His act delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, & several of his novels pop up to exist as a straight symptom of his have scientific fascinations, like a Xv years of the food and drug administration and womb-to-tomb fascination sustaining Mars which culminated in his best known operate.

Robinson's function hwhen been labelled by critics as "literary science fiction"; even so he has universally rejected such labels — he only calls it science fiction. Robinson habituation defends a genre for which he occurs as passionate advocate. Indeed, the quality of his characterization, a most common failing around science fiction, has resulted within notice from either far wide communities than science fiction typically receives.

Biography
Kim Stanley Robinson was innate within Waukegan, Illinois. He exposed around California. Around 1974 he received the B.A. in literature (University of California, San Diego). At Boston University he gained a M.A. in English in 1975. Robinson received the Ph.D. in English from the University of California, San Diego in 1982. His doctorial thesis A Novels of Philip K. Dick was published in 1984.

Robinson is an enthusiastic mountain climber, & this has clearly experienced the hard influence across many of his works, virtually all notably Antarctica, Mars trilogy, Green Mars (a short story encountered in The Martians) and Forty Signs of Rain.

Around 1982 he married Lisa Howland Nowell, an environmental chemist. It keep close at hand 2 sons. Robinson has sleep in California, Washington, DC, and Switzerland (during a Eighties). He okay, sleep in Davis, California.

Important works
Three Californias trilogy
Independent article: Three Californias Trilogy

This trilogy is too known as a Orange County trilogy, & is the number 1 of Robinson's significant works. A component books come titled A Uncivilized Shore (1984), A Gold Coast (1988) & Pacific Edge (1990). These are non a trilogy in the traditional feel; like than telling one story, the books present trio super different eventually equally imaginable first worlds. Completely ternary come placed around California in the nigh new.

A Untamed Shore portrays the California struggling to link to to civilisation fallowing getting been crippled, along by using the rest of Us, by a nuclear war. A Gold Coast portrays an overindustralised California more & more obsessed by using & contingent technology & torn apart per struggles between arms manufacturers and terrorists, when Pacific Edge presents a California where ecologically reasonable, achievable practices use at times turn into a norm & the scars of the past come slowly existence healed.

Though it ab initio come out unconnected, the troika books actually function together to present a unified statement. the number one shows humanity crippled by a want of technology, a 2nd humanity swamped & most entirely dehumanized by as well tremendously technology (along by having a attendant environmental damage) & the third a viable, liveable compromise between them.

The Mars trilogy
Independent article: Mars trilogy

This trilogy is Robinson's virtually all swell known act. These are a long operate of hard science fiction dealing with a number one class action settlement of Mars by a class action of man of science & engineers. Its ternion volumes come Red Mars, Green Mars & Blue Mars, a titles of which mark a changes which a mars undergoes on top a course of the story. A tale begins by using a number one settler allowing Globe for Mars around 2027, & covers a next 200 years of new history. Per guide of the story Mars is heavy populated & terraformed, by using the flourishing & complex political & social dimension.

There are numerous threads woven together in the Mars Trilogy. Science, sociology & politics come a lot covered around wonderful detail, evolving realistically across a course of the narration. Robinson's fascination by having science & technology is clear, though he balances this skilfully by having the heavy streak of humanity. the characters come rich & piquant, a uncommon deed around science fiction, hard science fiction especially. Robinson's household interests, including ecological sustainabitiy, sexual dimorphism and scientific method come through strongly, though never ingesting on the form of didactical lecture. His passion for mountawithin climbing as well shows across clearly, though these are worked into a narration lot other elegantly than in occasionally of his late novels.

Antarctica
Independent article: Antarctica

Antarctica (1997) follows super heavy around a footsteps of the Mars trilogy, & covers tremendously of the equivalent ground despite the differences in setting. These are assail a icy continent of the title, good deal nigher to the present day, however evokes several of the equivalent themes, treating when it does sustaining man of science within an isolated environment, the outcome which this wear their personalities & interactions. It possibly evokes the equivalent feel of beauty & question at a bleak, hostile environment.

When sustaining 100% of Robinson's latter operate, ecological sustainability occurs as major theme inside Antarctica. Good deal of the action is catalysed per recent expiration of the Antarctic Treaty & the threat of invasion and despoiling of the touching-pristine environment by corporate interests.

