Gregory Benford
Born	(1941-01-30) January 30, 1941 (age 71) Mobile, Alabama
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	United States
Genres	Science Fiction
Notable work(s)	Galactic Center Saga novels
www.gregorybenford.com

Gregory Benford (born 30 January 1941 in Mobile, Alabama) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is also a contributing editor of Reason magazine.^[1]

As a science fiction author, Benford is perhaps best known for the Galactic Center Saga novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977).^[2] This series postulates a galaxy in which sentient organic life is in constant warfare with sentient mechanical life.

Biography[link]

Benford received a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1963 from University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, followed by a Master of Science from the University of California, San Diego in 1965, and a doctorate there in 1967. That same year he married Joan Abbe. Benford modeled characters in several of his novels after her, most prominently the heroine of Artifact. She died in 2002.^[3]

Benford has an identical twin brother, Jim Benford, with whom he has collaborated on science fiction stories. Both got their start in science fiction fandom, with Gregory co-editor of the science fiction fanzine Void. Benford has said he is an atheist^[4] , though his views are not settled ^[5].

Writing career[link]

Gregory Benford's first professional sale was the story "Stand-In" in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (June 1965). In 1969, he began writing a regular science column for Amazing Stories.

Benford tends to write hard science fiction which incorporates the research he is doing as a practical scientist. He has worked on several collaborations with authors including William Rotsler, David Brin and Gordon Eklund. His time-travel novel Timescape (1980) won both the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. A scientific procedural, the novel eventually loaned its title to a line of science fiction published by Pocket Books. In the late 1990s, he wrote Foundation's Fear, one of an authorized sequel trilogy to Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Other novels published in that period include several near-future science thrillers: Cosm (1998), The Martian Race (1999) and Eater (2000).

Benford has also served as an editor of numerous alternate history anthologies as well as collections of Hugo Award winners.

He has been nominated for four Hugo Awards (for two short stories and two novellas) and 12 Nebula Awards (in all categories). In addition to Timescape, he won the Nebula for the novelette "If the Stars Are Gods" (with Eklund).

Benford was a guest of honour at Aussiecon Three, the 1999 Worldcon. He remains a regular contributor to science fiction fanzines, such as Apparatchik.

Contributions to science and speculative science[link]

Benford claims to have created and written about the first computer virus in the late 1960s.

Benford's work in physics at the University of California Irvine has focussed on theoretical and experimental plasma physics, including studies of extremely strong turbulence, particularly in astrophysical contexts, and studies of magnetic structures from the galactic center to large scale galactic jets. Working in collaboration with, among others, science fiction writers Cramer, Forward, and Landis, Benford worked on a theoretical study of the physics of wormholes, which pointed out that wormholes, if formed in the early universe, could still exist in the present day if they were wrapped in a negative-mass cosmic string.^[6] Such wormholes could potentially be detected by gravitational lensing.

In 2004, Benford proposed that the harmful effects of global warming could be reduced by the construction of a rotating Fresnel lens 1,000 kilometres across, floating in space at the Lagrangian point L1. According to Benford, this lens would diffuse the light from the Sun and reduce the solar energy reaching the Earth by approximately 0.5% to 1%. He estimated that this would cost around US$10 billion. His plan has been commented on in a variety of forums.^[7] A similar plan was proposed in 1989 by J. T. Early,^[8] and again in 1997 by Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, and Roderick Hyde.^[9] In 2006, Benford pointed out one possible danger in this approach: if this lens were built and global warming were avoided, there would be less incentive to reduce greenhouse gases, and humans might continue to produce too much carbon dioxide until it caused some other environmental catastrophe, such as a chemical change in ocean water that could be disastrous to ocean life.^[10]

Benford serves on the board of directors and the steering committee of the Mars Society.

Benford's law of controversy[link]

Benford's law of controversy^[11][12] is an adage from the 1980 novel Timescape,^[13] stating:

Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.^[11][12]

The adage was quoted in an international drug policy article in a peer-reviewed social science journal.^[14]

Bibliography[link]

Galactic Center Saga[link]

Jupiter Projects[link]

Other series contributions[link]

Man-Kzin Wars (with Larry Niven)

Second Foundation

Non-series novels[link]

Collaborations[link]

Anthologies edited[link]

• Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of the German Victory in World War II (1986), with Martin H. Greenberg
• Nuclear War (1988), with Martin H Greenberg
• Far Futures (1995)
• The New Hugo Winners Volume IV (1997), with Martin H. Greenberg
• Nebula Awards Showcase 2000 (2000)
• Microcosms (2004)

Alternate histories[link]

• Alternate Empires (1989) (with Martin H. Greenberg)
• Alternate Heroes (1989)
• Alternate Wars (1991)
• Alternate Americas (1992) (with Martin H. Greenberg)

Non-fiction[link]

• Habitats in Space (1998)
• Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia (1999)
• Skylife: Visions of Our Homes in Space (2000, with George Zebrowsk)
• Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science (2000, with George Zebrowski)
• Beyond Human: The New World of Cyborgs and Androids (2001)
• The Wonderful Future That Never Was (2010, with the Editors of Popular Mechanics)

