Icehenge

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Summary: Plutonian monuments & millennial life spans
Review: "Icehenge" is a great science fiction novel at a number of levels. On the surface it is a something of a mystery, namely, who put those ice megaliths on Pluto? Robinson maintains the air of suspense right up to the book's end (and beyond, depending on how you look at it). Perhaps the most interesting aspects of "Icehenge" are some of the underlying themes Robinson incorporates into his narrative. One is the concept of virtual immortality, as the people in the novel's future world have life spans of up to a thousand years. Robinson explores some of the possible downsides to such a medical feat, such as extensive memory loss (most of the novel's older characters cannot recall their own childhood) and deep, debilitating depressions ('funks') induced by a feeling that life lacks purpose - not hard to believe if you can imagine yourself living for 500 or so years with another 500 to come. Additionally, Robinson speculates on the nature of history and acheology as forms of scholarship. Using the novel's debate about the origin of the Icehenge monument on Pluto, he notes how something as apparently straightforward as the exploration of past events can be subject to massive debates and controversy, as events and facts are reinterpreted, new evidence is found and accepted beliefs are turned on their head - with all of the ensuing social and political implications. As such, "Icehenge" is a great metaphor for our own day and age. The only criticism I would have is that writing this novel in the early 1980s, Robinson too confidently projected some of the realities of his own time into his imagined future. Thus, there is the now odd reference to the Soviet fleet and Soviet colonies on Mars. If you can get past this, "Icehenge" is a very enjoyable and intriguing book.

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Summary: KSR's 'Icehenge'
Review: A masterpiece SF-whodunnit, with extensions on the future Mars & Solar-System themes laid down in the 'Mars' trilogy. Stan continues to explore the human mind in more of his superbly created characters.

Rating:
Summary: Impressive early work
Review: Although not up to the standards of the magnificent Mars trilogy, Icehenge is still a very good novel. I admire the way Robinson manages to blur events over time; an event he writes about early in a book may become distorted and impenetrable to later characters. Icehenge is full of the uncertainties that the passing of time creates (this is most noticeable in the middle chapter). In keeping with this theme, the mysteries surrounding the 'henge' are never resolved. Though the author hints at how it came about, he leaves the issue open to debate - which, in the context of the novel, makes for a highly satisfactory conclusion.

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Summary: Robinson doing what Robinson does well
Review: Both the cover and the start of the Amazon.com review above suggest that Icehenge is a part of KSR's "Mars Trilogy" world. This cannot be - the novel has Mars in it, but apparently Mars is still run by some UNOMA/TA like body ("The Mars Development Committee") some years after Blue Mars. It might be better to think of Icehenge as being an early prototype for the Mars series, with various themes and styles being tried out. ISBN/ASINs 0812533623 (The "Green Mars" novella of 1987) and 0312861435 (The Memory of Whiteness) are two books written before Red Mars that are set apparently in the trilogy universe, for those interested.

Icehenge is a study in how archaeologists and other scientists try to explain a mysterious ring of monoliths found on Pluto. The novel is divided into three parts: an account that provides an initial explanation of the monument's creation, a story of the struggle of an archaeologist who discovers this account to have it believed, and a final voyage to the site to find out the truth. There is some very dry satire here, egos being ruffled, power games being played, and crank scientists raising "Atlantian" type explanations for everything. Along the way, the advances, and failures, of the society in which this is based are explored. Mars is run by a dictatorship which can no longer tell the difference between opposition and fraternization. People can live for ever, but at the cost of their memories and their sanity. History is written, and then rewritten, and then written again, depending not on the evidence but on the egos and powers of the day. This is an all too real future that Robinson explores in far more detail in the trilogy.

Robinson paints characters with detail and love, fleshing them out almost to the same degree as in his later novels. Unlike his later novels, the humans are the only characters, no planets to fall in love with here. Elsewhere Robinson has a tendency to drop into pretension, but, with the exception of mutineers singing "Ode to Joy", he avoids doing so here. The style is restrained and very readable

This is an undervalued piece of science fiction that can hold its own with the greats. Icehenge is an example of Robinson at his best: careful, thorough, scientific, absorbing and thought provoking. A great book.

