Product Description

On the North Pole of Pluto there stands an enigma: a huge circle of standing blocks of ice, built on the pattern of Earth's Stonehenge--but ten times the size, standing alone at the farthest reaches of the Solar System. What is it? Who came there to build it?

The secret lies, perhaps, in the chaotic decades of the Martian Revolution, in the lost memories of those who have lived for centuries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #356041 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com Review
Voted one of the best science fiction novels of the year in the 1985 Locus Poll, Icehenge is an early novel by Kim Stanley Robinson (author of the trilogy comprising Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars) and takes place in the same universe. The story is part mystery and part psychological drama, divided into three distinct sections.

In the year 2248, Mars is ruled by a Politburo-like committee that actively discourages dissent as well as travel and exploration of other planets. Scientist Emma Weil becomes involved in a covert plot to convert a stolen ship into a self-supporting spaceship. She turns down a chance to accompany the starfarers, and returns to her beloved Mars where she joins the revolution already in progress.

Three centuries later, archaeologist Hjalmar Nederland unearths a governmental cover-up of the true facts behind the old revolution. At the same time, a Stonehenge-like monument is discovered on the north pole of Pluto, and Nederland sets out to prove his theory that the monument is connected to revolutionaries and their contemporaries who left for the stars. Seventy years later, his great-grandson Edmond Doya becomes convinced that Icehenge is a hoax, and attempts to disprove Nederland's theory.

In addition to futuristic issues such as interstellar travel and the terraforming of Mars, Robinson's characters grapple with politics, careers, families, and aging. Icehenge is a worthy introduction to the author's winning combination of hard science and believable characterization. --Bonnie Bouman

Review
"Unforgettable." --The Baltimore Sun

"In a genre not often distinguished by strong characterization, Robinson is a welcome exception. Yet even the memorable community of his The Wild Shore did not prepare us for this brilliant triptych in which the monolithic artifact of the title and the events surrounding it are described and examined from widely different points of view. The distinct, personal voices of the narratives, as they construct and deconstruct their elegant theories, are a pleasure rare in SF." --Publishers Weekly
-- Review

Review

Customer Reviews

Great out of the starting gate
Kim Stanley Robinson debuted with this book and The Wild Shore practically in the same year, something that doesn't happen too often. Even rarer, it turns out that both book are key works of the authors and deserved to be read years after they were first published. The Wild Shore gets most of the glory because it's slightly better and part of a trilogy (all three of which are highly recommended) and also because it's less "SFish" than Icehenge. Icehenge has a similar structure as Asimov's The Gods Themselves in that the book is made of three distinct pieces with three distinct characters who all further the plot without ever meeting . . . sort of. There is some crossing of stories here, but not directly, but Robinson's charactizations are what shine through. All of the parts are written in the first person and each character has an individual voice, uniquely showing different views of a future society where life is good but not great, where you can live for hundreds of years but forget about the place where you were born. The plot partially concerns some monoliths (shades of 2001!) being found on Pluto, with the pervading theory that they were built by humans . . . the only question is by who and why. The first story sets up everything else and might give clues into what happened but the other two sections are what deal with the formations proper. The first guy has one theory, his great-grandson years later has a totally different one and both go about proving them. In the end though it's impossible to say and this is a book that will have you considering a lot of aspects of the plot long after you've put it done. Robinson didn't take the easy way out and give a neatly pat ending, which some readers may not be too fond of. But considering the themes of the book, of memory loss and forgetting the past, it fits in perfectly. It's not his best book but if you've enjoyed anything else he's written there's no reason why you shouldn't give this a shot.

Great read, but leaves one wanting more to think about
My thoughts on Icehenge are difficult to gather - it's a gripping story, a page-turner. Page-turner-ness is an important criterion for any book to rated highly. However, even though I loved reading the book, and hated when I had to pause, I am still left somewhat empty after reading it, because ultimately, it doesn't get across what I think the author wanted to get across to us - which is the vagaries of historical research, and how human fallability, and human ego, especially as they are enhanced by a human life-span that has reached the 600 year range, interferes with our ability to ever accurately reconstruct the past, no matter how advanced our scientific archeological technology might progress.

The story takes place in three different times, all after we have colonized Mars. The first part is the Mars rebellion of 2248, told from the point of view of a woman who ended up hijacked by a rebellious faction who were planning on going out of the solar system to escape the dreaded corporate committee that rules Mars. The second part takes place a few hundred years later, and involves the discovery of "Icehenge", a stonehenge-like construction of ice on Pluto, with a sanskrit inscription and a date of 2248. The main character of this section is an archeologist who reconstructs through "scientific" means that the group of rebels from part I made icehenge on their way out of the solar system.

The third part of the story is a few hundred years after the second, and involves a main character who does a lot of research and ends up being able to go to Pluto, and then "substantively" proves that icehenge could not possibly have been built by the rebel group, since it must be relatively recently constructed.

The society and culture that Robinson created in this book is very believable and interesting; his characters are fantastic - I cared for them all, whether they were jerks or good people; his writing style is readable and exciting. But still, the story just doesn't leave me thrilled to have read it. The potential was there to make a real important inquiry into the nature of historical reconstruction, and thus be a commendable treatise on our own fallability in accurately reconstructing history and our ego-stupidity in assuming that what we "discover" must be the "truth". But, unfortunately, he doesn't quite do that.

But, in all respect, this is also an early work of Robinson's, before reaching maturity, so to speak, as a writer.

It's definitely worth the read, absolutely. But if you are in the mood for something more meaty, then pass this one up, and head for something else.

3 stars becuase the writing style is so awesome, but the story doesn't go as far as it could have in enlightening us about the author's point of view.

A good appetizer for the Mars Trilogy
If I hadn't already read KSR's Mars Trilogy, I'm not sure I would have liked this book much. This book was written 10 years before Red Mars/Green Mars/Blue Mars were published, but KSR obviously had already thought through a number of the terraforming and long life issues he would deal with in those books. For that reason alone, this book is extremely interesting as a precursor to the trilogy (although it actually is set in a future time when Mars has an established atmosphere and settled government).

However, there was a darkness to this book that disturbed me. The main character in the middle section constantly struggles to avoid falling into a deep, immobilizing depression. There is little joy in this book, and overmuch political machinations, hopelessness and depression.