W orld-renowned science fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson is a world builder beyond compare. His political acumen makes his speculations feel aliv

The Realism of Our Times: Kim Stanley Robinson on How Science Fiction Works

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2021-07-22 21:00:09

W orld-renowned science fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson is a world builder beyond compare. His political acumen makes his speculations feel alive in the present—as well as laying out a not-so-radiant future. He is the author of more than 20 novels and the repeat winner of most major speculative fiction prizes; his celebrated trilogies include Three Californias, Science in the Capitol, and (beloved in my household) the Mars Trilogy: Red, Green, and Blue. In an earlier life he was a PhD student of Fredric Jameson, and he wrote his dissertation on the novels of Philip K. Dick. He is also, as this interview shows, an acute taxonomist not just of SF but also of its roots in and its relation to a longer, larger realist tradition.

A longer version of this interview aired recently on Recall This Book (a podcast partnered with Public Books) as part of our series on pandemic reading, Books in Dark Times. You can listen to the interview here or by subscribing to Recall This Book on iTunes , Stitcher , or wherever you listen to podcasts .

John Plotz (JP): You have said that science fiction is the realism of our times. How do people hear that statement today? Do they just hear the word COVID and automatically start thinking about dystopia?