Short-story collections[link]

• In Alien Flesh (1986)
• Matter's End (1990)
• Amazing Stories No 7 (1992), with J. R. Dunn, James Alan Gardner and Kim Mohan
• Worlds Vast and Various (1999)
• Immersion and Other Short Novels (2002)
• Merlin (2004)

Short stories[link]

• "Stand-In"

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (June 1965)

• "Representative From Earth"

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (January 1966)

• "Flattop"

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (May 1966)

• "Deeper Than the Darkness"

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (April 1969)

Sociology Through Science Fiction (1974)

• "Sons of Man"

Amazing Stories (November 1969)

• "Nobody Lives on Burton Street"

Amazing Science Fiction (May 1970)

World's Best Science Fiction (1971)

Sociology Through Science Fiction (1974)

Inside Information (1977)

• "The Scarred Man"

Venture (May 1970)

• "The Prince of New York"

Fantastic (June 1970)

• "3:02 p.m., Oxford"

If (September/October 1970)

• "The Movement"

Fantastic (October 1970)

• "Inalienable Rite"

Quark 1 (1970)

• "But the Secret Sits"

Galaxy Science Fiction (March 1971)

• "Star Crossing", with Donald Franson

If (March/April 1971)

• "Battleground", with Jim Benford

If (May/June 1971)

Guns of Darkness (1987)

• "West Wind, Falling", with Gordon Eklund

Universe 1 (1971)

• "And the Sea Like Mirrors"

Again, Dangerous Visions (1972)

Again, Dangerous Visions, Book 2 (1977)

Masterpieces of Science Fiction (1978)

• "In the Ocean of Night"

Worlds of If Science Fiction (May/Jun 1972)

In the Ocean of Night (1977)

• "Jupiter Project"

Amazing Stories (September 1972)

• "Icarus Descending"

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (April 1973)

In the Ocean of Night (1977)

• "Man in a Vice"

Amazing Science Fiction (February 1974)

• "Nobody Lives Around Here"

Vertex: The Magazine of Science Fiction (February 1974)

• "If the Stars Are Gods", with Gordon Eklund

Universe 4 (1974)

Best SF of the Year 4 (1975)

Nebula Award Stories 10 (1975)

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume IV (1986)

The Science Fiction Century (1997)

• "Threads of Time"

Threads of Time (1974)

In the Ocean of Night (1977)

• Doing Lennon

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (April 1975)

Best SF of the Year 5 (1976)

The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction Masterpieces (1983)

Light Years and Dark (1984)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Beyond Grayworld

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (September 1975)

• Cambridge, 1:58 A.M

Epoch (1975)

• John of the Apocalypse

Tomorrow Today (1975)

• White Creatures

New Dimensions 5 (1975)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• How It All Went

Amazing Stories (March 1976)

100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories (1978)

• The Anvil of Jove, with Gordon Eklund

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (July 1976)

• Marauder!

Alien Worlds (1976)

• Seascape (aka Pebble Among the Stars)

Faster Than Light (1976)

The Crash of Empire (1989)

• What Did You Do Last Year?, with Gordon Eklund

Universe 6 (1976)

• Hellas is Florida, with Gordon Eklund

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (January 1977)

• Homemaker

Cosmos Science Fiction And Fantasy Magazine (May 1977)

• A Snark in the Night

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (August 1977)

• Knowing Her

New Dimensions 7 (1977)

Time of Passage (1978)

• Starswarmer

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (June 1978)

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (September 1978)

• In Alien Flesh

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (September 1978)

Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year (1979)

1979 Annual World's Best SF (1979)

Best SF Stories of the Year: Eighth Annual Collection (1979)

The 1979 Annual World's Best SF (1979)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Old Woman By the Road

Destinies (November/December 1978)

Thor's Hammer (1979)

The Best of Destinies (1980)

• A Hiss of Dragon, with Marc Laidlaw

Omni, (December 1978)

Best SF of the Year 8 (1979)

Dragon Tales (1982)

The Best of Omni Science Fiction, No. 3 (1982)

• Nooncoming

Universe 8 (1978)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Time Guide

Destinies (January/February 1979)

• Dark Sanctuary

Omni (May 1979)

The Endless Frontier (1979)

The Best of Omni Science Fiction, No. 4 (1982)

• Redeemer

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (April 1979)

Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year (1979)

Best SF Stories of the Year: Ninth Annual Collection (1980)

The Endless Frontier Vol. II (1982)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Calibrations and Exercises

New Dimensions 9 (1979)

The Best of New Dimensions (1979)

• Time Shards

Universe 9 (1979)

Best SF of the Year 9 (1980)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Titan Falling

Amazing Stories (August 1980)

• Pick an Orifice

Destinies (Fall 1980)

• Slices

Destinies (Spring 1981)

• Exposures

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (July 1981)

The Road to Science Fiction #4 (1982)

Isaac Asimov's Wonders of the World (Anthology #6) (1982)

Creations: The Quest for Origins in Story and Science (1983)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

Norton Book of SF (1993)

The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994)

• Shall We Take a Little Walk?

