Science Fiction (1984 - 262 pp.)
Kim Stanley Robinson's Icehenge has what might be the catchiest premise in science fiction history: scientists discover a mysterious Stonehenge-like structure on the North Pole of Pluto,* and then become obsessed with understanding why it is there. It is the second of his books I have discussed on the blog after 2002's The Years of Rice and Salt.
Icehenge's three protagonists exist centuries apart: Emma Weil narrates Part 1 from the year 2248AD, on a spaceship near Mars. Hjalmar Nederland narrates Part 2 from the year 2547AD, primarily on or near Mars. Edmond Doya narrates Part 3 from the year 2610AD, on Pluto. Weil foreshadows some of the events in Parts 2 and 3, and Nederland foreshadows some of the events in Part 3, creating a matryoshka doll-like sequence in which the reader knows key details before some of the narrators do but in a completely plausible way. For example, Doya's discovery of the Sanskrit inscription on one of Icehenge's faces is old news to the reader, who has the benefit of seeing Nederland discover it in the previous part.
Icehenge's problem is how much of it occurs on Mars. The entirety of Part 1 is on Mars and most of Part 2 is on Mars. This Martian-centricness continues until the word "Pluto" and the concept of Icehenge are finally mentioned forty pages into Part 2 (109), and the word "Icehenge" is finally used a few pages later. (114) Icehenge was one of Robinson's early releases (he was 32 when it was published); while he would not publish his Mars trilogy until the 1990s, it is possible the Martian focus is simply what the publisher expected science fiction fans would buy.
Amidst the Martian Revolution** that forms a historical curiosity later in the book but does not concern Icehenge, Part 1's main point of interest is the level of technological development aboard the Rust Eagle. Weil runs in a low-gravity gym, has access to stereotypical raygun-esque weaponry, and consumes space-grown food:***
The foods grown on ship--salads, vegetable drinks, fish or scallops or chicken or rabbit, goat cheese, milk, yoghurt--were supplemented by non-renewable supplies: coffee, tea, bread, beef... They would run out of those things pretty fast. (21)
Robinson selects the renewable and non-renewable food seemingly at random. The greatest example is that there are goat pens onboard, (29) requiring a substantial agricultural area, but there is an apparent shortage of coffee and tea plants, both of which can be grown in a standard balcony planter. Why a 23rd-century interplanetary spaceship capable of launching a war on Mars cannot produce a modest quantity of coffee or tea for the crew is never explained.
When the story takes off at the beginning of Part 2, Nederland emerges as the book's de facto protagonist. He narrates 100 of the book's 262 pages, establishes a deep connection with Weil through discovering her diary, and also talks to Doya near the end of Part 3.****
Nederland is the vehicle for most of Robinson's beautiful, contemplative prose. Nederland's opening monologue, starting with the line "Memory is the weak link", (67) ending with the line "What we feel most, we remember best", (68) sets up a story of exploration from Mars to Pluto, discovery (of Icehenge itself), and longing for a past Nederland can never visit, when he can fall in love with a young Weil. Nederland's twin obsessions with the future (Pluto/Icehenge) and the past (Mars/Weil) lead him to the brink of insanity, which he reflects on by noting, "I have always feared insanity. It seems to me the most horrifying of illnesses, and the Achilles heel of modern medicine." (136) This prediction of Robinson's, hidden in an observation of Nederland's, may be prescient; mental health is already a major focus area in modern medicine. These COVID-19 pandemic times, complete with social distancing and self-isolation, may actually be the forerunner of how mentally devastating it must be on a spaceship.
Nederland finishes Part 2 with a sigh, noting that although he still has not seen Icehenge up close yet, and he will likely never know Weil's fate, he has to live with the reality that the past is gone and the present is our only reality: "Our lives are plants, creating leaves and flowers that fall away and are lost forever." (166)
Part 3 shows Doya arrive on Pluto and investigate Icehenge. It is the most setting-driven, with speculative descriptions of what seasons on Pluto must be like: "It was spring in the northern hemisphere---coldest, longest spring under the sun--and the sun stayed just over the horizon all the time." (248) Icehenge's memorial inscription follows. In a final sightseeing before they return, Doya and his shipmate Jones spot Pluto's Pole Star, leading the reader to imagine what constellations might be visible from Pluto. (253) What happened at Icehenge, whenever it happened (2248, 2547, or sometime in between?), Doya and his shipmate Jones finally admit they will never know. (261)
Icehenge is truly three stories in one. The first shows Weil in a traditional science fiction plot, the Martian Revolution, complete with a technical diagram of the ship's farm. (29) The second shows Nederland dig through the remnants of his past. The third shows Doya, and, to those of us who bought the book in part because of its title, Icehenge, provide Pluto's vast starscape that should capture the imagination of any reader. Robinson's versatility would follow him later in his career - ironically, in The Years of Rice and Salt, set on a very different Earth. For Robinson's first novel, though, the exotic by science fiction standards setting of Pluto is the end and the beginning.
Ease of Reading: 8
Educational Content: 2
*In Icehenge, Pluto is referred to as a planet, because in 1984, it still was. I have speculated before that 1930-2006 will be known as "The Pluto Era".
**The existence of the Washington-Lenin Alliance between the United States and the USSR means that Icehenge falls into a frequent Cold War-era science fiction trap: the continuation of the USSR into future centuries. This also occurs in other contemporary works, notably William Gibson's Burning Chrome. It does not make the writing any worse, especially in Icehenge, as the characters never go to Earth, making the name of the United States's collaborator in space travel irrelevant. It remains a point of jocularity, though.
***The idea of growing food in space presages Andy Weir's The Martian (2012), which I read earlier this summer. The Martian contains more technical language, making the decision to adapt it into a movie an obvious one. Whereas The Martian's potato-filled hydroponic farm is beautifully explained, Icehenge is an easier read because of the bald assumption that interplanetary agriculture could exist.
****Characters live to be very old in the world of Icehenge, although they only tend to remember their most recent eighty years.
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