias” trilogy. This book is set in 2027, and features a Southern California that is nothing but freeways, malls, and condos. A young man, Jim McPherson, is a wealthy man’s son, a budding poet, and is lost in a world of great drugs, casual sex, and fast cars. He is brought to a confrontation with his family and everything he believes in when he goes through the underground of industrial terrorism. Jim cannot focus on things for long periods of time, nor can he remember to do things. His dad works in developing high precision munitions.

Fans of this book praised Robinson’s ability to be knowledgeable about something but use it wisely without rubbing the readers’s faces in the fact that he knows about something, and keep the story moving forward. The readers found the book to feature defense industry and over development as something that was alive and had its hold on the characters with an independent will. Readers who did not enjoy this book felt that Robinson takes a long time to find out where he wants to go with the book, the ecological aspect is too strident at times, and when Robinson bashes capitalism he does not have enough evidence to support his claims. They did not like when the book focused on Jim as those scenes are boring and too technical, and some found the characters in the book to be useless, as all they seem to do is party and do drugs for most of the book.

The rights to the “Mars” trilogy were bought, plans to make the novel into a television series on Spike were set in motion. Many people held the rights to the series at one point or another (James Cameron Gale Ann Hurd, and AMC had them), each having their own plans with the stories, before Spike got a hold of them and got J. Michael Straczynski to adapt them for the screen.