Destinies (Winter 1981)

• Cadenza

New Dimensions 12 (1981)

• Valhalla

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (April 1982)

• Lazarus Rising

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (July 1982)

• Relativistic Effects

Perpetual Light (1982)

Best SF of the Year 12 (1983)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF (1994)

• Sandy Lust

The Berkley Showcase Volume 5 (1982)

• Swarmer, Skimmer

Best SF of the Year 11 (1982)

• The Touch (based on 'Continuidad de los parques', from Final del juego by Julio Cortázar )

The Best of Omni Science Fiction, No. 5 (1983)

R-A-M Random Access Messages of the Computer Age (1984)

• Me/Days

Universe 14 (1984)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Time's Rub

Time's Rub (1984)

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (April 1985)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder (1987)

Future on Ice (1998)

• To the Storming Gulf

Afterwar (1985)

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (April 1985)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

Armageddon! (1989)

• Newton Sleep

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (January 1986)

Heroes in Hell (1986)

Nebula Awards 22 (1988)

• Of Space-Time and the River

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (February 1986)

Best SF of the Year 15 (1986)

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Freezeframe

Interzone (Autumn 1986)

Amazing Stories (May 1987)

Nebula Awards 23 (1989)

• As Big as the Ritz

Interzone, Winter 1986 (1986)

Alien Stars III: Under The Wheel (1987)

• Snatching the Bot

In Alien Flesh (1986)

• Effing the Ineffable

Nebula Awards 21 (1987)

• The Gods of the Gaps

Crusaders in Hell (1987)

• What Are You Going to Be When You Grow Up?

Spaceships & Spells (1987)

• Proselytes

Full Spectrum (1988)

• All the Beer on Mars

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (January 1989)

• Alphas

Amazing Stories (March 1989)

The 1990 Annual World's Best SF (1990)

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection (1990)

• We Could Do Worse

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (April 1989)

What Might Have Been? Vol I: Alternate Empires (1989)

Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History (1998)

• Mozart on Morphine

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (October 1989)

• Leviathan

Omni (1989)

• Proserpina's Daughter with Paul A. Carter

Synergy: New Science Fiction, Vol. 3 (1989)

• The Rose and the Scalpel

Time Gate (1989)

Amazing Stories (January 1990)

• Warstory

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (January 1990)

• Latter-Day Martian Chronicles

Omni (July 1990)

• The Eagle and the Cross

Dangerous Interfaces (1990)

• Manassas, Again

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (October 1991)

• Centigrade 233

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (December 1991)

• Touches

Amazing Stories (December 1991)

• Matter's End

Full Spectrum 3 (1991)

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992)

Nebula Awards 28 (1994)

• Down the River Road

Aboriginal Science Fiction' (Summer 1992)

• Rumbling Earth

Aboriginal Science Fiction (Summer 1992)

• World Vast, World Various

Murasaki (1992)

• The Dark Backward

Amazing Stories (February 1993)

More Amazing Stories (1998)

• Doing Alien

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (March 1994)

100 Astounding Little Alien Stories (1996)

• The Bigger One

Science Fiction Age (May 1994)

• Soon Comes the Night

Asimov's Science Fiction (August 1994)

• Not of an Age

Weird Tales from Shakespeare (1994)

• Strong Instinct with Mark O. Martin

South From Midnight (1994)

• The Trojan Cat with Mark O. Martin

Man-Kzin Wars VI (1994)

• Deep Eyes

Analog Science Fiction and Fact (April 1995)

• Kollapse

Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy (April 1995)

Science Fiction Age (May 1995)

• A Worm in the Well

Analog Science Fiction and Fact (November 1995)

Year's Best SF (1996)

• A Tapestry of Thought

Amazing Stories (Winter 1995)

• A Desperate Calculus as Sterling Blake

New Legends (1995)

• High Abyss

New Legends (1995)

• Immersion

Science Fiction Age (March 1996)

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection (1997)

• Paris Conquers All with David Brin

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (March 1996)

War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches (1996)

• Afterword: Retrospective with David Brin

War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches (1996)

• Zoomers

Future Net (1996)

Year's Best SF 2 (1997)

• The Voice

Science Fiction Age (May 1997)

Year's Best SF 3 (1998)

• Galaxia

Science Fiction Age (July 1997)

• A Cold Dry Cradle with Elisabeth Malartrez

Science Fiction Age (November 1997)

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998)

• Early Bird

Free Space (1997)

• A Dance to Strange Musics

Science Fiction Age (November 1998)

• Ordinary Aliens

Science Fiction Age (November 1998)

• Three Gods

Interzone (September 2001)

• Menage a Trois

Interzone (November 2001)

• Around the Curve of a Cosmos

Published at scifi.com (2001)

• Brink

Published at scifi.com (2001)

• The Clear Blue Seas of Luna

Asimov's Science Fiction (October/November 2002)

• The Hydrogen Wall

Asimov's Science Fiction (October/November 2003)

Year's Best SF9

• Anomalies
• At the Double Solstice
• A Hunger for the Infinite
• Immortal Night
• Mammoth Dawn with Kevin J. Anderson
• Mandikini
• Side Effect
• Shakers of the Earth
• Sleepstory

