[bookshare-discuss] Scifi is archived

From: "Robert Acosta" <boacosta@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2014 11:09:40 -0800
Science Fiction club 2312 has been posted to the Science Fiction Discussion
Group Archives and can also be found on the front page of
http://accessibleworld.org/ under the "Recent Content" heading.

 

The link to the full description of the archive is below:

http://accessibleworld.org/content/science-fiction-club-2312-0

 

The link to download the file is below:

http://accessibleworld.org/sites/default/files/science-fiction-club-meeting-
11-06-14.mp3

 

Science Fiction Discussion Group description:

 

Our book, 2312, is available from Bookshare in publisher quality, and from
BARD.

 

The BARD version is at:

 

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.nls/db.74887

 

and the Bookshare version is at:

 

https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/836331

 

Here is the NLS annotation:

 

Mercury, 2312. After Swan Er Hong's beloved grandmother Alex dies, Swan
wants time to grieve. Instead, she is thrust into an interplanetary
investigation about what Alex's research of Earth may have uncovered--and if
her death was really of natural causes.

 

Here is the Bookshare Long Synopsis from the publisher:

 

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.

 

Finally, here's a review that a lot of people found helpful from Amazon:

 

A Review for the Haves, and the Have Nots, June 6, 2012 By Daniel Murphy
"Dan Murphy"

This review is from: 2312 (Hardcover)

Two separate reviews in one, here: one for people that have read Kim Stanley
Robinson (KSR) before, and one for those who have not.

Review 1: For those that have read and enjoyed KSR in the past (e.g.
veterans of the massive Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars trilogy), the
message is simple.  Get your hands on this book, kick back, and enjoy.  KSR
is at his terraforming best here; the Solar System a fabulous playground for
the relentless expansion of Earth's most potent primate species.  If you
liked what KSR did with Mars, you'll find what he does with the rest of the
Solar System breathtaking.  And, you'll get, almost as an afterthought, a
plot involving the elements of murder mystery, romance, political intrigue,
and thriller all in one.  2312, in several senses, outdoes the Mars Trilogy,
and builds on it.  There is not a trace of succinctness in the entire book.
But, fan, you already knew that about KSR.

Review 2:  Never read KSR?  KSR is a must read, if you think of yourself as
a sci-fi buff.  Not doing so would be like claiming to be a fan of English
literature, but not having read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (or if
length is a criteria, George Eliot's Mill on the Floss).  And if you're
going to read KSR, 2312 is a wonderful place to start.

KSR writes hard sci-fi.  Virtually nothing included in this deeply
imaginative exploration of what mankind's expansion throughout our solar
system might look like by 2312, is without scientific foundation.  KSR is a
modern day polymath, with a knowledge base that is spectacularly broad, and
not lacking in depth.  What you'll be treated to in 2312 is page after page
(after page, after page, after page) of KSR's informed and spectacularly
innovative vision of where the marriage of technology and the human genome
is headed.  And if such speculation fascinates you, stop right here and
order the book:  if anyone does it better than KSR, I haven't yet
encountered them.

Plot?  Ah.  You're one of those:  you want a STORY along with the
spectacularly high-tech scaffolding.  Hmm.  Well, there IS a story here.
And a good one.  One that could have been related in about one third of the
576 pages in this book.  There is a romance, and a mystery, and an AI
thriller that triggers recall of Asimov's I Robot.  KSR is an excellent
writer, and his opening scene of going for a walk on Mercury as the
terrifying, searing light of the oh-so-close Sun creeps over the horizon is
flat out astounding.

But plot is not his predominant strength, providing in this book just enough
cohesion to graft KSR's stunningly visionary prognostications together. I
liked the plot.  Enjoyed it thoroughly.  But if plot is your most-prized
quality for choosing a sci-fi novel, on the stellar scale, think white dwarf
rather than supernova here:  it sheds light, but won't vaporize you with its
intensity.

Overall?  KSR fan:  do it.  You won't regret it.  KSR on steroids.  New KSR

reader: great place to start, and if you're a sci-fi reader, you most
definitely owe yourself a KSR novel at least once in life.

 

Hope you can join us next month to talk about this one.

 

Evan

 

Host: Evan Reese

E-Mail: mentat1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

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Robert Acosta, President

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(818) 998-0044

www.helpinghands4theblind.org
[bookshare-discuss] Scifi is archived

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