Inventing Plausible Utopias: An Interview With Kim Stanley Robinson
A Q&A with the acclaimed science fiction author and inventor of better futures
Insurrection. Global pandemic. Cascading climate crises. Never-ending Zooms. We seem to be living through the dystopia Hollywood has always dreamed of, sans a satisfying narrative arc.
In times like these, nihilism beckons. Just give up, history seems to be saying. There’s nothing you can do. The best you can hope for is to protect your own as you watch the world burn.
Fuck that.
Some novelists begin a new story by identifying a central theme, and then let the characters, plot, setting, tone, pace, and all the rest unspool from there. That’s never worked for me. Instead, theme is usually something I can identify only after the story is on the page. It’s the shadow cast by the narrative. And if there’s a single theme underlying every novel I’ve written, it’s that even in the face of tremendous complexity and overwhelming odds, agency matters.
Adversity isn’t an ending. There aren’t any endings. Adversity is a challenge. It’s a question to which our actions are the answer. It’s an invitation to find out who we really are.