References[link]

External links[link]

• Gregory Benford official website
• Gregory Benford at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Giant rotating space lens, a possible engineering solution for global warming proposed by Benford in 2004
• "Terraforming Ganymede with Robert A. Heinlein" (part 1) by Gregory Benford

• Part 2

• Homepage at UCI
• List of works at Fantastic Fiction
• "Killer Bs" (Brin, Benford, Bear, Baxter and B-, er, Vinge) mailing list

David Levine (December 20, 1926 – December 29, 2009)^[1] was an American artist and illustrator best known for his caricatures in The New York Review of Books. Jules Feiffer has called him "the greatest caricaturist of the last half of the 20th Century".^[2]

Early life and education[link]

Levine was born in Brooklyn, where his father Harry ran a small clothing factory. His mother, Lena, was a nurse and political activist who had Communist sympathies. He began to draw as a child, displaying a precocious talent that, at the age of nine, won him an invitation to audition for an animator's position in Disney's Los Angeles Studios.^[3]

Levine later studied painting at Pratt Institute, at Temple University's Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in 1946, and with Hans Hofmann.^[2] Immediately following World War II, Levine served in the U. S. Army. After his service, he graduated from Temple with a degree in education and completed his studies at its Tyler School.^[1]

Career[link]

Levine initially hoped to be a full-time painter, but was often forced to subsist on illustration work from publications like Gasoline Retailer. Nevertheless, he turned out a body of paintings, although many of these were destroyed in a fire in 1968.^[2] Levine's paintings are mostly watercolors that often depict garment workers, honoring his father’s employees, and bathers at Coney Island. The paintings, in contrast to his illustrations, are "sympathetic portraits of ordinary citizens, fond and respectful renderings of the distinctive seaside architecture, panoramas with people on the beach."^[1] Levine, together with Aaron Shikler founded the Painting Group in 1958, a salon of artists with whom he gathered for fifty years to paint models. The group was the subject of a 2007 documentary called Portraits of a Lady, which followed their creation of simultaneous portraits of U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.^[1]

A job at Esquire in the early 1960s saw Levine develop his skills as a political illustrator.^[2] His first work for The New York Review of Books appeared in 1963, just a few months after the paper was founded.^[4] Subsequently, he drew more than 3,800 pen-and-ink caricatures of famous writers, artists and politicians for the publication.^[5] Levine would review a draft of the article to be illustrated, together with photos or other images sent by the staff of the Review. Within a few days, he would return a finished drawing that caught "a large fact about his subject's character"; "his brilliance lay in weaving [the article's] ideas with his own".^[4] Only about half of Levine's caricatures were created for the Review. Other work has appeared in Esquire (over 1,000 drawings), The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone Magazine, Sports Illustrated, New York Magazine, Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Nation, Playboy, and others.^[2] As a caricaturist for these publications, Levine distinguished his process from that of political cartoonists: "I could take time to really look it over and think about it, read the articles and so on. The political cartoonists don't get a chance. The headlines are saying this and this about so-and-so, and you have to come up with something which is approved by an editor. I almost never had to get an approval. In forty years I may have run into a disagreement with The New York Review maybe two times.^[6]

Levine's work has been exhibited extensively in galleries and museums around the world, and several collections of his paintings and drawings have been published by the Review and elsewhere. In 2008, he published a book, American Presidents, featuring his drawings of U.S. Presidents over five decades,^[7] which was also the basis for an exhibit at the New York Public Library.^[1]

Reputation[link]

John Updike, whom Levine drew many times, wrote in the 1970s: "Besides offering us the delight of recognition, his drawings comfort us, in an exacerbated and potentially desperate age, with the sense of a watching presence, an eye informed by an intelligence that has not panicked, a comic art ready to encapsulate the latest apparitions of publicity as well as those historical devils who haunt our unease. Levine is one of America's assets. In a confusing time, he bears witness. In a shoddy time, he does good work."^[5]

The New York Times described Levine's illustrations as "macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates" that were "heavy in shadows cast by outsize noses on enormous, eccentrically shaped heads, and replete with exaggeratedly bad haircuts, 5 o’clock shadows, ill-conceived mustaches and other grooming foibles ... to make the famous seem peculiar-looking in order to take them down a peg". The paper commented: "His work was not only witty but serious, not only biting but deeply informed, and artful in a painterly sense as well as a literate one."^[1] Levine drew his most frequent subject, former president Richard M. Nixon, 66 times, depicting him as, among other things, the Godfather, Captain Queeg, and a fetus.

