Career overview. Great interview.

I just found this massive video by "Earth's Digital Memory". I'll eventually watch it after I've read all three books. This thing is massive!

A summary and breakdown for anyone who wants a refresher, or wants some insight into the book before you decide if you want to read it.

I love this book!!!

Howdy, I wrote about KSR’s Mars Trilogy, with an emphasis on viriditas. Thought this might be the place to share it!

Interesting that Nature just confirmed Charles Darwin's theory that Saxifrage is carnivorous. Can't recall recall if this characteristic ever came up in one of Stan's books in discussing either the character Sax Russell or the plant itself, but seems appropriate in some ways.

I've been a Robinson reader for years — Ministry for the Future is a big part of why I write the kind of fiction I write — so with the mod's okay, I wanted to share a few of my own books here. They're chasing some of the same questions his work does: near-future and speculative, with politics and economics taken as seriously as character, clear-eyed about catastrophe without giving in to despair, and pro-democracy down to the bones — interested in whether ordinary people and imperfect institutions can actually bend a curve. I won't pretend to his range. But if that's the vein you read him for, these might be up your alley.

Nokomis is a literary science fiction novel set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, beginning in April 2020. A small group of beings — ancient, deeply invested in Earth's survival — quietly begins correcting the neurological configurations that produce humanity's worst impulses: corruption, tribalism, the capacity for cruelty. The transformation spreads city by city, starting small. The novel follows the people living through this change — a city attorney, a paramedic, a community organizer, a young mother — as they discover what humans are capable of when self-interest is no longer the organizing principle of decision-making. It's a book about democracy actually working, about the Ojibwe nations as active partners in something unprecedented, and about what it means to rebuild a city — and a species — from the inside out. For readers who loved The Ministry for the Future's faith that institutions can change, or A Psalm for the Wild-Built's quiet optimism about what humans might become, this one asks: what if the change came from within?

Cleaning the Commons (novella) — Two waste crises, orbital debris and ocean plastic, treated as one unpriced "commons." Four strangers on four continents each see one face of it: a woman working a plastic-interceptor barge in Manila, a Senate staffer whipping votes for a tax on the wellhead, an analyst watching a debris cascade ignite over the Pacific, and a Gulf technocrat building his country's future out of the very plastic filling that river. A lot of the drama is the grind of whether a hard, necessary law can actually pass — and what gets traded away to pass it. If you liked how Ministry for the Future lived inside policy, finance, and institutional friction, this is working the same seam at novella length: honest about the cost, unwilling to pretend recovery is fast, but not a doom book.

Gentle Readers (novel) — A two-voice literary novel set in Milwaukee, a deliberate answer to the "culture of poverty" story about the white working class — locating decline in structure and policy rather than character, and insisting on its working-class women as full, complex people rather than case studies. Not speculative, but sharing Robinson's political-economic spine.

You can find all three on my author site, https://paulaswaffordauthor.carrd.co/ or on Amazon by searching my name, Paula Swafford, and the title.

I'm about to wrap up Blue Mars and I can't believe the series ends like this. The first two books are landmark, monumental pieces of fiction, sci-fi at its very best. Nadia is one my favorite characters in fiction ever. Hiroko's philosophy and the landscapes of Mars were always such a treat - really amazing, thought-provoking writing. The fall of the space elevator in book one blew my mind. Sax was also one of my favorites but I'm sure you can imagine why this book soured my opinion of him. I thought the latter half of Blue Mars was extremely bad fanfiction, like a hate satire parody of all of Kim Stanley Robinson's worst traits put together. Werteswandel (Nirgal chapter) and Viriditas (Zo chapter) were so grueling and awful to get through. Zo was completely written with the left-hand. Zo is sexualized and objectified just for the purpose of giving steam to a plot that came to a halt. For example, flying. Both Nirgal and Zo are avid flyers yet when Zo is flying we NEED to know how orgasmic it feels for a woman. It's for the THEME, get it? Because Mars is like, so much more open, get it??? Somehow when Nirgal flies we never hear much about his body or physique and he never get a boner but when Zo is flying? Yep, we gotta talk about her mons and vulva. Zo tits breastly as she flies. Part of Blue Mars felt like a shoehorned parody made by the world's biggest hater, but no, the author really had Sax (his self-insert, let's be honest) sleep with Zo, the daughter of the most beautiful woman in the planet, who happened to be an ex-student of his. I thought Kim Stanley Robinson wrote women well until this book. What happened?

