Icehenge

Icehenge  

First edition of Icehenge, published by Ace Books as a Mass Market paperback, with cover art by Mark Weber
Author(s) Kim Stanley Robinson
Cover artist Mark Weber
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Science fiction novel
Publisher Ace Books
Publication date 1984
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 262
ISBN 0441358543
OCLC Number 11191345

Icehenge (1984) is a science fiction novel by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Though it was published almost ten years before Kim Stanley Robinson's acclaimed Mars trilogy and takes place in a different version of the future, Icehenge contains elements that should be familiar to readers of the Mars series. Extreme human longevity, Martian political revolution, historical revisionism, and shifts between primary characters are all present.

Contents

Plot

Icehenge is part mystery, part psychological drama, and is set in three distinct time periods. The story shifts from a failed Martian political revolution of 2248, to an expedition to explore a mysterious monument on the north pole of Pluto three centuries later, and ultimately to a space station orbiting Saturn, home to a reclusive and wealthy woman who may hold the key to solving a mystery spanning centuries.

Development history

The first part of this novel was originally published as the novella To Leave a Mark in the November 1982 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.[1]

The third part of Icehenge was originally published as the novella On the North Pole of Pluto in 1980 in the anthology Orbit 18 edited by Damon Knight.[2] Robinson gave the novella in rough form to Ursula K. Le Guin to read and edit while he was enrolled in her writing workshop at UCSD in the spring of 1977.[3] Views of Saturn from the space station inhabited by the character Caroline Holmes in this section were inspired by images of Saturn taken during the Voyager flybys.[4]

Publication history

References

  1. ^ Robinson, Kim Stanley (November 1982). "To Leave a Mark". The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 63 (5): 5–54. 
  2. ^ Robinson, Kim Stanley (1980). "On the North Pole of Pluto". In Damon Knight. Orbit 21. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0060124261. 
  3. ^ Robinson, Kim Stanley (2010). "Untitled". In Karen Joy Fowler. 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le. Seattle: Aqueduct Press. p. 18. ISBN 9781933500430. 
  4. ^ Robinson, Kim Stanley (2006). "Saturn Sublime". Saturn: A New View. New York: Abrams. p. 16. ISBN 9780810930902. 

External Links

The work of disenchantment never ends: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge by Jo Walton

Icehenge at ISFDB

Novels
Standalone novels
Icehenge (1984) · The Memory of Whiteness (1985) · A Short, Sharp Shock (1990) · Antarctica (1997) · The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) · Galileo's Dream (2009)
The Wild Shore (1984) · The Gold Coast (1988) · Pacific Edge (1990)
Red Mars (1992) · Green Mars (1993) · Blue Mars (1996)
Science in the Capital
Collections
The Planet on the Table (1986) · Escape from Kathmandu (1989) · Remaking History (1991) · The Martians (1999) · Vinland the Dream (2001) · The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson (2010)