According to Vanity Fair, "Levine put together a facebook of human history ... the durability of those Levine depicted, plus the unique insight with which he drew them, guarantees the immortality of his works". Levine's work, taken as a whole, had a leftwing bent, and he claimed still to be a Communist, although people of all political persuasions came in for the same acid treatment in Levine's caricatures. Levine said that "by making the powerful funny-looking ... he might encourage some humility or self-awareness".^[2] Levine also described his purpose as follows: "Caricature is a form of hopeful statement: I'm drawing this critical look at what you're doing, and I hope that you will learn something from what I'm doing."^[6]

Last years and death[link]

In 2006, Levine was diagnosed with macular degeneration, an eye disease that leads to blindness. While the Review continued to run Levine's older work, no new work appeared there after April 2007.^[2]

On December 29, 2009, Levine died at New York Presbyterian Hospital at the age of 83. His death was caused by prostate cancer and a number of subsequent illnesses. He was survived by his second wife, Kathy Hayes (whom he married in 1996), two children, Matthew and Eve, two stepchildren, Nancy and Christopher Rommelmann and grandchildren.^[1]

See also[link]

• List of caricaturists

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• The David Levine Gallery, The New York Review of Books
• "David Levine: American Presidents Exhibit in NYC", by Eric Reynolds
• "Why Did The New York Times Kill This Image of Henry Kissinger?"
• Levine and the New Yorker
• Kimmelman, Michael (December 30, 2009). "Starting With Lines, but Ending With Truth". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/arts/design/31levine.html. Retrieved December 30, 2009. 

Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson at the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow, August 2005
Born	(1952-03-23) March 23, 1952 (age 60) Waukegan, Illinois
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	United States
Genres	Science fiction

Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research and lifelong fascination with the planet Mars.

Robinson's work has been labeled by reviewers as literary science fiction.^[1]

Biography[link]

Kim Stanley Robinson was born in Waukegan, Illinois, but grew up in Southern California. In 1974 he earned a B.A. in literature from the University of California, San Diego. In 1975, he earned a M.A. in English from Boston University and in 1982, he earned a PhD in English from the University of California, San Diego. His doctoral thesis, The Novels of Philip K. Dick, was published in 1984.

Robinson describes himself as a backpacker but not a mountain climber,^[2] though mountain climbing appears in several of his fiction works, most notably Antarctica, the Mars trilogy, "Green Mars" (a short story found in The Martians), Forty Signs of Rain, and Escape from Kathmandu.

In 1982 he married Lisa Howland Nowell, an environmental chemist, and they have two sons. Robinson has lived in Washington, D.C.; California; and during some of the 1980s in Switzerland. He now lives in Davis, California.

Robinson was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop in 2009. In 2010, Robinson was guest of honor at the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Melbourne, Australia. In April 2011 Robinson presented at the second annual Rethinking Capitalism conference, held at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Among other points made, his talk addressed the cyclical nature of capitalism.^[3]

Important works[link]

[edit] Three Californias

This trilogy is also referred to as the Orange County trilogy. The component books are titled The Wild Shore (1984), The Gold Coast (1988) and Pacific Edge (1990). It is not a trilogy in the traditional sense; rather than telling a single story, the books present three different future Californias.

The Wild Shore portrays a California struggling to return to civilization after having been crippled, along with the rest of America, by a nuclear war. The Gold Coast portrays an over-industrialized California increasingly obsessed with and dependent on technology and torn apart by the struggles between arms manufacturers and terrorists. Pacific Edge presents a California in which ecologically sane, manageable practices have become the norm and the scars of the past are slowly being healed.

Though they initially appear unconnected, the three books work together to present a unified statement. The first shows humanity crippled by a lack of technology, the second humanity swamped and almost completely dehumanized by too much technology (along with the attendant environmental damage), and the third a workable, livable compromise between the two. Although the third is a utopian novel, there is still conflict, sadness, and tragedy. The stories all contain a common character, whose circumstances serve to put the three alternatives in perspective.

[edit] The Mars trilogy

This trilogy is Robinson's best-known work. It is an extended work of science fiction that deals with the first settlement of the planet Mars by a group of scientists and engineers. Its three volumes are Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, the titles of which mark the changes that the planet undergoes over the course of the saga. The tale begins with the first colonists leaving Earth for Mars in 2027 and covers the next 200 years of future history. By the conclusion of the story, Mars is heavily populated and terraformed, with a flourishing and complex political and social dimension.

Many threads of different characters' lives are woven together in the Mars Trilogy. Science, sociology, and politics are all covered in great detail, evolving over the course of the narrative. Robinson's fascination with science and technology is clear, although he balances this with a strong streak of humanity. Robinson's personal interests, including ecological sustainability, sexual dimorphism, and the scientific method, come through strongly.

[edit] The Martians

Billed as a companion piece, The Martians (1999) is a collection of short stories that involves many of the same characters and settings introduced in the Mars trilogy. Some stories occur before, during, or instead of the events of the trilogy; some expand on existing characters, and others introduce new ones. It also includes the Constitution of Mars and poetry written in character by a Martian citizen.

[edit] Antarctica

Antarctica (1997) follows very closely in the footsteps of the Mars trilogy, and it covers much of the same ground despite the differences in setting. It is set on the icy continent of the title, much closer to the present day, but it evokes many of the same themes, dealing as it does with scientists in an isolated environment, the effect that this has on their personalities and interactions, and economic systems.

As with all of Robinson's later work, ecological sustainability is a major theme in Antarctica. Much of the action is catalyzed by the recent expiration of the Antarctic Treaty and the threat of invasion and despoiling of the near-pristine environment by corporate interests.