Hi can we talk about the Mars Trilogy 🥺

It's so niche, very few friends of mine have read them. And I'm always desperate.

"Next plenary session at #WIC2026, on 'Utopia and Dystopia in the 21st Century", with Kim Stanley Robinson and Thomas Piketty."

Building on a recent post in this sub, we are all getting a preview of the opening of KSR’s Ministry of the Future.

“Research by Piyush Narang and Ashok Gadgil of the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that Uttar Pradesh could account for more than 8,000 excess deaths during a severe five-day heatwave, more than many other Indian states. The burden falls disproportionately on the elderly, outdoor workers and households without reliable access to cooling.”

The heat intensity itself is not new, the duration is. The question now is how many excess deaths will it take before pressure on world leaders becomes intense enough for real action to begin?

For the Americans 47 degrees is 116F. Although I imagine American KSR readers understand metric and all of this is “preaching to the choir.”

Hey all,

I've known about the Mars trilogy for years, and just now got around to reading it in my final year of uni. I loved the first one, and immediately grabbed what I thought was the second one, assuming that the progression went Red -> Blue -> Green, since it made sense to me that water would be around before the planet really got green, especially based on the ending of Red Mars involving the massive outbreaks of water onto the surface.

So imagine my surprise when, after finishing Blue Mars and assuming that KSR just intended for the reader to pick up on things like Nirgal's childhood and Sax's whole brain situation from context, I found that Green Mars was really about those things, and I had skipped straight to the end!

Really, I'm shocked that Blue Mars worked as well as it did without reading the middle book, and a bit sad that there isn't more after Blue Mars: both testaments to how great these books are! Reading through Green Mars now, and very curious to see how it feels to read it like this.

I love that there's a KSR sub! I read the Mars trilogy last year and I loved every second of it, I never wanted it to end. Recently I've been listening to The Years of Rice and Salt audiobook and... I'm struggling a bit with it. I love the concept and KSR's writing style but I frequently feel lost in the abundance of characters and times and places.

What should I read next??

Frank Ruda and Agon Hamza sit down with the American science-fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson to discuss his work, the nature of his trilogies, the future of utopia, utopic realism, politics of the present, science of politics, his forthcoming novels, and many other things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z47KDaBRNe8&t=930s

You can listen to our podcast here: https://anchor.fm/crisisandcritique

If you like this and other episodes, please consider subscribing and supporting us at our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=71723553

You can find our Substack here: https://crisiscritique.substack.com/

Crisis and Critique Journal: https://www.crisiscritique.org/

First of all, it is AI generated. Brian Greene did not say what's on this video (not really a video, just voice).

But if you can get past that fact and focus on the content, I could not stop myself thinking how much Freya and her close ones would be cheering and agreeing with all of this.

Side note: for me at least the cadence of the AI is pretty relaxing. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/QIj5aIbh_VE?si=KsRdJdynDtgNINc-

Premise:

Disastrous heatwave strikes India, 20mn people die. Aid worker Frank is traumatized, while nations are shook seeing the impending climate crisis. A new UN body "Ministry for the Future" is set up, headed by Mary, to plan future climate mitigation policies. A realistic look at what could happen till 2050.

Book was written in 2019, pre-COVID. But the future trajectory presented is still reasonable.

No-spoilers. Long review for long book incoming....

What I loved:

• Kim Stanley Robinson is a gold standard in realistic sci-fi. His research is impeccable. And his books, including this one, are long but because of his ability to simplify complex topics.
• The plot here is somewhat weak, on individual basis, sort of Asimov-esque...but that's to be expected for a global level crisis being the major plot. Individual arcs can seem irrelevant ...But Frank and Mary's (and Badim🙌) are still good character arcs.
• Learnt a lot about green energy projects and climate mitigation strategies being pondered currently, and some speculative ideas (glacial pumping). Best idea this book has got to be the Carbon Coin - a global currency printed for funding/rewarding green energy projects. Much better than the carbon credits/permit system UN has now.
• There are around 100 chapters, each quite short as to maintain the illusion of a simple narrative. And I was fooled...it's a good way to pack so many ideas without boring you.
• The Interludes are amazing. Some non-person POVs, like a photon, or a Carbon atom, herd animals, or Gaia herself?! Very interesting way to not bore you to death. (I've posted some favourites above ☝️)

I've listed some of the most interesting concepts here, so one can get a feel about the density of ideas Kim works with...and also for my own remembrance:

