2312

By: Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrated by: Sarah Zimmerman

Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future.

The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them.

©2012 Kim Stanley Robinson (P)2012 Hachette Audio

Up to KSR’s usual excellent standards

I love his technology sense as well as his projection of social behaviors. Great character development. As good as RedMars, Blue Mars, Green Mars.

A masterful exploration of the medium future.

OK. This is a fantastic work, the best new book of 2012 so far ??? dare I say, a decade-defining work which captures a snapshot of our medium future???s best hopes? There???s a solar system-spanning medium future of ???qubes??? (quantum computer AIs), terraforming and thousands of hollowed out asteroid ???terraria???, explorations of gender, and post-capitalist extra-terrestrial economies ??? amidst the grim passage from here to there through climate change, failed geoengineering fixes, and political and economic crises. There???s interstitial future history ???non-fiction??? excerpts. There???s an honest to goodness, memorable, building love story between the Mercurial Swan (an avant garde artist/architect/etc.) and Saturnine Wahram, a diplomat from Io. There???s even a (small) bit of policework from Inspector Jean Genette. The book opens well, builds and builds, with perhaps a bit of side-trackery on Venus, and other than some misgivings with some bits of the final resolution (and some stunning repeat stupidity from Swan) I was very much blown away by the novel. The overall planet-spanning plot works; the love story really works; it???s wonderful sf across the strata of setting, science, plot, and character. It???s on the longer side, but narrator Zimmerman plugs along without much drag behind her. She gives a mostly ???invisible narrator??? performance, not engaging in vocal gymnastics to develop strong accents, instead relying primarily on slight variations to distinguish speakers when necessary. Clean and crisply done, and well-suited to the work. Highly recommended.

Excellent concept, but lacked consistent narrative tension.

Sarah Zimmerman did an excellent job narrating this piece. Her talent lent much to the liveliness of the descriptions of scenery, sound, and soul that painted the landscapes of our solar system. Robinson has a knack for making you feel like you could step into whatever environment she's writing about, to the point of poetry. Writing feelings is her apparent strength--- yet, now that I'm done, I don't feel much for Swan and company.

The ideas explored in this book were unique and interesting. The spine of the narrative, the set and setting, and the scope of conflict were enough to draw me in and carry me to the end.

Sadly, you will find that despite the clever plot devices, political intrigue, and biologically-dubious romance, the meat of the plot seems to be rather... Diffuse.

I lost interest part way through and continued on hoping that it would pick up speed toward the end. It did, thankfully, but in a rather stilted, halting fashion, and the final chapters of character resolution left a lot to be desired.

The very end seemed to be more of a non-ending. I had no feeling of catharsis, triumph, despare, or happiness for our characters and their conflicts. Simply dissapointment that the potential of the world Robinson created had not been realized through the actions of Swan and her compatriots.

I didn't dislike the book, but I won't be recommending it to anyone that I know. The characterization explored here was not to my taste, and I was eventually bored by the useless pettiness of our Swan--- a character trait that was never really explained or changed by time. I liked Pauline better, in the end.

3/5 for the story.

A good book, but not K. S. Robinson's best

I'm a huge fan of the Mars Trilogy and "The Years of Rice and Salt". I was, therefore, very excited to try "2312", and expectations were considerably high.
The book, although not a formal sequel to the Mars Trilogy, has a very similar feel, on the hard science side of sci-fi, which is much to my liking. Many of the ideas were already explored in the Mars Trilogy, like the anti-aging treatment, self-assembly bot swarms, fusion drives and the overal pace of human colonization of the solar system. He also comes back to envisioning a post-capitalist society, mostly based or embraced by the off-earth settlements.
As usual, he also focuses on the environmental aspects of human impact and interaction with earth and the solar system, and his descriptions of locations, both natural and human-made are extremely detailed and lifelike.

