The Wild Shore (Three Californias) [Paperback]

It is many years later and history is at times comically rewritten by the elders who have lived through the nuclear attack. The aged Tom spends much of his time teaching the younger adults about the world as he remembers it from days gone by. Books are rare and trade is a major source for goods.

I found this book completely believable. The borders of the USA are being watched and the Japanese are patrolling the west coast from a base set up on Catalina. It has been decided by the United Nation that the borders will be secured and America will stand alone for 100 years, what an incredible concept this author has come up with.

The characters are well developed and I shed a tear or two. Science fiction is a new genre to me and this author has opened up realms of possibilities. This book is the first in the trilogy followed by "The Gold Coast" and "The Pacific Edge". I will certainly enjoy more of this author's writings. Kelsana 11/21/00

This book is part of Robinson's triptych (the other two pieces being The Gold Coast and Pacific Edge) that deals with various futures as seen from the perspective of Orange County, California. These books are related by theme only, and can all be read independently of the others. In this one the United States has effectively been destroyed by the use of about 3000 neutron bombs that were smuggled in by truck (the country of origin never provable but supposed to be Russia), turning almost every city into a waste land and wiping out the economic and industrial structure that allows today's Americans to enjoy a standard of living so very much higher than most of the rest of the world. The United States has now been placed in quarantine by the rest of the world, and any attempts to try to re-organize and re-build the country are ruthlessly disrupted. Orange County has returned to a fishing/agrarian level society with government by communal consensus. But this is the mere background to a remarkable tale of two young men, Henry and Steve, trying to find their own way and life answers within this community, underneath the strong influence of the town elder Tom, one of the last survivors who remembers what America was like before the bombs. Henry and Steve are close friends but are two very different personalities, and how each reacts to the opportunity to 'do something' to those who are maintaining the quarantine forms the main basis of the book.

The depth of characterization here is remarkable, and the portrayal of the society that grew under these imagined conditions is just as remarkable for its believability and economic viability. I found myself living and feeling right along with the main characters, could see myself in just the situations portrayed, facing the same moral dilemmas and wondering just how I would react, what I would do. The prose is smooth and with a nice balance between description, dialogue, and action, and a theme that is presented via 'show, not tell' methods.

All of the 'Three Californias' books are good, but this one is clearly the best, and should be put on everyone's 'must read' list.

Excepting the fact that Gibson's novel protrayed a whole world that has only be touched upon briefly by other science-fiction writers, Kim Stanley Robinson's book is by far the superior one. It is a coming of age tale of a young man trying to survive in an America that has been torn apart by attacks from other countries. Told in the first person, Robinson vividly shows his beloved homeland of Orange County and its people as they struggle with life, never complaining, just going on as they had for years before and would for years after.

Upon reading it, it is hard for one to realize that one is reading a first novel. The Wild Shore reads better than some veteran writers' books, and the plot is never complex, the words stringing after each other in Robinson's distinct style. The last page has some of the best lines ever written in a novel and will remain with readers long after they finish the book.

Wait a minute. Great plot, fascinating characters, the depiction of a realistic future world . . . why didn't this book win?

Talk about bad luck