Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson (born 23 March 1952 in Waukegan, Illinois) is an American science fiction writer known for the Mars trilogy (1992 to 1996) and for climate fiction such as New York 2140 (2017) and The Ministry for the Future (2020).

Robinson studied literature at the University of California, San Diego (BA 1974), took an MA in English at Boston University (1975) and returned to UC San Diego for a PhD (1982), first supervised by Fredric Jameson; his thesis became The Novels of Philip K. Dick (1984).

His first novels both appeared in 1984: Icehenge and The Wild Shore (Ace), the latter opening the Three Californias sequence completed by The Gold Coast (1988) and Pacific Edge (1990). Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996) follow the settlement and terraforming of Mars; Red Mars won the Nebula Award, and Green Mars and Blue Mars both won the Hugo and Locus awards. The alternate history The Years of Rice and Salt (2002) also won a Locus Award, and 2312 (2012) won a second Nebula. Since 2312 his novels, including Aurora (2015), New York 2140 and The Ministry for the Future, have been published by Orbit. Barack Obama named The Ministry for the Future among his favourite books of 2020.

For collectors

The Mars trilogy is the centre of most collections, and its first publication was British: Red Mars appeared from HarperCollins in London in September 1992, months before the American Bantam Spectra edition of February 1993, and Green Mars and Blue Mars were also first published by HarperCollins in London. The UK hardbacks are therefore the first editions to look for.