The Martians
Independent article: Mars trilogy

A Martians occurs when collection of short stories placed in a equivalent globe as the Mars Trilogy. It occur prior to, in a period of & fallowing the cases of the book, a few expanding in existent characters & others introducing newly ones. It too includes a Constitution of Mars & poetry written 'inside character' by the citizen of Mars. These are the utile companion piece to the original trilogy, though a select few use criticised it as an attempt by Robinson to capitalise or even 'cash' in former profits.

The Years of Rice and Salt
Independent article: The Years of Rice and Salt

A Years of Rice & Salt is an larger-than-life function of alternate history dealing with a globe where the Black Plague wiped out Europe entirely, allowing a continent loose for Asian expansion. It covers 10 generations of history, focusing on the sequent reincarnations of the equivalent couple characters when it pass across variable genders, social classes & (within a single notable case) metal money.

A Years of Rice & Salt features Muslim, Chinese & Hindu culture & philosophy. Non lone because of a years shell, however because of its real life-utopian elements, & the frequent reflections astir person nature and severity A Years of Rice & Salt resembles a Mars books, bring back Earth. This occurs as sweeping, heroic tale, the bold attempt to contain the entire history of a globe into one volume. At days a reader will locate a format frustrating, when it is permitted sole a brief glimpse at every stage of the globe prior to the narratiin sweeps the babies on to the next. Withal, the scope alone makes this novel a right & significant accomplishment.

Other novels
Icehenge (1984) tells the story of the discovery of the monument in the style of Stonehenge found carved from either ice in Pluto, & a subsequent investigation into its origin. A setting of this novel bears heavy resemblances thereto of the Mars trilogy, albeit by using darker, further dystopian undertones. The Memory of Whiteness (1985) deals with a todays, unique instrument, & a lawsuits faced by its recently master when he tours the solar rules. A Short, Sharp Shock (1990) one of Robinson's few fantasy stories, treating by having an amnesic human traveling across the mysterious land witharound pursuit of the woman world health organization features in his number 1 memories. Robinson's virtually all recent act, Forty Signs of Rain (2004) has been billed as a 1st volume of a touching-first trilogy, called the "Science in the Capital" series, looking for a results of global warming. A 2nd novel, to become freed inside the United States in October, 2005, is titled "Fifty Degrees Below".

Short stories
His 1st short stories began appearing around 1976. Virtually all come collected in The Planet on the Table (1986), Remaking History (1991) and Vinland a Dream (2001). 3 yearn, humourous stories featuring American expatriates in Nepal are collected in Escape from Kathmandu (1989). A Martians (1999) (discussed above) further explores the world of The Mars Trilogy.

Complete listings: "A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations" (within: Vinland a Dream, originally published around ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1991, revised for Remaking History), "A Martian Childhood", "A Martian Romance" (within: A Martians), "A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions" (around: Vinland a Dream), "A Short, Sharp Shock", "A Transect", "An Argument for the Deployment of All Safe Terraforming Technologies" (within: A Martians), "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars" (around: A Martians), "Before I Wake", "Big Man in Love" (around: A Martians), "Black Air" (within: Vinland a Dream, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1983), "Coming Back to Dixieland" (around: Vinland a Dream, originally published around Orbit, Eighteen), "Coyote Makes Trouble" (inside: A Martians), "Coyote Remembers" (within: A Martians), "Discovering Life" (inside: Vinl& a Dream and in: A Martians), "Down and Out in the Year 2000", "Enough is as Good as a Feast" (within: A Martians), "Escape from Kathmandu" (within: Shake Kathmandu), "Exploring Fossil Canyon" (inside: A Martians), "Festival Night", "Four Teleological Trails" (around: A Martians), "Glacier", "Green Mars" (inside: A Martians), "If Wang Wei Lived on Mars and Other Poems" (around: A Martians), "Jackie on Zo" (around: A Martians), "Keeping the Flame" (within: A Martians), "Maya and Desmond" (around: A Martians), "Mercurial" (within: Vinland a Dream, originally published around Universe, Xv), "Michel in Antarctica" (around: A Martians), "Michel in Provence" (within: A Martians), "Mother Goddess of the World" (inside: Shake Kathmandu), "Muir on Shasta" (around: Vinland a Dream), "Odessa" (inside: A Martians), "On the North Pole of Pluto", "Our Town", "Purple Mars" (inside: A Martians), "Remaking History" (within: Remaking History & Vinland a Dream, originally published around Gregory Benford/Martin H. Greenberg What Will Own Been), "Ridge Running" (around: Vinland a Dream, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1984), "Salt and Fresh" (inside: A Martians), "Saving Noctis Dam" (inside: A Martians), "Sax Moments" (around: A Martians), "Selected Abstracts from The Journal of Aerological Studies" (within: A Martians), "Sexual Dimorphism" (inside: A Martians), "Some Worknotes and Commentary on the Constitution, by Charlotte Dorsa Brevia" (inside: A Martians), "Stone Eggs" (within: Vinland a Dream, originally published around Universe, Long dozen), "The Archaeae Plot" (within: A Martians), "The Blind Geometer", "The Constitution of Mars" (inside: A Martians), "The Disguise" (within: Vinland a Dream, originally published within Orbit, Xix), "The Kingdom Underground" (around: Shake Kathmandu), "The Lucky Strike" (inside: Vinland a Dream, originally published around Universe, Fourteen), "The Lunatics", "The Memorial", "The Part of Us That Loves", "The Return from Rainbow Bridge", "The Translator", "The True Nature of Shangri-La" (within: Shake Kathmandu), "The Way the Land Spoke to Us" (inside: A Martians), "To Leave a Mark", "Venice Drowned" (inside: Vinland a Dream, originally published around Universe, Xi), "Vinland the Dream" (around: Vinland a Dream, originally published inside Remaking History), "What Matters" (inside: A Martians''), "Whose 'Failure of Scholarship'?", "Zürich".