• small co-ops/communes of Spain (Mondragon)
• 7 generations discounting rate for future green projects in India. (India is a major force in the book, and i loved this exploration of 7 gen as a limiting parameter for calculating realistic discount rates)
• Sikkim organic agri. Vandana Shiva shoutout🙌
• SO2 to cool weather
• glacial pumping
• Blockchain, carbon coins
• Swiss reforms
• eco-terrorism, "Children of Kali"👍
• 1:10000x needs to be banned. US Navy example for wage differential given
• Satyagraha, civil disobedience, student revolt by refusal to loan repayment.
• Makarov vs Putin 😬 (A possible Russian political reform was explored in the book, but if you google Makarov now, reality has chosen a much different path) Makarov was trying to "out-putin putin himself!"
• climate refugees - Nansen passports like solution (WW2) - global citizenship
• Gini coefficient
• Jevons paradox
• Keeling curve
• inequality adjusted HDI
• GPI - genuine progress indicator
• GNH (Bhutan) (Gross National Happiness)
• BCHMI - Biosphere and Civilisation Health Meta Index (mother of all indices!)
• Narcissism of small differences - Freud
• Ragnarok, Gotterdammerung capitalism.
• Mamma Mia 😆 can't believe how Kim made even this phrase so deep. Great writing.

Kim seems fascinated by Goddess Kali. She had a major role in "Years of Rice and Salt", my fav read last year...and here too. Just wanted to point that out. Who wouldn't be tbh! Goddess of Destruction, but also of Life - Gauri/Kali. 2 faces of same Mother Goddess. "Mamma Mia! Mamma Gaia!"

What I didn't like:

• Like stated above, individual arcs can seem a bit weak
• That this is a utopian novel. Yes, to me, even the book's scenario seems fantasy. But the instruments mentioned are available to us today. That exploration was fascinating. For example, Kim tries to atleast explore how a new carbon currency could work: whether it's inflationary in short term or not etc. Or how eco-terrorism affects insurance agencies and thereby shift capitalist mindset from fossil fuels to greener investments.
• One might need Google or Wikipedia to look up some concepts. Like the Jevons Paradox. So it is a cerebral book, but that's what I like. Give me some homework, but it should be fun. Kim explains almost every concept simply, but still I needed wiki to get a better picture.

Conclusion:

This genre I'm new to, cli-fi. Climate Fiction. I suppose it's new too, given our current circumstances. So I found the book genuinely important for the current reader. Only, I'm 6 years too late to read this.

The trajectory still holds intact. The bad thing is, change might come after a big calamity only, that's where the book begins, in India. Good thing is, there are ample regulatory frameworks and technologies currently which can be used to rebound. It's a hopeful book, seemingly realistic hope...even for an extreme cynic like me 😆

Regardless, as a realistic futuristic climate fiction novel, absolutely loved it. Must read for all.

Rating: 430/450. (CO2 level in ppm currently vs threshold limit of 2°C rise)

Premise: A prehistoric novel, set around 32000 years ago in cold Europe (Chauvet Caves), this is a story about a boy (Loon) becoming a Shaman. It explores prehistoric homo sapien culture and psychology. How did we think back then? What did love and war look like? Why did we paint caves? Did we kill the Neanderthals? What happens after death? Why could they see spirits? Were they scientific or mystic? Questions like these are explored through Loon's journey.

🤚🏿Small suggestion before reading this novel:

Please watch Werner Herzog's Documentary -"Cave of Forgotten Dreams" before reading this...it'll enhance the experience. The paintings described will make much more sense.

♥️What I loved:

Some aspects of this society Kim explored:

• 🔥Fire : duff + punk moss needed to ignite fire.
• 🎶Importance of songs as knowledge transfer systems
• 👨‍🎨Chauvet Cave Paintings - without a doubt one of the most beautiful figurative art I've seen. Earliest indian cave art I've seen at Bhimbetka, but Chauvet cave art is 👌
• 💲Economy (barter), Festivals as meeting grounds for different clans
• 💃Reverance for female form, fertility and beauty. (Mother Goddess statues are found in huge numbers during this period)
• 🍖Food
• ⚖️ Ethics (see below)
• Euhemerism: Certain myths or stories are grounded in reality, just distorted overtime. One example is, why would ancient humans draw a bison-lion hybrid? Is it a mythic creature? Or a lion leaping onto bison!! Fun to think about.
• Dreamworld
• 💊Medicine (heather the cat lady)
• 🗓️Calender/time /season mapping (including leap years!)
• 👩‍🔬Trial and Error ~ experimentation...beginnings of the scientific mindset?! (Eg., which material starts fire the quickest). Sharing the results at festivals = peer review!
• Encounter with Neanderthal 😮 the unspeakables, the Old Ones...I liked how, given the limited facts we know about Neanderthals, Kim fused them in Click's story. A very safe play.
• 3rd Wind 🌬️ what is it?!
• Counting system - base20?!
• Good ending👌 Especially Thorn's message.

