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In Pacific Edge, Kim Stanley Robinson draws the portrait of a utopian world that feels both close and far away from us. The characters are constantly interacting with each other, whether at the frequent baseball games or at the town councils or even in their daily routines during work. When…

In KSR’s Pacific Edge, an ecological utopia has been reached in a near future California where company sizes were limited; land, water and energy were nationalized; green ideas were respected and taken seriously; people did town work; they lived in common houses; and they took shifts taking care of the…

The new freshman class of 2069 had moved and the 2065 Duke school year is about to begin its Fall semester. The university was able to easily hit its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 and actually achieved that goal in 2025. Under leadership of a collection of independent…

The aspects of Pacific Edge that still stick with me are Tom’s journals, or the italicized memories at the beginning of most chapters. I like their musing nature, the nonlinear disconnections, the passionate tone for change. They are opportunities for KSR to emerge alongside Tom as the grand narrator, to…

I like Pacific Edge for the fact that, for a utopian tale, it is so ordinary. As a tool for envisioning the future, the novel works well because the society and the lifestyles of the characters in the book are realistic and feasible– the way that they live is, for…

Was the ending of Pacific Edge a satisfying conclusion to the story? Yes, it wrapped up the arcs of most of the characters nicely, resolved the main conflict, and finished on an (overall) positive note. But was it a satisfying conclusion to Kevin’s story? No. In the very last scene…

I am not much of a novel reader myself. I often prefer not to read fiction books because I usually find the stories irrelevant and do not care for the pointless problems in peoples’ lives, like Kevin’s love affair with Ramona. However, “Pacific Edge” interested me in ways that most…

Kim Stanley Robinson presented a fascinating depiction of a 2065 world of environmental and social utopia. Unlike most futuristic fiction, it was neither dystopian or focused on the effects of a technological advancement (Gattaca, Truman Show, Wall-E, Feed, Minority Report). I enjoyed this change – it felt more genuine, more…

Discussion prompt: Post a critical or creative response to KSR’s Pacific Edge. As we discussed in class, visioning our future is essential when discussing environmental sustainability. An illustration of a green society could help us immensely in identifying the measures we must take in order to obtain that goal. This concept…

My initial reaction to “Pacific Edge” by Kim Stanley Robinson was one of surprise. Firstly, because I felt as if the first 300 pages were devoted to a slow development of the conflict over Rattlesnake Hill woven with the individual characters’ storylines and romances, and then somehow in the last…