Kim Stanley Robinson is probably my favorite living author; I don’t think anyone does setting and worldbuilding better than he does, yet his stories are largely character-driven.
Here’s my favorites of his that I’ve read:
- Aurora, where a generation ship is on it’s way to Tau Ceti
- The Years of Rice and Salt, an alt-history where most of Europe perishes in a great plague in the 14th century
- Shaman, a fictional narrative about the people who painted Chauvet Cave
I love how his stories are about being optimistic in times where that’s a hard thing to be. I like the focus on environmentalism and the sublime (Ministry for the Future is basically a solarpunk novel). He mostly writes hard sci-fi, which is my favorite genre, but also spins off into history and philosophy like in Galileo’s Dream.
I think most people know his writing from his Red/Green/Blue Mars series, which I love, but he’s done so much more than that.
So what’s your favorite of his books?
He tends toward extreme optimism about humanity which can be a nice change from constant doom but also rings hollow and feels trite sometimes, depending on my mood.
That’s not why I find Stanley hard, kind of like over optimism. My problem tend to be with the flow of his writing