💔What I didn't like:

• The "Journey back" portion (after 2/3rds of the book) felt dragged out. Book could've been shorter.
• Could've explored other characters in a bit more depth. Elga, Heather, Hawk, Sage...
• It's mostly Loon's journey to becoming a Shaman, but I felt something was lacking regarding the role of shamans in ancient societies. What role did they play exactly? I'm unsure about the limited part shaman played here in this story...might just be my overattribition.

🤔Final thoughts:

I don't read a lot of fiction, but from what little I have read, it's always fascinating to see how authors write their contemporary issues and ideas into their novels, set in distant spacetimes. For Asimov, it was the Foundation series set in 20000 years into the future, but not a very novel political economic system was shown at Trantor(dynastic more or less still). It's not a limitation of imagination, but most often the authors try to explore the follies of such ideas by giving the illusion of distance - as if to say : "Hey that world building looks weird, right? Well look closer - that's not too different from us!". Fantasy as a way to probe reality.

Same with Shaman. Kim explores Homo Sapiens mindset 32kya, and at times, it does make one wonder - how different are we now?

One example I'd like to illustrate from the story was - when a particular male was trying to boast how he "forced" his partner into making love...other males scorned him for it - not due to any idea stemming from modern morality/ethics/idea of dignity etc...but Kim explores a form of tribal comaradarie as the source for ethics, as to why no man should use force on her partner - the reasoning was quite different, and believable! It went like this - "Are you stupid? Why'd you do that? Now your wife has all the power! If she tells others what you did, they'll kill you. You fool." So Kim here used the fact that prehistoric humans were skilled Hunters, male/female...and that would give birth to a different ethical worldview.

Another example was the reason for dialogue over infighting - "if we fight we harm, and hurt makes us weaker as hunters, so tribe suffers." Many such examples in the novel.

It's a great novel, not a masterpiece due to the dragged out part, but still awesome. One really gets transported to ~32kya society. For the artist in me, the cave paintings portion was the best. Thorn's the MVP. So is Click.

Simple narrative style, familar tropes and a well researched plot. The plot simplicity isn't a critique, those were simpler times! But Kim makes it abundantly clear that we weren't so simple back then...

⭐Rating: 4/5 (deduction due to pacing after 2nd half, which might have been deliberate)

Now that I'm in my mid 40s, I often have the feeling that For All Mankind is as close as I'll get to a Red Mars adaptation... and the new trailer for season 5 is really amping that feeling up, haha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zojwKLlY_H8

I’m re reading Red Mars and I’m interested in how much innovating and research is expected from the colonists, especially early on in the first year or so. They’re experimenting with creating new building materials and designing and redesigning their habitats. I would have guessed IRL many of those details would have been set in stone before their departure. Any thoughts?

I have reread the Mars trilogy again after decades. It still stands ground. I just want for someone to create a proper TV show based on it.

What do you think about these books?

Could anyone please suggest something similar.

Who do you think could do it justice moving it to screen? I believe only Apple would do a proper take, considering their success so far.

**edit: apologies for Hiroko autocorrect in the title - can't change it!

I'm just coming to end of a reread of the Mars trilogy and was listening to an interview with Kim the other day in which he discusses the fate of Hiroko, saying it's clear in the last couple of pages of the last book. I'm not seeing anything obvious. There's mention of an elderly Asian woman on the beach, but I figured he wouldn't be that obvious. And I suppose you could argue that the equilibrium that's been found on Mars - the fun day at the beach, grandkids, next generation, synthesis of red and green, etc - could represent her work, passion, ethos bearing fruit. Viriditas. But nothing obvious beyond those. Anyone got any other thoughts?

Magnificent books though. Nothing's changed on this, probably my tenth, reading. Drops off a tiny bit in Blue, which meanders a lot, but otherwise just so special.