Pacific Edge

By: Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's Summary

North America, 2065. In a world that has rediscovered harmony with nature, the village of El Modena, California, is an ecotopia in the making. Kevin Claiborne, a young builder who has grown up in this "green" world, now finds himself caught up in the struggle to preserve his community's idyllic way of life from the resurgent forces of greed and exploitation.

The final volume in Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias triptych, Pacific Edge is a brilliant work of science fiction and an outstanding literary achievement.

©2013 Kim Stanley Robinson (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc. and Skyboat Media, Inc.

No escapism here

Because this book is set only 50 years in the future (2065), it doesn't offer a strong feeling of escape and otherworldliness, as science fiction might. Rather, we are trapped in a realistic near future in which the effects of climate change are starting to be felt, and the lines between governments and corporations are blurred. So it's not a particularly easy listen, nor is it particularly up-lifting.

There was one aspect to the story that I found fascinating, however, and that was the discussion of "green" architecture--how architecture had to change because of the warming climate. One of the main characters is an architect, and there's much discussion of the mechanics of tearing down 20th-Century buildings and re-making them.

As to the narrator, I sometimes had a hard time telling the different characters apart. It was also hard to tell when the point of view shifted between different characters, so perhaps this book would be more easily digested in print.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

best in series

for me this was by far the best of the three californias books. the story was very thoughtful, well developed, provocative. i personally identified with kevin, the protagonist, although he is straight and white, unlike me. i wonder if this was the narrator's favorite, too, since the narration was far superior to the other books in the series.

good, but be aware: NOT a trilogy

Good enough as a free standing novel, as long as you don't expect a chronological trilogy. I like post-apocalyptic pulp , so I loved the first novel. But this book is set in a semi-utopia, that's just not my thing...

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

didn't finish

a turgid account of bureaucratic maneuvers and zoning law in a future California that is the same as the present but different because it is the future.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful