The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Our September 2020 read is Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson. Discuss it here.

Other than the Mars trilogy the only other book i've read by KSR was The Years of Rice and Salt which i really didn't like. I'm more excited by this one as it should be plausible science, some politics and is about space, well the moon anyway! I've only read a few pages so far but should have more time from this weekend.

I plan to join the discussion maybe in a week - yet to finish other books. I like how KSR writes even if his political views are a bit to the left of mine, and in later works, like New York 2140 there is a lot of social commentary

I'll try to remember to read this next. I've never read anything by KSR.

Found an article about this in Wired from 2 years back. Here's one quote I liked:

Robinson hoped to evoke the warmth and emotion that LeGuin’s writing did, but “a lot of things I was told about how writing worked, I had to unlearn,” he says. The 1980s style sheet called for pulpy action. Exposition and explanation were for suckers—an infodump. “I thought, you know what, these people are cramping my style,” Robinson says. “I’m gonna blow them away with infodumps. If it’s interesting, it’s fucking interesting.”

Yes, his infodumps made me learn some surprising things

I'll start right after I finished some Scalzi.

Well there are definitely infodumps in this one. Mainly via a Chinese travel writer/journalist but they are on the interesting side. It is reading as a scifi thriller so far which I wasn't expecting.

I do get fed up with books classified as scifi as they are set in space when this is more incidental than related to the plot. Ths is not the case here thankfully so i have no complaints so far.

I started this & found the explanation of how the moon was formed interesting. It was a little different than the one I last heard put forth as the most probable, so I looked it up & it seems my info was old. Imagine that! Here's the same explanation, maybe not quite as good, on Space.com
https://www.space.com/19275-moon-form...

I was disappointed with the bamboo, though. As a woodworker with access to bamboo, I've worked with it before. Bamboo isn't a wood, of course. It's a grass, but still has to dry before winding up in the final product, so it's usually a tan color, not green. It's split lengthwise since saw blade pressure often splits it into a mess. Any sawing is a crosscut; usually done by something like a compound sliding miter or radial arm saw. They're both saws with their fence set perpendicular to the blade while a tablesaw's is set parallel to the blade.

I'm finding the info dumps in this to be some of the best I've ever read. The way they're framed makes them interesting. I've never understood feng shui, dismissed it as something similar to astrology. The way Robinson is presenting it, there isn't a lot of difference, but it comes off more as an all encompassing philosophy which makes it somewhat palatable especially as he compares it to the wave front of quantum mechanics. QM has always seemed pretty far out to me. I took a very introductory course in it once. Unlike our hero, I never found it fascinating, just bewildering.

The story isn't moving along as fast as I'd like. The pace is kept slow by the description & comes to a complete halt with the AI interjections that are often repetitive. Still, it's keeping my interest more than I thought his writing would from reviews I've read of his other books.

I started it yesterday and so far I quite enjoy it - a nice shift from other SF books that care more about social issues (which are important, don't get me wrong). There is a lot of positive image of Chinese, mainly presented by themselves. I'm curious, whether the darker side will be mentioned.

For example, their assumption about 5000 year continuity of a civilization, or statements like China's peaceful expansion - read Vietnamese history for an opposite view :)
if they are presented only as Chinese opinions - great an quite authentic. but if as gospel truths, it's another story

So far it only seems to be dealing with internal political issues with some comparisons to the US. Nothing about aggressive expansion.

OK, further in the story (I'm at 40%) the issues have been addressed. It is interesting, if KSR wrote after Hong Kong protests of 2019, would have he changed some points of the story?

Oleksandr wrote: "OK, further in the story (I'm at 40%) the issues have been addressed. It is interesting, if KSR wrote after Hong Kong protests of 2019, would have he changed some points of the story?"

I think that is the danger of trying to write about the near future as history. It's funny as a lot of what he extrapolated was not unreasonable in 2018 but a lot has changed in the last two years with regards to China.

I finished it & gave it a 3 star review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Jo wrote: "I think that is the danger of trying to write about the near future as history. It's funny as a lot of what he extrapolated was not unreasonable in 2018 but a lot has changed in the last two years with regards to China.."

At the same time he mentions the Five Poisons :
patriarchal; a small-minded place, with one history, one language, one party, one morality. So small! Think for instance of the way the Ministry of Propaganda now speaks of the Five Poisons, meaning the Uigurs, the Tibetans, the Taiwanese, the democracy advocates, and the Falun Gong. Poisons? Really? This is so small. It reduces China to just Han people who support the Party unequivocally. That’s a small number, maybe smaller than the Ministry of Propaganda imagines. (Ta Shu 5)

Also it is interesting if praise of Xi is 'in line with characters thoughts' or KSR view... because both his cult of personality and his 'president for life' changes are from 2018 (March) or even earlier

And as you've mentioned the birth in your review (I'm not at that point yet, but it is expected, so no true spoiler) - I thought that it is unlikely that a pregnant woman won't take time to check if embryo develops correctly and all in all be as reckless

Oleksandr wrote: "And as you've mentioned the birth in your review (I'm not at that point yet, but it is expected, so no true spoiler)..."

