Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias (California Troika)

While Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias occupy differing universes, there still are some interesting links drawing them together.   A brief reminder:  Wild Shore (WS) is the post-holocaust novel about life in what was once Orange County; The Gold Coast (GC) tells of life in a Orange County which has become completely covered over with expressways, condos, and shopping malls; and Pacific Edge (PE) relates of life in a world that takes the future of humanity, the environment, and our fellow creature into account.

All three novels open with a similar event or adventure, depending upon the novel--digging up the past.  In WS, Henry and his friends engage in a midnight raid on a graveyard located in one of the mostly deserted urban areas in the vicinity.  They are looking for the silver trimmings (silver is especially valuable as a trade item at the swap meets) from the caskets.  The problem is that these are considered to be their property by the scavengers who live there and have been known to kill trespassers.  They find that the silver trimmings are not really silver and barely escape the scavengers who have come across them..

The past again  becomes important in GC for Jim has persuaded his friends to dig up a parking lot which has paved over an old school, according to maps that Jim has found. He hopes to find a souvenir of that past time before the auto took over the county.   In this case, the police take a dim view of the destruction of the parking lot and Jim and his friends barely escape them.  One of his friends does manage to escape with a piece of  wood.

In PE, Kevin and others in his town are engaged in town work.  All residents must donate ten hours a week to doing work needed by the town, which has very few employees, part of the new legislation setting maximum levels of number of employees.  Aside from this which is a distinct break from our world, is another even more startling:  all governments must obey the same rules. They are busy digging up an old part of the town and putting aside for future use all the items made of metal with copper wiring and actually anything that can be reused.

Digging up the past is obviously an important element in all three novels, but this serves a different purpose in each.  In WS it's for  something that could be valuable as a bargaining/trading item,  in GC, it's for a souvenir of the long ago dead past, while in PE, it's for recyclable items.

A second link uniting the three is the main character's love life, and the course is unfortunately consistent across the three universes.  Henry, in WS, falls in love with the sexy daughter of a man who lives on the outskirts of the tiny settlement.  He is viewed with suspicion by the others for he seems to have considerable wealth, but from where no one can say.  It's a short brief but passionate affair (at least on Henry's side) that ends when Henry discovers the truth behind her sudden passion for him.

In GC,  Jim has a short, brief passionate affair with a woman who has just broken up with her boyfriend, or perhaps he has dumped her.  In any case, Jim is the lucky recipient of her affection, for a short time, that is.

Kevin, in PE, has been going with a woman for several years now, but it's clearly not going anywhere, and he's losing interest.  Then he discovers that his long ago secret love has broken up with her boyfriend after living together for more than a decade.  He finds that she suddenly discovers him, and he is ecstatic, until the sad end.  He then decides that his old girlfriend is his true love but soon learns that in the interim she has found a new boyfriend.

The path of true love does not run smoothly, regardless of the universe.

The third link is the supposed author of the works, two of which are written by the main character in each work--Henry in WS and Jim in GC. In both cases we are shown just when Henry and Jim get the idea to write down their experiences of the past months which were highly significant for them, their families, and friends.  We also hear from the author of PE, but the identify of that person is not clear.  The authorial intrusions soon make it difficult to see him as Kevin.  They live in two different universes.  Comments made by the author also suggest that this is a work of  fiction, and not autobiographical in any way.  Perhaps this is Robinson's way of suggesting that this world could never exist.  Sadly, I have to agree with Robinson that a post holocaust world is far more likely than a world that comes to realize that sheer greed and exploitation must be at least controlled, for eliminating greed and exploitation is impossible.

The last and most intriguing link is also the most direct.  In each of the three novels, there is an old man called Tom.  In WS, he is called Tom Barnard, and he is one of the few survivors from the pre-holocaust world.  He is a valuable member of the small community, for his memories of the past are highly useful.  Moreover, he is a teacher who conducts a school for the young people in the community.  Literacy among the people of his community may be his greatest contribution.  He is also a myth maker, not only telling about the pre-holocaust days but exaggerating the accomplishments of the Old Americans.  For example, Shakespeare was an American.  At one point, he becomes seriously ill and the entire community is concerned.  Existence without Tom Barnard would be unthinkable.