[edit] The Years of Rice and Salt

The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) is a work of alternative history that concerns a world in which the Black Plague wiped out 99 percent of the European population (instead of the actual generally estimated 30 percent), leaving the world free for Asian expansion. It covers ten generations of history, focusing on the successive reincarnations of the same few characters as they pass through varying genders, social classes, and, in one notable example, species.

The Years of Rice and Salt features Muslim, Chinese, and Hindu cultures and philosophies.

Science in the Capital series[link]

The Science in the Capital series encompasses three novels: Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007). This series explores the consequences of global warming, both on a global level and as it affects the main characters—several employees of the National Science Foundation and those close to them. A recurring theme of Robinson's is that of Buddhist philosophy, which is represented in the series by the agency of ambassadors from Khembalung, a fictional Buddhist micro-state located on an offshore island in the Ganges delta. Their state is threatened by rising sea levels, and the reaction of the Khembalis is compared to that of the Washingtonians.

Other novels[link]

• Icehenge (1984) tells the story of the discovery of a monument in the style of Stonehenge found carved from ice on Pluto and the subsequent investigation into its origin. The setting of this novel bears strong resemblances of the Mars trilogy, albeit with darker, more dystopian undertones.
• The Memory of Whiteness (1985) deals with a fantastic, unique musical instrument and the trials faced by its newest master as he tours the solar system; how it is described seems to contain the beginnings of many of the ideas later put to use in the Mars trilogy, although it is set centuries later.
• A Short, Sharp Shock (1990) one of Robinson's few fantasy stories, dealing with an amnesiac man traveling through a mysterious land in pursuit of a woman who features in his first memories.
• Galileo's Dream is a partially fictionalized biography of Galileo Galilei in which he is summoned by 29th century inhabitants of the Galilean moons who seek his advice. (UK release: August 6, 2009;^[4] US release: December 29, 2009).^[5]
• 2312 (2012)

Short stories[link]

Robinson published his first two short stories in Orbit 18 in 1976. Most are collected in The Planet on the Table (1986), Remaking History (1991), Down and Out in the Year 2000 (1992), and Vinland the Dream (2001). Four humorous novellas featuring American expatriates in Nepal are collected in Escape from Kathmandu (1989). The Martians (1999), discussed above, further explores the world of the Mars Trilogy. On August 1, 2010, Night Shade Books released a collection entitled, "The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson."

Selected story bibliography[link]

• "A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations" (in: Vinland the Dream, originally published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, 1991, revised for Remaking History)
• "A Martian Childhood"
• "A Martian Romance" (in The Martians)
• "A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions" (in Vinland the Dream)
• "A Transect"
• "An Argument for the Deployment of All Safe Terraforming Technologies" (in The Martians),
• "Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars" (in The Martians),
• "Before I Wake" (in Remaking History)
• "Big Man in Love" (in The Martians)
• "Black Air" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1983)
• "Coming Back to Dixieland" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Orbit 18)
• "Coyote Makes Trouble" (in The Martians)
• "Coyote Remembers" (in The Martians)
• "Discovering Life" (in Vinland the Dream and in The Martians)
• "Down and Out in the Year 2000"
• "Enough is as Good as a Feast" (in The Martians',
• "Escape from Kathmandu" (in Escape from Katmandu)
• "Exploring Fossil Canyon" (in The Martians)
• "Festival Night"
• "Four Teleological Trails" (in The Martians)
• "Glacier" (in Remaking History)
• "Green Mars" (in The Martians)
• "If Wang Wei Lived on Mars and Other Poems" (in The Martians)
• "Jackie on Zo" (in The Martians)
• "Keeping the Flame" (in The Martians)
• "Maya and Desmond" (in The Martians)
• "Mercurial" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Universe 15),
• "Michel in Antarctica" (in The Martians)
• "Michel in Provence" (in The Martians)
• "Mother Goddess of the World" (in Escape from Katmandu)
• "Muir on Shasta" (in Vinland the Dream)
• "Odessa" (in The Martians)
• "On the North Pole of Pluto"
• "Our Town"
• "Purple Mars" (in The Martians)
• "Remaking History" (in Remaking History and Vinland the Dream originally published in What Might Have Been, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg)
• "Ridge Running" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1984 edition)
• "Salt and Fresh" (in The Martians)
• "Saving Noctis Dam" (in The Martians)
• "Sax Moments" (in The Martians)
• "Selected Abstracts from The Journal of Aerological Studies" (in The Martians)
• "Sexual Dimorphism" (in The Martians)
• "Some Work Notes and Commentary on the Constitution by Charlotte Dorsa Brevia" (in The Martians)
• "Stone Eggs" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Universe 13)
• "The Archaeae Plot" (in The Martians)
• "The Blind Geometer"
• "The Constitution of Mars" (in The Martians)
• "The Disguise" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Orbit 19),
• "The Kingdom Underground" (in Escape from Katmandu)
• "The Lucky Strike" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Universe 14)
• "The Lunatics"
• "The Memorial"
• "The Part of Us That Loves" (in Remaking History)
• "The Return from Rainbow Bridge"
• "The Translator" (in Remaking History)
• "The True Nature of Shangri-La" (in Escape from Katmandu)
• "The Way the Land Spoke to Us" (in The Martians)
• "To Leave a Mark"
• "Venice Drowned" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Universe 11)
• "Vinland the Dream" (in Vinland the Dream; originally published in Remaking History)
• "What Matters" (in The Martians)
• "Zürich"

Non-fiction[link]

Robinson's doctoral thesis examined The Novels of Philip K. Dick (1984). A hardcover version was published by UMI Research Press. He also edited and wrote the introduction of the anthology Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias (1994).

Major themes[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (March 2008)

Ecological sustainability[link]

Virtually all of Robinson's novels have an ecological component; sustainability would have to be counted among his primary themes. (A strong contender for the primary theme would be the nature of a plausible utopia.) The Orange County trilogy is about the way in which the technological intersects with the natural, highlighting the importance of keeping the two in balance. In the Mars trilogy, one of the principal divisions among the population of Mars is based on dissenting views on terraforming; It is heavily debated whether or not the seemingly barren Martian landscape has a similar ecological or spiritual value to a living ecosphere like Earth's. Forty Signs of Rain is entirely ecologically themed, taking as it does global warming for its principal theme.

Economic and social justice[link]

Kim Stanley Robinson speaking at the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair on the social themes of his work.

Robinson's work often explores alternatives to modern capitalism. In the Mars trilogy, it is argued that capitalism is an outgrowth of feudalism, which could be replaced in the future by a more democratic economic system. Worker ownership and cooperatives figure prominently in Green Mars and Blue Mars as a replacement for traditional corporations. The Orange County trilogy explores similar arrangements; Pacific Edge includes the idea of attacking the legal framework behind corporate domination to promote social egalitarianism.

Robinson's work often portrays characters struggling to preserve and enhance the world around them in an environment characterized by individualism and entrepreneurialism, often facing the political and economic authoritarianism of corporate power acting within this environment. Robinson has been described as anti-capitalist, and his work often portrays a form of frontier capitalism that promotes ideals that closely resemble socialist systems, and faced with a capitalism that is staunched by entrenched hegemonic corporations. In particular, his Martian Constitution draws upon social democratic ideals explicitly emphasizing a community-participation element in political and economic life.^[6]

Robinson's works often portray the worlds of tomorrow as in a similar way to the mythologized American Western frontier, showing a sentimental affection for the freedom and wildness of the frontier. This aesthetic includes a preoccupation with competing models of political and economic organization.

The environmental, economic, and social themes in Robinson's oeuvre stand in marked contrast to the right-wing libertarian streak prevalent in much of science fiction^{[dubious – discuss]} (Robert A. Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle being prominent examples), and his work has been called the most successful attempt to reach a mass audience with a left-wing libertarian and anti-capitalist utopian vision since Ursula K. Le Guin's 1974 novel, The Dispossessed.^[7]

Scientists as citizens[link]

Robinson's work often features scientists as heroes. They are portrayed in a mundane way compared to most work featuring scientists: rather than being adventurers or action heroes, Robinson's scientists become critically important because of research discoveries, networking and collaboration with other scientists, political lobbying, or becoming public figures. The Mars trilogy and The Years of Rice and Salt rely heavily on the idea that scientists must take responsibility for ensuring public understanding and responsible use of their discoveries. Robinson's scientists often emerge as the best people to direct public policy on important environmental and technological questions, on which politicians are often ignorant.

Awards[link]

Robinson's novels have won eleven major science fiction awards, and have been nominated on twenty-nine occasions.^[8]

Robinson won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with Green Mars (1994);^[9] and Blue Mars (1997);^[10] the Nebula Award for Best Novel with Red Mars (1993);^[11] the Nebula Award for Best Novella with The Blind Geometer (1986); the World Fantasy Award with Black Air (1983);^[12] a John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel with Pacific Edge (1991);^[13] and Locus Awards for The Wild Shore (1985), A Short, Sharp Shock (1991), Green Mars (1994), Blue Mars (1997), The Martians (2000), and The Years of Rice and Salt (2003).^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Kim Stanley Robinson

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kim Stanley Robinson

• Kim Stanley Robinson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• KimStanleyRobinson.info – unofficial site
• ^{[dead link]}A podcast episode featuring Kim Stanley Robinson discussing his novel Sixty Days and Counting
• Short descriptions of K.S. Robinson's novels
• An interview with K.S. Robinson
• All of Kim Stanley Robinson's audio interviews on the podcast The Future And You (in which he describes his expectations of the future)
• Author's IBList.com Entry
• Guardian interview with K.S. Robinson
• "Comparative Planetology: an Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson" at BLDGBLOG
• Audio interview from IT Conversations – recorded 2006-01-01 covering the Science in the Capital series
• Complete list of sci-fi award wins and nominations by novel
• Interview on the SciFiDimensions Podcast

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011)

Kim Stanley
Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1961
Born	Patricia Reid (1925-02-11)February 11, 1925 Tularosa, New Mexico, U.S.
Died	August 20, 2001(2001-08-20) (aged 76) Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.
Alma mater	Actors Studio University of New Mexico
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1950–1985
Spouse	Bruce Hall (1945–1946; divorced) Curt Conway (1949–1956; divorced) 2 children Alfred Ryder (1958–1964; divorced) 1 child Joseph Siegel (1964–1967; divorced)

Kim Stanley (February 11, 1925 – August 20, 2001) was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances.