The progress of the pregnancy is mentioned several times & pushed aside with "no one knows" & "it will be OK". I took it as a sign that she's so focused on her social/political work that she doesn't think about it. Of course, with all the down time, I'm shocked she didn't. It's one of the examples of flatness in the characters. KSR seems to build worlds, but people are secondary.

I like character driven stories with minimal world description, so I don't think I'll be reading anything else by KSR. I've never read anything previously because reviews made me think this was the way he wrote. Not for me, but this one was shorter than most so I thought I'd give it a try.

This is my first book by the author and it's reading OK for me, progressing slowly though. He is indeed very much building his world, full of chinese and a very long and detailed trip to Hong Kong. I wonder why the american can't just make a simple phone call to be picked up but I guess the higher powers in China would immediately find out and, eh, take him in or execute him. For some reason. Maybe it's a bit too complicated and mysterious for me but I guess that's the way it works in China.
About feng shui, I thought that was about not having dead plants in your house and don't sit with your back opposed to an open door. But now I have the impression it's a bit more than that.

I finished the book and I liked it, finally some SF, even with a political commentary - I've read his Mars trilogy, so I knew what to expect. Nevertheless the story has a great start but mediocre finish - and it seems the author just don't want to see "the other side" - from praising Xi whose cult of personality was evident by 2018 to naive assumptions about bank nationalizations - there were several such in Europe, but they weren't such a success

We had a bank nationalization during the crisis 10 years ago. Otherwise this (big) bank would have fallen. It was quite succesfull, now it is sold part by part to become a private bank again. I don't think it costed the taxpayer anything in the end.

Leo wrote: "We had a bank nationalization during the crisis 10 years ago. ... it is sold part by part to become a private bank again. I don..."

That's the idea, it had liquidity problems but was solvent, in KSR case he (I guess) assumes banks remained 'people's property' after the crisis. He definitely prefers public over private

Oleksandr wrote: " - I've read his Mars trilogy, so I knew what to expect. Nevertheless the and it seems the author just don't want to see "the other side" - from praising Xi whose cult of personality was evident by 2018 to naive assumptions about bank nationalizations - there were several such in Europe, but they weren't such a success
.."

I'm quite a slow reader so still about 60%. Effectively he is giving an overly positive portrayal of Xi as he is seen from the west but is he not trying to portray Xi from a Chinese perspective? You could say he has increased prosperity, reduced corruption etc. and he is increasing China's influence on the world stage. Ok there is a personality cult but does that make much difference to everyday lives where you have no say in your politicians and controlled media?

Jo wrote: "Xi ... has increased prosperity, reduced corruption"

Prosperity as GDP increase was before him as well, and unless you assume that US GDP growth from 2016 to covid was due to wise policies of Trump, why not the same about Xi?

As for corruption - his fight was quite selective - getting high seated officials loyal to his predecessor. At the same time look what happened after Panama leaks were out - https://www.theguardian.com/world/201...

I totally agree with what you with regards to growth and corruption but you have access to aĺl the information. Within the country he is still well regarded and considered a good leader due to the continued growth of China and the lack of information that can prove otherwise.

I wonder if this is what K.S.R was tring to do, so portray him from a party perspective and then have Ta Shu as a balance e.g your quote on the five poisons.

Jo wrote: "Within the country he is still well regarded and considered a good leader due to the continued growth of China and the lack of information that can prove otherwise.."

I agree, therefore I stated that if it is only a position of characters it is fine. The problem is that it is not clear. I guess if he wrote an active Nazi supporter, who praises Hitler, a few words that it can be not the only possible depiction is in order. For character can hold any views, for they are not the author

So having finished overall I quite enjoyed it. I don't think it is as good as Red Mars was but what I do like about KSR is that he writes intelligent scifi which gives you things to think about. I gave it 3 stars.

I finished it yesterday. This was my first KSR experience and I must say i quite enjoyed some parts of it. Given this is considered one of his weaker works I would check out his other novels.

I loved the parts with AI and also the parts with Ta Shuo. I also enjoyed the infodumps in those chapters. Fred and Qi parts were weaker parts of the novel in my opinion. I never really got interested in their characters and story.

Politically, I read quite interesting concepts which were new to me. Specially the idea of block-chain government was fascinating to me. I don't know if its KSRs own idea or not.

I have a serious problem with the book. Only halfway now and started skimming, thats not good. It just doesn't interest me enough, part of it due to my lack of interest for politics.

I don't think block-chain government is KSR's idea. I've heard about it for a while & a quick search brings up a pretty good explanation of it on a web site dedicated to explaining it.
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is...

Shant wrote: "Politically, I read quite interesting concepts which were new to me. Specially the idea of block-chain government was fascinating to me. I don't know if its KSRs own idea or not.."

It is not a KSR idea, it was discussed by anarchist as a solution when block-chain was a buzz word, and so some applications it is planned in several real gov'ts