I came to utopia by accident, having painted myself into a corner with an idea for a trilogy: three science fiction novels consisting of an after-the-fall novel, a dystopia, and a utopia, all set in the same place and about the same distance into the future. The idea came to me in 1972, and I didn’t know how to write a novel then, so the plan needed brooding on. Some sixteen years later, the time came for the utopia. I had (...) written the after-the-fall novel, The Wild Shore, and the dystopia, The Gold Coast. The utopia was the only one left.By that time many aspects of it had been determined by the previous two books. I needed it to be in Orange County, California; I needed it to be fifty years in the future; and I.. (shrink)

Kim Stanley Robinson a toujours interrogé l’exploration spatiale comme moyen d’émancipation. Mais sur cette aventure extraterrestre, il est devenu de moins en moins optimiste au fil de ses livres. Il croit encore en sa dimension utopique, mais à condition qu’elle devienne modeste et cède la place, en termes de priorité, à la préservation des conditions d’habitabilité de la Terre, au cœur de son dernier roman Le Ministère du futur.

Terraformer les planètes lointaines pour les rendre aptes à porter des vies humaines nourrit sans doute des imaginations littéraires, mais ce que nous appelons « vie » reste pour le moment étroitement attaché à notre planète Terre.