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Summary: A commentary on the science of historical perceptivity
Review: Having saturated myself in Robinson's excellent Mars Trilogy several years ago, Icehenge ended up being one of those purchases that sat on my shelf for some time. Picking Icehenge up several years after its publication has not detracted at all, as the author's easy creation of a realistic solar society still remains on course and, given the advances in genetics over recent years, all the more plausible.
Icehenge is a story set in three parts told by three connected people over several hundred years. Robinson seeks to take archaeology into the future to demonstrate that the provision of primary written evidence is inevitably biased and that written evidence of what we will do will become too distorted and too historically complex for our future generations to be in any better position to understand than our archaeological techniques can today.
The opener, narrated by Emma Weil tells of her unwitting participation in a somewhat idealistic attempt by the underground Mars Starship Association to set off for pastures new beyond our solar system. Her love affair is woven in as both a motivator and an explanation for the links between Weil and Davydov, giving us a story of a group of people determined to leave the solar system to colonize pastures new. Heavily influenced by the political situation on Mars at the time it culminates in Emma's return to Mars to be part of the uprising and final destruction of New Houston. A voyage in both the physical and mental sense, part I is intensely reflective and demonstrates the struggle between idealism and reality, between fact and perception.
A 'footnote' to the opening text is Davydov's desire to leave a megalithic message and this is picked up in second story, narratted by (at the time) maverick archaeologist Hjalmar Nederland who was present at the fall of New Houston. His expedition to uncover this lost city of the rebellion and question the official version as denoted in the Aimes Report is a personal odyssey that culminates in his discovery of a truth that contradicts the official version, yet doesn't upset the political apple cart. He then moves on to be a leading part of the IceHenge discovery and the links between both it and Emma Weil.
Whereas Weil's journey is from 'good citzen' to rebel, Nederland's is the opposite - though mainly in the intellectual community. What is ironic is that it is the understanding of Weil's last days and transition that sends Nederland unwittingly back to the path of officialdom, rather than truth.
This is further continued in the third story, that of Edmond Doya, the great-grandon of Nederland whose passion for all things archeological and his upbringing off-planet forces him to question the reality of Emma Weil's testament, Nederland's explanation for Icehenge and, in doing so, the perception of history. His search leads him to Pluto where a final dating methodology is established seeming to give a final proof to his findings and concluding several historical records and theories. Robinson throws in a final thought with Doya's colleague advancing a further theory to close the cycle begun by Emma Weil some many years ago.
As well as being a well written, plausible exposition of a humar solar society in the distant future, what Robinson's Icehenge achieves is to question our perception of history, of how history is written and how the need to understand our origins can cause those explorers or seekers of historical truth to make assumptions and give explanations which, though plausible, are created through suggestion.

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Summary: gripping
Review: I am not a science fiction fan and this book didn't make me one. I found it to be a bit too mysterious for me but the first section was rather gripping. Perhaps I just need to watch a lot more episodes of Star Treck to get the hang of it.

Rating:
Summary: A puzzle
Review: I didn't get this book. It was somewhat interesting, but at the end, I didn't know why it was written. If you want to read KSR from this time period, read the Three Californias trilogy, they're 4-star books.

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Summary: Phil Dick ideas, Thomas Pynchon style
Review: I've long had to admit that while I liked Stan Robinson's writing, I had never read any of his novels, just his short stories in magazines and collections. No more, although the case could be made that Icehenge is a collection of three novellas. In fact, parts of Icehenge were published as "To Leave a Mark" (in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) and "On the North Pole of Pluto" (in Orbit 21). This is the reason why I picked Icehenge to read first, before Robinson's first published novel, The Wild Shore; that is, to satisfy my anal retentive (does that have a hyphen?) desire for reading things chronologically. Icehenge is three stories inter-connected, each from a different time period and point of view. The first tells of Emma Weil and the Martian Unrest. The second of Nederland and his archaelogical investigation into the Unrest. And last is Doya, who questions whether Nederland's "proof" is actually an ingenuous hoax. Complicated? Yes, but also done in such a way that the convolutions are easy to follow. Robinson admires Philip K. Dick--his graduate thesis was on Dick's novels--and it shows in the theme of this book: what is real? What can we trust? Several people have recommended his latest novel, Red Mars, to me, and I do intend to read it...after I finally read all these others of his that have been sitting on my to-be-read shelf for far too long.

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Summary: Great Characters telling an interesting who-dunnit!
Review: Icehenge was an extremely enjoyable mystery. The use of three strong characters telling the story from their individual perspectives over the ages was refreshing and innovative. While much different from the later Mars Series, it gives the reader an exciting journey into the discovery of our solar system (and beyond).

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Summary: A good appetizer for the Mars Trilogy
Review: 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.