In PE, the old man is also called Tom Barnard.  He also lives on the outskirts of the community but is isolated from the community.  This is his choice.  He had been closely involved in the legislation that created the world as it is today in PE, and he now appears to be taking Voltaire's admonition to "tend to your own garden" quite seriously.  He is Kevin's grandfather, and Kevin attempts to get him involved in the struggle to defeat Alfredo's plans.  Tom's experience and knowledge would be very useful to those opposing Alfredo.

We find a very different situation in GC.  The old man is Jim's uncle.  I can't find any mention of him other than Uncle Tom, so I have no idea of what his last name is.  He is in a nursing home, with moments of lucidness and times of confusion;   He is mostly ignored by Jim, and by society in general, a too typical situation for many older people in our society as well.  Jim has to be nagged at by his parents to visit him once in a while.  On one visit, Tom is lucid and Jim finally realizes, much too late, that Tom has a storehouse of memories of the way Orange County was before progress took over.

In WS, the post-holocaust novel,  and PE, the fantasy universe that has gone green, Tom is a valued member of the community with close ties to both Henry and Kevin.  In GC, the universe that is closest to ours, Tom, for the most part,  is ignored by Jim and of no value to society.

Highly Recommended (naturally)

Kim Stanley Robinson: The Gold Coast

Kim Stanley Robinson's The Gold Coast (TGC) is one of the three novels in what was first called "The Orange County" trilogy, but is now being marketed as "The Three Californias." However, I still prefer my title, "The California Troika." The three novels are set in Orange County, California, at approximately the middle of the 21st century. However, they do not overlap because Robinson has postulated three widely differing futures for Orange County. It is, therefore, an alternate universe series, of a very unique kind.

I have already posted on another of the three novels--The Wild Shore (TWS), .which was a "What if" novel--one that answers the question what if there was a nuclear attack on the US? What would life be like for the survivors in Orange County some half century later?

The Gold Coast belongs to the “If this goes on” category, for it postulates the continuation of the Cold War along with massive urban population growth for Orange County, which is now a center for the military-industrial complex. Much of the industry in Orange County now consists of defense contractors, corporations whose existence depends upon gaining contracts for military weapons. The novel is an extrapolation of Orange County in the 80s when it was written.

The third novel, Pacific Edge, is a “What if” novel and is, in comparison to these two, pure fantasy. I will go into that in more detail in a later post.

While the two novels occupy widely varying universes, Robinson appears to have created a very broad pattern, at least for these two novels. The main character is a young male, Jim McPherson. In TGC he is about a decade older than the main character (Hank Fletcher) is in TWS. Physically McPherson is older; however, he still is a teenager for he hasn’t grown up yet. McPherson is still “finding himself.” He has two part-time jobs, one as a data entry clerk and the other a part-time instructor at a night school.

A second commonality is the importance of the relationship between the young man and his father, though the relationships are quite different. Jim McPherson’s father, Dennis, is an engineer who works for a defense contractor. A significant part of the story concerns the father’s problems at work, both with the work itself and his immediate supervisor, whose goal is getting the task done, regardless of whatever harm this might do to his subordinates.

The father has a dream: the weapons system (reminds me a bit of Pres. Reagan’s Star Wars System) he is now working on could eliminate the need for nuclear weapons. It might not completely eliminate war, but at least it will remove a possible nuclear holocaust that both threatens and sustains the volatile political world situation. As it is, the US is now involved in “Open wars in Indonesia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Thailand” and “Covert wars in Pakistan, Turkey, South Korea, and Belgium.”

Dennis McPherson’s job and employer are two of the reasons for the estrangement between Jim and his father. Jim is vaguely opposed to the war and therefore opposed to his father’s work. Dennis is unhappy with his son whom he feels hasn’t grown up yet, even though he was graduated from high school a decade ago. He also feels he’s being used by Jim as Jim only comes around when he wants a free meal and he needs his father to work on his car.

Both novels begin with digging into the past. In TWS, Hank and his friends, one night, go to a graveyard, hoping to dig up some coffins and find something valuable that they could use for bargaining at the local swap meet. In TGC, Jim and his friends dig up a parking lot, which covered the foundation of a school, hoping to find some relics of the past. In both cases, they are discovered and are forced to leave without finding anything valuable.

In both novels, there is an old man named Tom. Tom is an important character in TWS as he is one of the few sources of information about the world before the nuclear holocaust. In TGC, Tom is Jim’s uncle who plays a very minor role in the novel. However, he too is a source of information (occasionally) of what Orange County was like half a century ago.

One of the strongest parts of the novel is Robinson’s creation of a culture that is recognizable today, with some major differences, of course. If one were to describe Jim’s life, one couldn’t go too far wrong by bringing back the old cliché: “Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.” One of Jim’s friends is Sandy, who is an independent drug designer. What I find interesting is that his drugs are taken with an eyedropper and deposited directly on the eye. I guess this makes for a quicker absorption as it goes directly into the brain and also more efficient as less of the drug is lost along the way. Another friend is Tashi, who lives in a tent on a roof and tends his own rooftop garden. He fixes computers and other electronic devices.

The controlling technology in this world is TV. Nobody in the late 80s could have foreseen the development of the mobile phone and its impact on society. TV in TGC has supplanted reality. Jim, at a party, having accidentally hit himself on his head and under the influence of Sandy’s latest creation, has gotten himself involved in a ping-pong game with the local champion and is playing way over his head, making spectacular volleys and saves. The game gains the interest of the other partygoers who eventually leave the room the game is being played in for the adjoining room where they can watch it on CCTV. All of Jim’s friends, including Jim, have their places wired for CCTV so they can see what’s going on in any room from any room in the place. They would much rather watch the game on a TV screen than watch it directly.

Another incident demonstrating the superiority of life on a monitor over a flesh-and-blood presence occurs shortly after the ping-pong game. Jim hooks up with Virginia, and they leave the party for her place for sex. They arrive at her place:

Virginia flips on the lights, turns on the video system. Eight little cameras mounted high on the walls track them with IR sensors, and two big sets of screens on the side walls show Virginia undressing, from both front and back. Jim finds the images arousing indeed . . . They maneuver into positions where they can both see a wall of screens.

. . . . .

her face is in exquisite profile . . . and her breasts . . . well it’s almost enough to distract him from the screens. . .

The screens flicker and go blank. Glassy gray-green nothingness.

Virginia jumps off Jim . . . Angrily she punches the buttons of the control panel over by the light switches.

She can’t get the system to work. Sex is no longer interesting in itself, but only as performance.

Fortunately Jim comes to the rescue. He moves a large mirror into the room so that now they can see their reflections. They resume, finding the mirrors a bit kinky as the two couples stare back at each other.

The Plot: Jim becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his life and decides to become actively involved with a group that opposes the military-industrial complex. He begins with slapping posters around the mall and eventually gets involved with sabotaging the defense contractors. Eventually the group decides to attack Laguna Space Research (LSR), the company that Jim’s father works for.

Then it gets complicated and several plot lines converge. The next target is LSR. Since the group attacks installations only at night and only where there are no guards, many companies are putting guards in places they never were before. Surprisingly, LSR suddenly removes the guards from the site where Dennis McPherson is developing his super-weapon. The attack on LSR is set up. Sandy, who also occasionally deals as well as develops drugs, had to dump overboard a shipment of drugs along the coast where LSR is situated. He is told by those who ordered and paid for the drugs that he’s got to go back this night because the police and DEA will be distracted by an attack on LSR.

OVERALL COMMENTS: a complex tale with multiple themes—fathers and sons, the generation gap, the military-industrial complex, the effects of technology on those embedded in it, knowingly or otherwise. Recommended for those looking for a complex tale set in the near future that has some disturbing similarities to our own. Again, it makes no difference which of the three--The Wild Shore, The Gold Coast, or Pacific Edge--you read first.

Kim Stanley Robinson: The California Troika

When Kim Stanley Robinson published these three novels--The Wild Shore (1984), The Gold Coast (1988), and Pacific Edge (1990)-- they were known collectively as "The Orange County Trilogy." In 1995, the three were reissued in trade paperback editions and were then called "The Three Californias." This probably represents the recognition that these three works do not constitute a trilogy, at least not in the accepted sense of the word. Calling them three Californias does suggest that they are related but not as tightly as a trilogy would be.

I think a better descriptive would be the Russian term "troika," which is a sled or carriage drawn by three horses that are harnessed side-by-side. The three horses therefore move forward into space side-by-side and are equals in that sense--no lead or trailing horse. The same is true of Robinson's three novels, for they move forward side-by-side into time. There is no first or last novel. All three are independent, and it makes no difference in which order the three are read. I read them over twenty years ago in the order of publication, and for this second visit, I will read them in the same order.

I never learned the reason for the change from Orange County to California, but my guess would be a marketing decision--more readers might go for a series set in California than in Orange County, because California is a more recognizable locale than Orange County.

These three novels are inhabitants of my TBR bookcase (To Be Reread in this case). I won't read all three back-to-back but hope to be able to move them eventually during the year out of the TBR bookcase. I shall start within the next week or two with The Wild Shore.


The Wild Shore is a post-holocaust novel and belongs in the "what if" SF category. "What if the US was suddenly attacked, and it was the only country attacked." No other country came to the aid of the US for fear of retaliation. The novel begins in 2047, several decades after the war, if a one-sided attack can be called a war. The POV character, Hank Fletcher, is a young man who lives with his father in a small community made up of others who struggle to survive on the California coast in what was once known as Orange County. He can see ships from Japan and other countries as they maintain a blockade along the Pacific Coast. They will prevent any ships from entering or leaving the coastal waters.

The people survive by farming and trading surplus goods and pre-destruction artifacts with other small communities in the area. Not surprisingly, barter is now the dominant economic system. These people's lives are not characterized as part of that idyllic pastoral romance that shows up in so many post-holocaust fantasies. It is a hard, difficult life, and there is little in the way of significant change until several strangers arrive, who claim to be from San Diego, and they have some ideas about disrupting the status quo.


The Gold Coast belongs to the "if this goes on" category of SF. It is Robinson's extrapolation of what life would be like in Orange County, California, if some existing trends continued. It is set in 2027 and the back page description says it better than I could:

Southern California is a developer's dream gone mad, an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, and malls. Jim McPherson, the affluent son of a defense contractor, is a young man lost in a world of fast cars, casual sex, and designer drugs. But his descent into the shadowy underground of industrial terrorism brings him into a shattering confrontation with his family, his goals, and his ideals.


Pacific Edge, the third novel in the troika, is set also in the same area in 2065, but again in a very different universe. It belongs to the "what if" category, and frankly I consider it to be closer to fantasy than the other two works. I, anyway, believe this universe to be the one that is least likely to happen because the question answered by Pacific Edge is this: "What if the whole world suddenly goes green?"

Big is bad, small is good. Air and water pollution are not to be permitted for any reason. No company can have more than a certain number of employees. Growth, unless it is demonstrably necessary for survival, is forbidden; increasing profits has nothing to do with survival and therefore is not considered an adequate reason for expansion. A new set of three "Rs" has been added to the traditional "Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmatic": "Reuse, Recycle, and Repair."

From the back cover description: "Kevin Claiborne, a young builder who has grown up in this 'green' world, now finds himself caught up in the struggle to preserve his community's idyllic way of life from the resurgent forces of greed and exploitation." I suspect this book is on or would be on every Chamber of Commerce's black list.

While there are no links among the novels--all three are independent and occupy separate universes--there are some commonalities among them. Locale, of course, is one of them. Another commonality is that the main character in each is a young male. A third is that shortly after the novels begin, the young male is involved in digging up something from the past. A fourth is the presence of the old man, who provides a type of historical commentary or perhaps even continuity with the past in each of the three novels.

What Robinson has created is a work that provides three different futures for Orange County or California, if you prefer, each of which takes place roughly during the middle third of the 21st century. Robinson thus gives readers an opportunity to select and discuss which is the preferable one and which is the most likely one.

I don't know of any other author who has created a similar series. If there is one, I would certainly like to hear about it.