There are some new concepts not explored by him before, in particular quantum computers and AI, which forms the core of the novel's plot.
And that's where I thought that the book was not as good as it could be, with characters and the plot being fairly naive, as if many of the potential issues with AI's had never been considered before, which is extremely unlikely.

Sarah Zimmerman's performance was, I must say, not good, specially when comparing it with other narrators like Katherine Kellgren or Susanna Clarke. Characters all sounded the same. Almost no effort was made to give them unique accents and character, even though they were all from different locations, not only of Earth, but of the solar system. Specially in the first half of the book, Sarah's performance was really boring. It does get better later in the book, though.

Overall, I do think that 2312 is a worthy "read" (I'm still confused at times as to how to refer to audio books), but I would rate the Mars Trilogy (in a very similar style) and "The Years of Rice and Salt" (an alternative history book, and therefore fairly different) above it.

Very monotone narrator makes it hard to listen to

For a story that has a lot going on the narrators monotone voice through the entire story made it very hard to keep my attention. There are a lot of characters, settings, and references to fictional technology that if your mind wonders for a little bit there is confusion later on.

Colonizing Asteroids

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

No . I love KSR but I would rather bang my head on a wall than listen to this again from this narrator .

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

More characters . I enjoyed the time when the small group travelled the tunnel underground on Mercury

Would you be willing to try another one of Sarah Zimmerman’s performances?

Very unwilling . I am really not sure ( Sorry Sarah ) if I could , Maybe this book was ot her style .

Did 2312 inspire you to do anything?

Think Big

Any additional comments?

I have read and listened and enjoyed the Mars Trilogy and understand the style of KSR but the narration for 2312 killed this book . I may try to swap this book and one day purchase a hard copy and read for myself or maybe listen again if re-narrated .

The year 2312 and so much is going on

Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 is an overly ambitious novel that has both elements of a thriller mystery and a love story against the backdrop of earthly environmental collapse and solar system wide development. As a result of ongoing and unrelenting global warming and environmental collapse, the solar system has undergone major terraforming including Mars, Venus, and the outer planetary moons of Jupiter and Saturn. At the same time, improvements with medicine have pushed human longevity to 200 years with talk of impending immortality as well designer sex preferences. Artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced to the point of implantable personal units. Earth remains recalcitrant to change and tension between them and the rest of ex-terra humanity is increasing. Into this mix, terrorist acts begin to crop up and that investigation points to a possible AI threat at work.

Robinson throws in everything, but the kitchen sink for a technical tour de force effort. There are detailed descriptions of necessary terraforming requirements for nearly every solar system body. There's a nifty setup with a necklace of planetoids inside the orbit of Mercury that transmit light to the outer system worlds. At the same time, he describes efforts to save earth biodiversity by the hollowing out of asteroids and creating designer habitats or space terrariums to preserve endangered and extinct (from Earth) flora and fauna. There is also an attempt to repopulate Earth with animal life. The AI angle is pursued with the notion that there is a critical tipping point where AI becomes self replicating and self evolving, much to humanity's detriment. Finally, Robinson outlines medical advances that expand the bimodal repertoire of male and female with an almost endless array of possibilities. The mystery of the terrorist attacks as well as the budding romance between two of the main characters is almost an afterthought to maintain the appearance of a novel. Perhaps the most unlikely hypothesis in the whole tale is that after three centuries of continual environmental degradation, political and economic systems remain firmly rooted in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The narration is less than optimal. Character distinction is minimal and the pronunciation of many scientific terms needs some "proof-listening".

Good story but you’ll need a dictionary

I enjoyed the science fiction side of the story. But I thought the author was a little pretentious by showing off of his mastery to of the English language using words nobody knows. I needed a dictionary while listening.

Excellent hard sci-fi, compelling human narrative

Robinson scarifies nothing in the way of humanism in this far future, grounded, sci-fi epic.

Great world building, anticlimactic plot

Very immersive, but the plot never quite comes to a head. You’re left a little less than satisfied