The Wild Shore: Three Californias
3.5/5
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About this ebook
The Wild Shore is the first novel in Kim Stanley Robinson's highly-acclaimed Three Californias Trilogy.
2047: For the small Pacific Coast community of San Onofre, life in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack is a matter of survival, a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. But young Hank Fletcher dreams of the world that might have been, and might yet be--and dreams of playing a crucial role in America's rebirth.
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Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson was born in 1952. After travelling and working around the world, he settled in his beloved California. He is widely regarded as the finest science fiction writer working today, noted as much for the verisimilitude of his characters as the meticulously researched scientific basis of his work. He has won just about every major sf award there is to win and is the author of the massively successful and highly praised ‘Mars’ series.
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Reviews for The Wild Shore
18 ratings14 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Life in a small fishing village in 2047 in an isolated US which has been the target of a nuclear attack. A realistic if somewhat boring portrait of life in such a village, which would presumably resemble life in similar villages 100 years ago, and getting in contact with the wider world. Not recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty good, as post-apocolyptic novels go. Caught my attention because I live in California.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enjoyed this book of post-apocalyptic America and the way the changes that could be wrought.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enjoyed this book of post-apocalyptic America and the way the changes that could be wrought.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I didn't do my homework and didn't realize at first that this series were three different futures in the same setting, so I took the ending of this book as a resolvable cliffhanger. After realizing my mistake, I liked the book even more. The book is characterized by confusion, darkness, and failing to communicate, so it's only right that I should feel the same way about what will happen next.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very different voice and feeling from Red Mars and Galileo's Dream, but just as captivating; what it lacks in fast futuresque pace typical of Robinson, it makes up for in being deeply, deeply human.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Kim Stanley Robinson has quite a following. but I can't count myself among the legions. Because I know he's got a got a great fan-base, I have attempted three of his books. But I have not been able to finish any of them.
Mr. Robinson may have some interesting ideas, but I've never been able to find any of his characters compelling. In The Wild Shore, even the premise seems kind of goofy. There has been a war that has been devastated America, but apparently the rest of the world is not similarly affected. It's as if the other great powers had ganged up on the United States to take it down. Furthermore, they continue to work hard to keep it in something of a post-apocalyptic state. The Japanese patrol our Wast Coast and bomb any efforts remaining Americans attempt to improve their technology, like building a rail line.
Mr. Robinson obviously spends a lot of time conceiving the "universes" in which his stories take place, and he fills them with details of how life is conducted in each "universe's" context. So we get a lot of dialogue between characters on the "small-talk" level. "Oh, hi, Tom. How are you?" "Fire, Joe. And you?" "OK. Say what are you doing today?" "Oh, just the usual . . ." Enough already! Cut to the chase! Fiction can be realistic, but to be good it shouldn't be mimicking every boring part of reality. While I'm sure Jesus had a lot of ordinary conversations with his disciples too, the New Testament writers had good enough sense to edit those parts out. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Apparently this guy is one of the first eco-sf writers. It's an interesting story but the lack of agency for women characters - they are just there to be wives and girlfriends - really annoyed me.
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- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is set in a quarantined America devastated by nuclear weapons. While we are subjected to much speculation by various characters, we never do find out precisely who attacked America, why they were attacked or why they are under quarantine.Kim Stanley Robertson has a real talent for presenting believable characters and situations in his books, and this one is no exception. I felt sympathy for the people in this book, who were simply trying to rebuild their lives under very trying circumstances, not knowing who to trust, who to regard as the enemy or why they were being held back from recovery.I found this book to be so realistic, particularly in the light of the fact that it was written in the mid-eighties, during the height of the cold war, that it was, at times, quite frightening. This is not the best post-apocalyptic novel I have read, but it is definitely worth your time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is Kim Stanley Robinson at his absolute best - his most lyrical, his most impassioned, and his most engaging. These interrelated novels depict three different possible futures for California: ravaged by war, an urban wasteland, an ecotopia. Gorgeous and provocative.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the year 2047, humanity struggles to survive in the ruins of coastal California. Almost 50 years before, nuclear blasts decimated thousands of cities across the United States. However, this is the only world teenaged Henry knows: a world revolving around harvests, fishing, the howl of the Santa Ana, and the danger of wild-eyed scavengers in Orange County. His ancient mentor, Tom, taught him how to read and of the way things used to be. Henry's world shifts when strangers from the outside arrive. San Diego seeks to unite the coastal communities by handcar rail, even as outside forces bomb their efforts. Henry must decide where his future lies.This was a fascinating coming-of-age tale. It's not a suspenseful read. It builds slowly, and shows how people have scraped by. I loved the details on fishing and harvest time, and all of the characters felt real and complicated. Some people might find the detailed world building to be dull, but in some ways, it reminded me of a childhood favorite, The Other Side of the Mountain, or a pioneer book. Those details made their hardship feel genuine to me.This apparently is part of a trilogy called The Three Californas. I'm a little disappointed that the other books cover different interpretations of the future Orange County and won't continue this post-apocalyptic setting. However, as a native Californian, I adore speculative fiction set in the state, and I will read the next books at some point.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the first in Kim Stanley Robinson's Trio of Orange County novels, each depicting life in an alternate California, 50 years in the future.In this novel, America was ravaged half a century ago by thousands of nuclear bombs going off. More than 95% of the population were killed, and technology was destroyed, electric power gone, and most of the survivors mad. The rest of the world was relatively unscathed however. 50 years later, small communities across America have survived and are attempting to rebuild, but outside forces are stopping the Americans from banding together and rebuilding in any meaningful way.In one valley in Orange County California, the protaganist in the novel, a teenage boy, gets drawn in to a plot by the new 'American Resistance' founded by residents of nearby San Diego...This is a great novel. It does a good job of depicting what life would be like 50 years after the near destruction of America. The story is good, if not great, and you find yourself caring about most of the characters. On it's own it is a very good book, but it will be interesting to see how it compares with the other two books in the series by the same author, depicting different futures.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enjoyed this book of post-apocalyptic America and the way the changes that could be wrought.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The great part about this book (that the reviewer below gives away)is that you read this story from the perspective of a young boy in America in the future gone wrong and it isn't clear what happened to any of the characters, they are just trying to survive. Even though it was written in the eighties the cautionary tale really works for now.