She began her acting career in theatre, and subsequently attended the Actors Studio in New York City, New York. She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her role in The Chase (1952), and starred in the Broadway productions of Picnic (1953) and Bus Stop (1955). Stanley was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her roles in A Touch of the Poet (1959) and A Far Country (1962).

During the 1950s, Stanley was a prolific performer in television, and later progressed to film, with a well-received performance in The Goddess (1959). She was the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and starred in Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), for which she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was less active during the remainder of her career; two of her later film successes were as the mother of Frances Farmer in Frances (1982), for which she received a second Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, and as Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff (1983). She received an Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Miniseries or a Movie for her performance as Big Mama in a television adaptation of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985).

Last years[link]

She did not act during her later years, preferring the role of teacher, in Los Angeles, California, and later Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she died in 2001, of uterine cancer.

Early life[link]

Stanley was born Patricia Reid in Tularosa, New Mexico, the daughter of Ann (née Miller), an interior decorator, and J. T. Reid, a professor of philosophy and education at the University of New Mexico, located in Albuquerque.^[1] Her father was of Irish or Scottish descent, born and raised in Texas, where he met her mother (who was of German and English ancestry). She had three brothers (Howard Clinton Reid, a psychiatrist; Kenneth Reid, killed in pilot training during World War II; and Justin Truman Reid, a lawyer); and a half-sister, Carol Ann Reid.^[1] She was a drama major at the University of New Mexico and later studied at the Pasadena Playhouse and adopted her maternal grandmother's surname as her stage name.^[1]

Career[link]

Stanley was a successful Broadway actress with only a few film roles. She was singled out by The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson for her early work. She eventually attended the Actors Studio, studying under Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her performance as Anna Reeves in The Chase,^[2] and starred in such Broadway hits as Picnic (1953), playing Millie Owens (which she never felt received the credit it deserved) and Bus Stop (1955), playing Cherie.

She was nominated for the 1959 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for A Touch of the Poet and the 1962 Tony for Best Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Elizabeth von Ritter in Henry Denker's A Far Country. Stanley also portrayed Maggie "The Cat" in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in the original London production of the play. She was a leading lady of live television drama, which flourished in New York City during the 1950s. Among her many starring roles was Wilma, a star-struck 15-year-old girl from the U.S. Gulf Coast of Texas in Horton Foote's A Young Lady of Property, which aired on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse on April 5, 1953. Following a savaging by English critics after her London performance of "Masha" in an Actors Studio production of Anton Chekhov's play The Three Sisters (1965) she vowed never to perform on stage again, a vow she kept for the rest of her life.^{[citation needed]}

Film[link]

Her first film was The Goddess (1958), playing a tragic movie star modeled on Marilyn Monroe (though she and director, John Cromwell, would forever deny Marilyn's influence, using Rita Hayworth as being more accurate). She starred in Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), winning both the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

A filmed version of Strasberg-directed Three Sisters (1966) opened with Stanley reprising the role of Masha, and is the only time one can see her perform in a film alongside Geraldine Page, Sandy Dennis, Shelley Winters and other well-known names of the Actors Studio. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for her performance as Frances Farmer's possessive mother in Frances (1982). She also played Pancho Barnes in The Right Stuff (1983). Stanley was the uncredited narrator in the drama film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). As the narrator, she represents the character Jean Louise Finch ("Scout") as an adult. Mary Badham portrays Scout as a child in the film.

She received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her appearance in the episode, "A Cardinal Act of Mercy" (1963), of the television series, Ben Casey (1961–1966), and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for her appearance in Tennessee Williams's Southern melodrama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985), this time as Big Mama.

Personal life[link]

Stanley was married four times – Bruce Hall (1945–1946), Curt Conway (1949– 1956), Alfred Ryder (1958–1964) and Joseph Siegel (1964–1967) – with all four marriages ending in divorce. She had three children, one by Conway, one by Brooks Clift (brother of Montgomery Clift) while she was married to Conway, and one by Ryder. During her marriage to Ryder, Stanley converted to Judaism.^[3]

Death[link]

Stanley died of uterine cancer while living in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, nursing home at the age of 76. She was survived by her first husband, Bruce Hall, her brother Justin, her three children, and several nephews and nieces. A biography, Female Brando: the Legend of Kim Stanley (2006), by Jon Krampner, was published by Back Stage Books, a division of Watson-Guptill.

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Film portal
	Theatre portal
	Television portal

• List of American film actresses
• List of American television actresses

References[link]

External links[link]

• Kim Stanley at the Internet Broadway Database
• Kim Stanley at the Internet Movie Database
• Biographer Jon Krampner KimStanley.net Website
• Telegraph obituary
• Documentary film-in-progress THE NEEDS OF KIM STANLEY Kim Stanley at the Internet Movie Database