ICEHENGE - Kim Stanley Robinson

CLASSIC SCI-FI WEEK

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite, working authors, and has been since I started reading his work in the late 1980's. It's nice to see that his older work is being reissued to be found by new audiences or re-discovered and re-enjoyed by those of us who've read it before.

The book Icehenge is a collection of three novellas, from three different points of view.

The first takes place in 2248 with Emma Weil narrating. Currently on board an asteroid mining ship, she becomes hostage to the ship's crew who want her to help them to convert three stolen ships from the Mars Starship Association. They'd like the ships to be capable of ferrying passengers on centuries-long voyages. Born on Mars, Emma isn't keen on doing favors for dissidents or revolutionaries stealing Mars property.  But the longer she spends time with the dedicated crew, the more she sympathizes with them despite returning to her home.

The second story then takes place in 2547 and is narrated by Martian archaeologist Hjalmar Nederland. He discovers Emma Weil's journal in the old ruins of a city dome and he now questions the Mars official story of the failed revolution 300 years ago. Also in her journal, Emma notes that she witnessed the revolutionaries' starship builders making drawings of circular designs with comments about leaving a mark to prove they'd once been there. Is Icehenge nothing more than a designers ode to having been?

The final story follows  Nederland's nearly a century later, with Hjalmar's great-grandson, Edmond Doya, setting out to prove that Hjalmar was wrong and that Emma Weil's diary was a hoax. But if that's all true, Icehenge could have a more terrifying origin....

This is not my favorite Robinson work. When I first read it in the late 80's it took me two or three attempts to get through it.  I wasn't picking up on the fact that it was three separate, but related, stories at the time (we didn't have the internet to tell us things back then, kids!) and I struggled to understand why we lost characters and picked up new ones.  Today it makes much more sense to me, but it's still not my favorite work. This feels like we're brought in to watch a day in the life of Emma/Hjalmar/Edmond and then move on.  Icehenge is our titular subject but it's a prop to the lives of Hjalmar and Edmond (it's nothing to Emma except in passing).

What I do see in this book is Robinson's exceptional character study ... the sort of study that he uses in the his very expansive epics. But the story itself isn't there.  Perhaps this has more to do with publishing and marketing - trying to make a novel out of stories?

As stories (or novellas), I like Emma's a lot.  It stands alone well and really does tell a story. Hjalmar's is also interesting but it's not as powerful as Emma's. Edmond's on the other hand, really doesn't fare well for me.  We don't get enough time spent on how life/society has changed in the century, and it's never clear to me why it's so important to disprove Hjalmar's theories on Icehenge and the revolution.

And if the stories got weaker as the progressed, then, as a novel, the run up to the climax gets less and less exciting.  

As a novel, this doesn't work well for me.  As a collection of three related stories, it's pretty good. But it's never billed as three novellas (at least not in my collections). In fact this newest releases refers to it as "the award-winning author's first Martian novel".  Hmm.

This is not the book I'd recommend to anyone wanting to try a Kim Stanley Robinson novel for the first time, but it's still worth reading.  My suggestion is to read it as three stories.

Looking for a good book? Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge is available again and worth a read for Robinson fans, but note that 'novel' might be stretching it.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

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Icehenge

author: Kim Stanley Robinson

publisher: Tor Trade

ISBN: 9781250325662 

paperback, 288