''2312'' is a

hard science fiction Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's ''Islands of Space'' in the Novemb ...

novel by American writer

Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American science fiction writer best known for his ''Mars'' trilogy. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has ...

, published in 2012. It is set in the year 2312 when society has spread out across the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. The novel won the 2013 Nebula Award for Best Novel.2012 Nebula Award Winners
" Locus Magazine, May 18, 2013.

Plot summary

The novel is set in the year 2312, in the great city of Terminator on Mercury, which is built on gigantic tracks in order to constantly stay in the planet's habitable zone near the terminator. Swan Er Hong, an artist and former asteroid terrarium designer, is grieving over the sudden death of her step-grandmother, Alex, who was very influential among the inhabitants of Terminator. After the funeral procession, a conference is held among the family and the close friends of Alex, some of whom Swan has never heard of. This includes Fitz Wahram, a native of the moon

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

, and Jean Genette, a police detective who has been exiled from Mars. Following the conference, Swan decides to head out to Io to visit another friend of Alex's, called Wang, who has designed one of the largest qubes, or quantum computers. While Swan is visiting Wang on Io, an apparent attack of some sort fails. An attack on Terminator shortly follows; a meteorite of artificial origin destroys the city's tracks, stopping the city and exposing it to sun, essentially cooking it. As Swan travels, she learns more of the mystery surrounding her grandmother's death and the destruction of her home-city of Terminator. With Wahram and Genette, Swan travels throughout the Solar System and investigates an escalating series of conspiracies. Inspector Genette eventually discovers how the artificial meteorite that destroyed Terminator was created: someone launched a large number of smaller objects on trajectories that would eventually cause them to coalesce above Mercury, but low enough that the planet's defense system could not destroy the now large object in time. The complexity of the attack leads Genette to determine that quantum computers must have been used. Meanwhile, Swan and Wahram become involved in restoring and rewilding the climate-change-ravaged Earth by returning thousands of species from space-based temporary environments to their home environments on the Earth. Swan and Wahram fall in love over the course of the novel, marrying at the end.

Characters

* Swan Er Hong. An artist and former asteroid terrarium designer * Fitz Wahram. Diplomat from the moon Titan * Jean Genette. A "small" who was a close friend to Alex * Alex. Influential and deceased scientist and diplomat. Swan's step-grandmother * Mqaret. A scientist and Alex's partner * Kiran. A young Earth boy who saves Swan from some trouble in his slum-like hometown. In thanks, Swan gives him a job off-planet.

Themes

Science and technology

In the world of the novel, the planets Mercury,

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

, and

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

are inhabited by humans, as are the moons of

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

and

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

. Humans have a presence or are building a presence on all the inhabitable surfaces within the Solar System (including moons and satellites). Almost all of the

's largest

asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

have been hollowed out to form "terrariums", which include interior artificial environment designed to mimic various

biomes A biome () is a distinct geographical region with specific climate, vegetation, and animal life. It consists of a biological community (ecology), community that has formed in response to its physical environment and regional climate. In 1935, Art ...

found on earth or combinations of different biomes. Some of these serve as animal reserves or farms for endangered or underproduced flora and fauna. Humans take shuttles to these asteroids and use them as transportation around the system. Some of these terraria fail, such as one where a mistake in programming led to the near-destruction of the asteroid, and another where a small crack in the terrarium's ice wall destroyed most of its population. In the novel, scientific and technological advances, such as human enhancement, settlements on other planets, and terraforming, have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. One major innovation are the ''qubes'', which are quantum computers possessing artificial intelligence, often small enough that the wearer can have one implanted into their head or attached to their person, like one might wear a watch or carry a phone. Digital, as opposed to quantum, AI is still in use but is being supplanted by the smaller and much more powerful qubes. Capitalism has been replaced by a

planned economy A planned economy is a type of economic system where investment, production and the allocation of capital goods takes place according to economy-wide economic plans and production plans. A planned economy may use centralized, decentralized, ...

described as based on the mondragon concept controlled by the quantum computers, but on Earth there are still remnants of the market system.

Sex, sexuality and gender

Gender and sexuality within this world is fluid and expansive, with the principal categories of gender and sexuality listed to include

feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and Gender roles, roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as Social construction of gender, socially constructed, and there is also s ...

masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some beh ...

androgynous Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often r ...

, ambisexual,

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

, neuter,

eunuch A eunuch ( , ) is a male who has been castration, castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2 ...

, nonsexual, undifferentiated, gay,

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

, invert, homosexual, polymorphous, poly, labile,

berdache ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

, hijra, and

two-spirit ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

. As part of a lifespan extending process many people exhibit

intersex Intersex people are those born with any of several sex characteristics, including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binar ...

or "gynandromorphous" sex characteristics, including both penises and vaginas.

Development

Robinson has said that the novel began with the idea of a romance between two characters from Mercury and Saturn (" mercurial" and " saturnine" in temperament, respectively), with the broader setting developing later.Martín, Sara. "A Celebration of Mature Love: Posthuman Sexuality, Gender, and Romance in Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312." Science Fiction Studies, vol. 49 no. 3, 2022, p. 459-475. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sfs.2022.0047. Terminator, a city that slowly drives around Mercury to stay out of direct line from the Sun, first appeared in Robinson's earlier novel '' The Memory of Whiteness'', as well as appearing during a brief mention in his ''Mars'' Trilogy. Terminator is also briefly mentioned in Robinson's 2015 novel ''Aurora''.

Reception

Critical reception for ''2312'' has been mixed to positive, with ''

Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online magazine, online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and non-fiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in S ...

'' saying that "readers must make up their own minds". ''The BookScore'' assessed critical response as an aggregated score of 8.9 out of 10. In the July/August 2012 issue of '' Bookmarks'', the book was scored four out of five. The magazine's critical summary reads: "The critics reveled in Robinson's unsurpassed world-building skills, but he doesn't neglect other literary qualities in favor of his brave new worlds: his rich, complex characters are genuinely engaging, and his action packed plot takes readers on an interplanetary joyride". On ''The Omnivore'', a British aggregator of press reviews, the book received an "omniscore" of 3.5 out of 5. ''Slate Magazine ''and the ''Guardian ''both reviewed ''2312'', with Slate praising the book as "brilliant" while the ''Guardian ''criticized the book's ending as "contrived". Writing for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', Jeff VanderMeer called the book a "treasured gift to fans of passionate storytelling", writing that the book's "audacity" was an asset. James Nicoll, however, called it a "dreadful" book, in which the "science is so terrible as to be painful to read", and stated that he was "astonished that twas not intended as parody".Heard It All Before
by James Nicoll, at James Nicoll Reviews; published February 18, 2025; retrieved March 19, 2025 The book won the 2013 Nebula Award for Best Novel, was nominated for the 2013

Hugo Award for Best Novel The Hugo Award for Best Novel is one of the Hugo Awards given each year by the World Science Fiction Society for science fiction or fantasy stories published in, or translated to, English during the previous calendar year. The novel award is ava ...

, was shortlisted for the 2012 BSFA Award for Best Novel and the 2013 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was honor listed for the 2012 James Tiptree, Jr. Award. It was nominated for the 2012 Goodreads Choice Award for science fiction.

References

{{Nebula Award Best Novel 2001-2020 2012 American novels 2012 LGBTQ-related literary works Novels by Kim Stanley Robinson 2012 science fiction novels Novels set in the 24th century American science fiction novels Novels set on Mercury (planet) Nebula Award for Best Novel–winning works Intersex-related novels LGBTQ speculative fiction novels American LGBTQ novels 2010s LGBTQ novels Orbit Books books