''Icehenge'' is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novel by American author

Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of science fiction. He has published twenty-two novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his ''Mars'' trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many ...

, published in 1984. Though published almost ten years before Robinson's

Mars trilogy The ''Mars'' trilogy is a series of science fiction novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that chronicles the settlement and terraforming of the planet Mars through the personal and detailed viewpoints of a wide variety of characters spanning almost tw ...

, and taking place in a different version of the future, ''Icehenge'' contains elements that also appear in his Mars series, such as extreme

human longevity Human Longevity, Inc. is a San Diego-based venture launched by Craig Venter and Peter Diamandis in 2013. Its goal is to build the world's most comprehensive database on human genotypes and phenotypes, and then subject it to machine learning so tha ...

, Martian political

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

historical revisionism In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) views held by professional scholars about a historical event or times ...

, and shifts between primary characters.

Plot

''Icehenge'' is set at three distinct time periods, and told from the perspective of three different characters. The first narrative is the diary of an engineer caught up in a Martian political revolution in 2248. Effectively kidnapped aboard a mutinous Martian spaceship, she provides assistance to the revolutionaries in their quest for

interstellar travel Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft from one star system, solitary star, or planetary system to another. Interstellar travel is expected to prove much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight due to the vast dif ...

, but ultimately chooses not to travel with them but to return to the doomed revolution on Mars. The second narrative is told from the perspective of an

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

three centuries later. He is involved in a project investigating the failed revolution, and during this finds the engineer's diary buried near the remains of a ruined city. At the same time, a mysterious monument is found at the north pole of

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the S ...

, tying up with a passing mention in the engineer's diary. In the final narrative, the great-grandson of the archaeologist visits the monument on Pluto, a scaled-up version of

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...

carved in

ice Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...

. He is investigating the possibility that both the diary and the monument were planted by a reclusive and wealthy businesswoman who lives in the orbit of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

Development history

The first part of this novel was originally published as the novella ''To Leave a Mark'' in the November 1982 issue of ''

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher a ...

''. The third part of ''Icehenge'' was originally published as the novella ''On the North Pole of Pluto'' in 1980 in the anthology ''Orbit'' 18 edited by

Damon Knight Damon Francis Knight (September 19, 1922 – April 15, 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He is the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story adapted for ''The Twilight Zone''.Stanyard, ''Dimensions Behind th ...

. Robinson gave the novella in rough form to

Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...

to read and edit while he was enrolled in her writing workshop at

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

in the spring of 1977. Views of Saturn from the space station visited by the narrator of the novel's third section were inspired by images of Saturn taken during the Voyager flybys in 1980–1981.

Publication history

* 1984, United States, Ace Books , Pub date October 1984, paperback * 1985, United Kingdom, Futura Orbit , Pub date December 1985, paperback * 1986, United Kingdom, MacDonald , Pub date October 1986, hardback * 1986, France, Denoël , Pub date September 1986, paperback * 1986, Italy, Editrice Nord , Pub date 1986, paperback * 1987, West Germany, Bastei-Lübbe , Pub date 1987, paperback * 1990, United States, Tor Books , Pub date September 1990, paperback * 1997, United Kingdom, Voyager , Pub date 15 September 1997, paperback * 1997, Croatia, Zagrebačka naklada , Pub date 1997, paperback * 1997, Bulgaria, Лира Принт , Pub date 1997, paperback * 1998, United States, Tor Orb , Pub date July 1998, paperback * 2001, People's Republic of China, 漓江出版社 , Pub date 2001, paperback * 2003, France, Gallimard , Pub date December 2003, paperback * 2004, Spain, Minotauro , Pub date 9 March 2004, paperback * 2009, United Kingdom, Voyager , Pub date 1 August 2009, paperback

References

External links

The work of disenchantment never ends: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge
by Jo Walton * {{Kim Stanley Robinson 1984 American novels Novels by Kim Stanley Robinson Fiction set on Pluto Ace Books books Fiction set on Saturn