Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson

[clevermanka]

I just finished reading Robinson's Mars trilogy last week. I loved it. If you've never read it: Read It Now. It's an amazing series. Heavy on social, political, environmental, and psychological topics. Loved. It.

I think the last book I read was Living Next Door To The God Of Love, back in March. I don't read a lot anymore, and it takes a good book to pull me away from sewing. This series kept me reading, even during a very busy sewing time.

I can't overlook the possible bias/bonus of not having my favorite character die. She made it all the way through the whole series! Woohooo!!! And so did my second favorite character (although things were sketchy with him for a while there).

Anyway, Wired has an interview with Mr. Robinson on their website. It's not as good as the Locus interview from a month or so back (that interview encouraged me to pick up the trilogy in the first place). But the Wired interview is online and the Locus one isn't.

Speaking of books, I loaned my copy of Emma Bull's Bone Dance to somebody--was it anyone on my f-list? I'd really like to get that back so I can have it signed when she's in town at the end of the month. Thanks.

Comments

[jjgalahad.livejournal.com]

The title Living Next Door To The God Of Love intrigues me. :D What was it about and was it any good?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

It was excellent. I really liked it, even though I didn't understand a lot of the world, or sometimes even what was happening. It takes place in a waywayway far future, where different realities are created from mathematical and computerized constructs. I think. =D

The plot involves a teenage girl, who meets and falls in love with something that might be an incarnation of Eros; a university professor who studies uncharted realities; a valkyrie who is a very real person, despite being a program, and the god-like entity of a massive program, who wants to take over all the realities/universes. Lots of other terrific incidental characters, too. The wide assortment of in-depth characters is what kept me reading when I was thoroughly confused by the world. I'd definitely recommend it.

Oh, author: Justina Robson.

[jjgalahad.livejournal.com]

Most intriguing! Once I'm done slogging through The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil and Nightmare Town by Dashiell Hammett, I'll have to hunt it down. Thanks!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

If you like hardboiled and noir, I would also recommend The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril. It was fabulous. I plowed through it over Thanksgiving weekend last year.

[maibe.livejournal.com]

My husband read that and loved it. I haven't read it yet; I'm just getting started on Conjure Wife (http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Ladies-Conjure-Wife-Darkness/dp/031286972X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-4593850-6556464?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183650585&sr=8-1).

Thanks for the book recommendations; I'm always looking for something new and interesting.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed Red Mars but haven't picked up the rest of the series yet. I agree, it's very engrossing. What an insane, powerful way to start the book! And I thought he'd back off from it, declare it a dream sequence, or something, once the main narrative caught up with it, but I'm so happy that he didn't.

And Frank is quite the character; it was enjoyable having a bad guy with motivations that were comprehendable and human.

Probably the next thing I'll read of his is The Years of Rice and Salt or his short story collection for which I can't currently recall the title.

Incidentally, I've read Bone Dance, too! I picked it up because it was "urban magic," but it was really more post-apocalypse than I'd been prepared for. You should REALLY pick up Sean Stewart's The Night Watch; sdemory will have my back on this one, I'd bet money.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Cool! Thanks for the reading tip.

I'd tell you who my favorite characters were, but I wouldn't want to spoil the suspense for anyone who hasn't read the series.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Series?

There was a sequel?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. And they're all great! No slow decline in the third novel.

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry - I thought we were on Bone Dance still. Yeah, I'm down with Mars series; I'll read all of them, eventually.

Apparently his post-climatic-change series, Forty Days of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below and Sixty Days and Counting, has him interviewed in Wired this week:
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2007/07/stanley_robinson_qa

[chronovore.livejournal.com]

*Notices link*
*slaps forehead*

I was wondering what had lead to me opening that link.

It's after 1 a.m.
I'm going to bed.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

=D

Obviously you need some more chai tea.