Last night’s blog post was superceded by the sudden need to buy a new washing machine. The repair guy who came out—who got paid even though he didn’t do anything—said 17 years was old for a washer and it would cost more to repair than to buy a new one. One could argue this but he seemed sure of himself and since he was from an independent appliance repair shop and not affiliated with a place that sells appliances, it was easier to throw in the proverbial towel. The new machine gets delivered on Saturday and will be immediately busy doing two week’s worth of laundry.
Washing machines breaking down is not something anyone in Kim Stanley Robinson’s book The Wild Shore had to worry about. Given that the United States was pretty much destroyed by nuclear bombs, they have other concerns.
It is 2047 and the small settlement of Onofre (used to be San Onofre on the southern California coast where there is a nuclear power plant right next to the freeway—I got to take a “tour” there when I was a kid!—that we always laughed at and called the “Dolly Patron Memorial” when we’d drive back and forth between San Diego and Los Angeles—apologies to Ms. Parton for that one I was a kid and din’t know any better). Life is not easy but it has been 60 years since 2000 neutron bombs were detonated in cities across the United States and people are picking up the pieces.
Our narrator is Henry who is 17 and has only heard stories about what the world used to be liked. Gradually as the book progresses, we learn that it was probably the Russians who attacked and the U.S. is currently under quarantine per the United Nations. The Japanese are supposed to patrolling the west coast and keeping an eye on things. But some of the Japanese patrols can be bribed to allow tourists to come ashore and gawk and scavenge.
Life goes on as usual in Onfore until one day some men from San Diego show up. They have managed to repair railroad tracks from San Diego to just south of Onofre and want to continue the tracks up the coast. They use handcars to travel up and down the tracks. They also want to recruit the people of Onofre into the “resistance” to fight the Japanese and unite with other resistance groups across the country to—er—make America great again.
Just like in his book Aurora, we have a small community that ends up being divided with one of the groups deciding to take matters into their own hands. Robinson is keen on the dynamics and motivations of individuals and how that affects the broader community. Once the crisis that results is resolved, Robinson does not go for simplicity; everything is not all better, life does not go on exactly as before. There are consequences and the community is changed by it.
The Wild Shore was published in 1984 during the height of the Cold War and probably seemed like a terrifying possibility. While nuclear war is still possible, the Cold War is over and we have moved on to other concerns and dominating fears. Still, it was a good book and an all too realistic look into an alternate future.
Robinson tends to have a slow wind-up to the climax and when everything is ratcheted up and can’t possibly get any more tense, he lets it go and—whoosh!—hold on to your seat. Suddenly characters I didn’t care about that much made me worried and concerned and my daily commute seemed too short because I wanted to keep reading. There is no moral to the story and much is left up in the air, but it turned out to be a fun read.
The Wild Shore is the first book of the Three Californias triptych in which Robinson imagines various future possibilities. The next one is The Gold Coast about development gone mad. I will definitely get around to reading it after I spend time with a few other stories first.
Written in 1984 – what made you pick it up now Stefanie? Anyhow, given my recent post on dystopian novels, it’s interesting to be reminded how the target issue has changed from technology gone mad to nuclear war to issues like climate change or running out of oil/food etc. But the way humans behave doesn’t necessarily change.
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whisperinggums, because what I really want to read is the third book in the triptych that supposed has the freeways of CA filled with bicycles instead of cars. This is something I love to imagine on MN freeways, bicycles everywhere with cars and buses relegated to a special lane instead of bikes getting the rutted special lane at the side of the road 🙂 You are right, human behavior doesn’t really change, a sad thought. But it is really interesting to see what we imagine might be our end through time.
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Oh, and as for washing machines. Ours is 19 years and still going strong. Still, you probably made the right decision. (Our dishwasher is older than that – it was here when we moved in 19 years ago but may just be a year older – Mr Gums keeps repairing it and it keeps on keeping on. Our fridge is also around the same age. We are waiting for them all to pack it in at the same time!
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May your washing machine continue on for many years to come! Our house had no appliances when we moved in so they are all the same age. We had to get a new refrigerator last year. I am grateful they didn’t all decide to die at once and hopefully the dryer, stove and dishwasher won’t get any ideas!
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My fingers are crossed for you. One appliance we don’t have is a dryer so we are saved that worry at least!
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This sounds like a real slow burner of a book and those can have a special sort of hold on the reader. Will try to look this out.
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Ian, a very slow burn which makes the ending seem even more intense than it might otherwise. If you read it let me know what you think!
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With Putin and, perhaps, Trump about I’m not so sure another Cold War won’t be on our way! Have just started Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife. Very scary!
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Oh Ian, that is a scary thought! Hope you like Water Knife! I found it all too real.
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Very interesting premises! But it must have been scary living in the shadows of cold war and what seems improbable now, must have been a expected reality then!
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cirtnecce, as someone who was a teen in the 1980s, I can tell you the Cold War was a terrifying time. I sometimes had nightmares about it and worried that I would be at school when the bombs went off and wouldn’t be able to make it home to see my family before we all died. Sometimes it still seems an all too probably thing given world events.
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That is very scary and to live like that everyday…I cannot even begin to imagine! I was fortunate that Cold War was almost ending when I was born (1982…by 1989, there was no USSR), but my father was in the air force and he kept telling me how each maneuver, each exercise had to be carefully planned to ensure that it should be interpreted as an aggressive action by any of the two power blocks…the toleration trigger was low ….
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They were scary times that still hang with me in some ways. Bookman is four years older than I am and he remembers having nuclear bomb drills in elementary school — when a siren sounded they all had to get under their desks! As if that would save them from the blast! I am glad you got to miss all that!
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You got under the table? How is that supposed to help? Who thought of these things? Actually why did anyone have to think in these lines to begin with! Very blessed to have escaped all of that!
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I choked on my coffee when I read your comment that the people in this book were too concerned about bombs to worry about laundry. What can be more worrisome than having to buy a new machine?..
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BookerTalk, sorry I made you choke! I have my new machine now and it is really nice!
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I am oddly fascinated by dystopian stories but don’t read too many of them because my mind goes in dark places very quickly – anxiety, you know! And then I start thinking about becoming one of those prepper people. But I can’t, because my house is super small and I have no place to stash all the supplies, LOL. But this sounds really interesting and the one about the bicycles sounds interesting too! Maybe I’ll just live vicariously through your reviews on these. 🙂
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Laila, there is great fascination with all the ways humanity might destroy itself, that we can destroy ourselves is something that is disturbing all on its own. Oh yes, depending on the story, I have moments of prepper thinking. A couple years ago I tried to convince Bookman we needed to buy some acreage up north and build us a bug out house and farm. He gave me one of those “what did you do with my wife?” looks 😀 I am looking forward to the one with the bicycles!
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Oh, I like it when it’s clear how the apocalypse happened. You know? Some authors don’t talk much about how we got to the dystopian world in which the characters now live — which is fine! But it’s extra fun to have a clear vision of what the process was to get all apocalyptic and miserable.
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Jenny, oh yes, I don’t like it either when it is left as a vague thing. It matters to me how it happens because that should influence the whole story and resulting society.
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