 First edition | |
| Author | Kim Stanley Robinson |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Kirk Benshoff |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Orbit |
Publication date | May 23, 2012 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover andelectronic book) andaudio-CD |
| Pages | 576 |
| Awards | Nebula Award for Best Novel |
| ISBN | 978-0-316-09812-0 |
2312 is ahard science fiction novel by American writerKim Stanley Robinson, published in 2012. It is set in the year 2312, when society has spread out across theSolar System. The novel won the 2013Nebula Award for Best Novel.[1]
The novel is set in the year 2312, in the great city of Terminator onMercury, which is built on gigantic tracks in order to constantly stay in the planet's habitable zone near theterminator. Swan Er Hong, an artist and former asteroid terrarium designer, is grieving over the sudden death of her step-grandmother, Alex, who was very influential among the inhabitants of Terminator. After the funeral procession, a conference is held among the family and the close friends of Alex, some of whom Swan has never heard of. This includes Fitz Wahram, a native of the moonTitan, and Jean Genette, a police detective who has been exiled from Mars. Following the conference, Swan decides to head out toIo to visit another friend of Alex's, called Wang, who has designed one of the largest qubes, or quantum computers. While Swan is visiting Wang on Io, an apparent attack of some sort fails. An attack on Terminator shortly follows; a meteorite of artificial origin destroys the city's tracks, stopping the city and exposing it to sun, essentially cooking it. As Swan travels, she learns more of the mystery surrounding her grandmother's death and the destruction of her home-city of Terminator. With Wahram and Genette, Swan travels throughout the Solar System and investigates an escalating series of conspiracies.
Inspector Genette eventually discovers how the artificial meteorite that destroyed Terminator was created: someone launched a large number of smaller objects on trajectories that would eventually cause them to coalesce above Mercury, but low enough that the planet's defense system could not destroy the now large object in time. The complexity of the attack leads Genette to determine that quantum computers must have been used.
Meanwhile, Swan and Wahram become involved in restoring andrewilding the climate-change-ravaged Earth by returning thousands of species from space-based temporary environments to their home environments on the Earth. Swan and Wahram fall in love over the course of the novel, marrying at the end.
In the world of the novel, the planetsMercury,Venus, andMars are inhabited by humans, as are the moons ofSaturn andJupiter. Humans have a presence (or are building one) on all the inhabitable surfaces (including moons and satellites) within the Solar System. Almost all theSolar System's largestasteroids have been hollowed out to form "terrariums", which include an interior artificial environment designed to mimic variousbiomes (or combinations of these) found on earth. Some terrariums serve as animal reserves or farms for endangered or under-produced flora and fauna. Humans take shuttles to these asteroids and use them as transportation around the system. Some terrariums fail, such as one where a programming error leads to the near-destruction of the asteroid; in another terrarium, a small crack in the ice wall destroys most of its population.
In the novel, scientific and technological advances—such ashuman enhancement,settlements on other planets, andterraforming—have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. A major innovation isqubes, which arequantum computers possessing artificial intelligence (AI), often small enough that the wearer can have one implanted into their head or attached to their body (as one might wear a watch or carry a phone). Digital AI is still in use, but it is being supplanted by the smaller and more powerfulqubes.
Capitalism has generally been replaced by aplanned economy that is based on themondragon (a Spanish cooperative federation) and controlled by quantum computers, but remnants of the market system persist on Earth.
Gender and sexuality in this universe are fluid and expansive, with gender and sexuality including many categories:feminine,masculine,androgynous,ambisexual,bisexual, neuter,eunuch,nonsexual, undifferentiated,gay,lesbian,queer,invert,homosexual,polymorphous,poly, labile,berdache,hijra, andtwo-spirit.
As part of a process for extending the human lifespan, many people exhibitintersex or "gynandromorphous" sex characteristics, including both penises and vaginas.
Robinson has said that the novel began with the idea of a romance between two characters from Mercury and Saturn ("mercurial" and "saturnine" in temperament, respectively), with the broader setting being developed later.[2]
Terminator, a city that slowly drives around Mercury to avoid direct light from the Sun, first appeared in Robinson's earlier novelThe Memory of Whiteness,[3] in addition to a brief mention in hisMars Trilogy. The city is also briefly mentioned in his 2015 novelAurora.
Critical reception for2312 has been mixed to positive,[4][5] withStrange Horizons magazine writing that "readers must make up their own minds".[6]
Slate Magazineand theGuardianboth reviewed2312, with Slate praising the book as "brilliant", while theGuardiancriticized the book's ending as "contrived".[7][8] Writing for theLos Angeles Times,Jeff VanderMeer called the book a "treasured gift to fans of passionate storytelling", writing that the book's "audacity" was an asset.[9]James Nicoll, however, called it a "dreadful" book, in which the "science is so terrible as to be painful to read", and he stated that he was "astonished that [it] was not intended as parody".[10]
The book won or was nominated for the following awards: