The novel “Pacific Edge” by Kim Stanley Robinson was published for the first time in 1990. It’s the third book in the trilogy of the Three Californias. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
Kevin Clayborne was elected to the city council of El Modena, a town in Orange County. A member of the Green Party, he finds himself on the opposite side of the New Federal mayor Alfredo Blair regarding the project to open up the last hill in the city still remaining in a completely natural state to possible commercial exploitation.
The situation for Kevin is made more complicated by the relationship he’s trying to build with Ramona Alvarez, who has just ended a relationship with Alfredo. Kevin must juggle his personal and political situation in what is supposed to be a utopia of 2065 California.
The so-called trilogy of the three Californias is a series of novels united only by the geographical setting. They’re entirely independent, as Kim Stanley Robinson wrote stories set in different possible futures.
“Pacific Edge” is set in a future where various problems of the present have been solved. El Modena is supposed to be an ecological utopia where the well-being of the environment is a priority and comes before any economic interest. Laws that limit the size of corporations and the maximum salary of managers are supposed to prevent concentrations of economic power and social inequality.
This situation hasn’t eliminated certain human tendencies, and in the microcosm of El Modena, a conflict arises around the future of a hill that shows the different points of view on natural resources. Greens want to keep those resources intact but there are those who try to exploit any existing loopholes in the laws to circumvent the limits placed on corporations and obtain economic advantages with the help of politicians who are more attentive to certain advantages, especially personal ones.
Only a part of the story concerns this conflict because many other parts are used by the author to tell moments of Kevin Clayborne’s personal life. I have to say, the combination of the love triangle and various softball games really tested my ability to pay attention. The romantic developments didn’t interest me at all and I know practically nothing about baseball/softball, so it’s impossible for me to tell if the story of the games includes some profound content I missed.
The novel contains some parts told by Tom, a character whose exact identity is revealed only at the end, which are set over half a century before the main story. For much of this subplot, we only understand that its protagonist is an environmental activist who is fighting with great sacrifice for a better future.
Tom represents in many ways the voice of Kim Stanley Robinson himself and shows a defining period in world history that was in the near future when this novel was published. These are the years in which the battle is fought between those who seek to safeguard the environment and those who want to continue the exploitation of natural resources for purely economic purposes with advantages only for a very rich elite.
In the transition towards what is supposed to be the future ecological utopia, Kim Stanley Robinson remains a little vague on the changes at the technological level. That’s another problem of “Pacific Edge” for me because the will of the people to preserve the environment is crucial but then there’s the practical side of the need to sustain our current society with the current population.
In the end, “Pacific Edge” is one of the novels in which Kim Stanley Robinson expresses above all good intentions, perhaps the main reason why I prefer his works set in more distant futures and beyond Earth. This ecological utopia he proposed may appeal above all to readers interested in social and political elements, which also include the everyday lives of the characters.