Non-fiction
Robinson's doctorial thesis was on the novels of Philip K Dick (1984). The hardback version was published by UMI Search Click.

Robinson edited & wrote a introduction to the anthology Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias (1994).

Major themes
Ecological sustainability
Most of Robinson's novels keep close at hand an ecological component; these are doubtless his primary theme. A Orange County Trilogy is all about a way where a technological intersects by having a natural, highlighting a importance of keeping them inside balance. In the Mars Trilogy, one of a primary divisions among a people of Mars is depending upin dissentient views on terraforming; whether or even does'nt the on a face of it barren Martian landscape has the equivalent ecological or spiritual value of a residing ecosphere prefer Globe's is heavy debated. Forty Signs of Rain is entirely ecologically themed, ingesting when it does global warming for its principal theme.

Economic and social justice
Robinson's act typically explores option to modern capitalist society. In the Mars Trilogy, these are argued that capitalist economy is an outgrowth of feudal body which can be replaced later by the additional popular economic system. Worker-ownership & cooperatives figure prominently around Green Mars & Blue Mars as a replacement for traditional corporations. A Orange County Trilogy explores similar arrangements; Pacific Edge includes a idea of attacking a legal framework behind corporate domination to promote social equalitarianism.

A environmental & economic/social themes around Robinson's books substitute marked direct contrast to the Libertarian streak prevalent in tremendously of science fiction (Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle being prominent examples) & his operate has been known as "the most successful attempt to reach a mass audience with an anti-capitalist utopian vision since Ursula K. Le Guin's 1974 novel, The Dispossessed." [http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2001summer/robinson.shtml] In this sense, Robinson could be said to work within the paradigm of Green politics.

Criticisms
Robinson's writings choose political ideas which contain several elements of socialism and green politics, when well as numerous guide lifestyles (including ones in which non-monogamous relationships come commonplace). Occasionally reviewers (including, for example, a select few readers at Amazon.com) have criticized these aspects of the books by claiming that they represent "Marxist and Green propaganda". More reviewers use at times categorized such humans when wanting to understand "Young Christian Republicans Go To Mars", and use suggested that a point of science fiction is to choose freshly ideas.

Even so, it may be argued that the Mars trilogy reflects a theme green around virtually all SF: "What if?". It throws several different cultures & beliefs into 1 coarse space, & watches when it react to their environment, to every more & to the recently technologies that infuse their everyday passes. A books indicate that there exists non any of these theme, a single ideology, 1 belief nor a single culture that could shape a colonization of Mars — instead, these are the recently fusion of tons of the above which may produce the man Mars function.

Prizes
Robinson won Hugos for Green Mars and Blue Mars, Nebulas for Red Mars and "The Blind Geometer" (1986), a Globe Fantasy Award for "Black Air" (1983), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Pacific Edge. A Memory of Whiteness was awarded a Locus Award.