Part of Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias trilogy, The Gold Coast is an alternative view of life in the 21st century. The writing style is unique and was a little annoying and distracting at first. However, once I got used to it, I found myself totally engrossed in the story. Periodically dissected by poetry, the story is riveting and the book hard to put down. The themes of globalisation, corporatisation and conquest are explored thoroughly and well, and the sense that there is something missing from today's fast-paced society is expressed well. This is definitely worth reading. ( )

A decaying California? Basically, Robinson's weakest work, this lot. Not something I am interested in, in general. Three Californias is perhaps two and a half Californias too many, in this case. This is perhaps close to mundane. Orange County is not a nice place to start with, not too suprising it will be less nice in the future. Prefer others to this, particularly his newer books.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2006/12/gold-coast-kim-stanley-robinson.html ( )

http://www.amazon.com/review/RLZEX2JN... ( )

This is the "first" (if you could call it that) novel in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Three Californias" series, also know as the "Orange County Trilogy" or the "California Triptych". This is a series of books, each featuring the same character, in wildly different settings; each book looking at one possible future of California. The other two novels are "The Wild Shore" which recounts a California of 2047 after the ravages of nuclear war withe the USSR and "Pacific Edge", a 2065 vision of the possible sane reclamation of our world in a ecological utopia.

"The Gold Coast" however, takes place in 2027; a future all to likely and easy to imagine. It is a natural extension of where we are heading. The "autotopia" if you will, of mass commercial development, rampant consumerism and an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, and malls. A multi-level pavement paradise.

Jim McPherson, the main focus of the story, is a twenty something just drifting through his existence, feeling a undefinable ennui and discontentment with his life but blurring it with rampant drug use, mindless part time jobs, casual sex and his aberrant poetry. Jim's life is out of focus, living like a teenager, well into his adult life. His parents don't understand him and Jim's one sole focus is his passion for history; the past Orange County, with which he feel a quintessetail connect and longing.

In a unfocused attempt to bring some sanity and direction to his life, Jim joins his distant friend Arthur on a domestic terrorism plan, sabotaging the multiple aerospace companies and the "war machine" they feed. Via portable missile attacks on unmanned manufacturing plants the duo wrecks havoc and chaos over the defense industry, shaking the very foundation of Jim's life to the core. But when Jim finds out the true nature of Arthur and his missions, everything falls apart...

The Gold Coast is a insightful book on an already too eminent future. Dis-heartening in the extreme, Robinson warns us to watch our present in order to guide our tomorrows. ( )

I love this novel. I've reread it 3x and never get tired of it. Great characters, some of KSR's best prose, and a thoughtful story. If I won the Powerball, the first thing I would do (OK, maybe not the first, but it would be right up there) would be to acquire the rights to turn this book into a miniseries. I'm a shameless prosletyzer for KSR's novels and I believe the last (and, hopefully, the next) 20 years will eventually be seen as the era when sci-fi's greatest novelist created some of the genre's most enduring classics. ( )