Review: “2312”

First of all, a reminder to any and all of my fannish friends, the deadline for voting for this year’s Hugo Awards is in three days, on July 31st. You need to be an attending or supporting member of LoneStarCon 3 in order to vote. It is highly unlikely that I will be able to attend Worldcon this year, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying to read as many of the nominated stories as possible.

A few weeks ago I wrote about “Throne of the Crescent Moon” by Saladin Ahmed. Today I would like to share with you what I thought after reading “2312” by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit Books). (I’ll try to avoid any major spoilers for those of you who haven’t read it yet.)

“2312” follows a series of events across the solar system in a near future which sees mankind divided. On the one hand, Earth is a swollen, rotting cesspit dealing with a population of eleven billion, pollution, and the consequences of climate change. On the other hand, spacers have spread across the solar system to build cities and outposts in almost every possible place, even (or especially) in places that we as readers in the present day wouldn’t believe possible.

The story starts with Swan Er Hong, an artist and free-thinker who we learned has previously been a designer of customized habitats. She lives on Mercury in the planet’s single great city of Terminator. The city constantly travels around the planet on tracks to keep it on the dark side of Mercury, since the heat and radiation from the sun would be extremely lethal.

When Swan’s grandmother Alex dies, Swan is introduced to Jean Genette, a detective from the asteroid settlements. Genette is a “small”, a member of a human subspecies modified to be about half the size of average humans. He indicates that Alex’s death may not have been natural and that Alex had been working with a number of other leaders and leading scientists across the solar system on some very secret project.

Swan then is introduced to Fitz Wahram, a diplomat and leader from Titan. Wahram is a very large man from Titan, his human subspecies having been modified with frog-like genes. Neither Wharam nor Genette will talk about what they and Alex were supposedly involved with, but they both believe that Alex would have left some sort of message or information with Swan.

What follows is a combination of detective mystery, spy thriller, and travelogue. We quickly see that there are indeed malevolent forces at work, but the who, what, how, and why need to be puzzled out.

In the process we get a peek into almost every corner of this bustling solar system. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, the moons of Jupiter, the moons of Saturn, Saturn itself, Saturn’s rings, multiple asteroids and transport vehicles created out of asteroids – all are shown to us in some considerable detail as the story progresses.

The story is told in a unique and interesting fashion, with chapters of third-person narrative (each chapter following one main character or another) interspersed with chapters of “Lists”, “Extracts”, and (in the second half of the book) “Quantum Walks”.

Each of these short chapters (just a couple of pages each) is a different way of giving us information about what is going on in the story. Instead of exposition, we get some no-so-random raw data to start fermenting in our memory. We’re on our own to figure out what it might have to do with the story. It’s a really good way of involving our brain and getting us a head start on what’s coming up.

“Lists” are just what they sound like. For example, “Lists (9)” is two pages of space propulsion systems.

“Extracts” are collections of paragraph-length bits of data on some subject or theme. Each bit starts and stops in mid sentence, like newspaper or magazine clippings cut out at random. Nonetheless, I found it quite effective at getting my thought process primed with new information.

“Quantum Walks” are stream of consciousness exercises from a computer.

As with Robinson’s earlier “Mars Trilogy”, I really enjoyed the detail in which he showed both the technical wonders of this universe and the economic and political realities that went along with it. We get to follow Swan and friends around and be sightseers through the entire solar system. We also get deep into the nitty-gritty of how this messy political and economic balance is maintained.

Earth is deeply dependent on the energy, food, and resources being shipped down from the space colonies. The colonies are still dependent on Earth both for its diverse (if damaged) biosphere and for the effect its gravity has on human longevity. Yet both factions are jealous and distrustful of each other. The average human on Earth is poverty stricken and downtrodden, yearning to leave for the colonies. The average human in the colonies is very well aware of just how dangerous the various space environments are and how fragile their existence is.

While I enjoyed cruising around the solar system and seeing the wondrous sights, I was less satisfied with the thriller and mystery aspects of the story. The plot thickens and various violent events occur, but in the end I had uneasy feelings that there were several important loose ends. For example, we never do get any idea of Alex’s death was natural or a homicide. (I can’t discuss my other unanswered questions further without major spoilers, so if you want to discuss further, please contact me by e-mail.)

Finally, there was one long narrative chapter in the middle of the book that was key for developing the long-term relationship between Swan and Wahram, but I found it to drag on interminably. I thought that the same portion of the story could have been told in half as many pages. That one chapter almost derailed the entire book for me.

If you’ve read Robinson’s “Mars Trilogy” you will recognize his style and it is very tempting to think that “2312” is set in the same universe, just in a slightly different setting and time. I know that for the longest time while reading, I kept looking for points where the two story lines intersected. But while similar, this is not the universe of the “Mars Trilogy”. Same planets, similar time frame, similar tech, similar societies, but different story, characters, and universe.

Robinson’s web site says that “2312” is a standalone novel and not the first novel of a trilogy. That may well be true, and the book does stand on its own, but I can’t help but wonder if some of what I perceived as loose ends weren’t actually plot points to be explored further in another book. But that’s just speculation on my part, possibly brought about by my discomfort with the unanswered questions.

I was really looking forward to reading “2312” and despite the couple of nits that I picked, I was not disappointed. “2312” won this year’s Best Novel Nebula Award in May and it might very well win this year’s Hugo Award in the category next month.

If I were voting, it would probably be a toss-up for me between “2312” and…