In a previous post I already wrote about the Science in the Capitol trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. I was reading the second book then and now I just finished the 3rd book, Sixty Days and Counting. Well, I have to say: WOW! He has done it again, I really love his style. His books are really filled with ideas and I love his character building.
The main character in the trilogy is Frank Vandewal and I found myself enjoying this character so much! Now and then there was a chapter where another character had the lead, which was ok, but when in a next chapter Frank took over I was in high spirits! So what did I like so much about Frank? Well, his world view (he always tries to look at present human behavior through the eyes of a hunter/gatherer) and his lifestyle (to give an idea, he lives in a tree house in a Washington D.C. park for some time). In the same time he works at NSF (the U.S. National Science Foundation), so he’s combining the city life with an outdoors life. Its an experiment of living close to nature in a city.
This way of living, ‘going feral’ as KSR calls it, is also a theme I find back in the Mars Trilogy. There, in the final book of the trilogy when Mars has an atmosphere where people can live outdoors this type of living starts to occur. And why not? And why does it have to be only on Mars. Why not Earth? I really feel that the Science in the Capitol trilogy is an adaptation of many ideas posted in the Mars Trilogy to Earth. And these ideas are only as farfetched as you think they are.
A main theme in the book is global warming and the occurrence of more extreme weather. Large scale, ‘terraforming’ projects are started to counteract these changes. This again links this trilogy to the Mars Trilogy, only now terraforming Earth. Therefore I think this trilogy is recommended reading for everyone interested in the big Earth vs. Humanity issues of which people becoming more and more aware of these days, e.g. global warming, sustainable development, population rise, etcetera.
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