Publications: Reviews

A SHORT, SHARP SHOCK by Kim Stanley Robinson

HarperCollins 2000, 180pp £5.99

This is probably Robinson’s oddest and most bizarre novel, The Memory of Whiteness notwithstanding. A Short, Sharp Shock was first published in 1990, but seems timeless.

Like the main character, soon to be named Thel, the reader is thrown into a strange world without any real sense of what has happened before, or what will happen. This strange world is a planet almost entirely covered by ocean, except for a rocky ridge of land which probably encircles it. Thel becomes obsessed with a woman who is thrown onto the beach at the same time that he is, and who he rescues from the enigmatic but murderous spine kings.

A Short, Sharp Shock is the story of their journey along the world-spanning ridge, sometimes in company, sometimes alone, sometimes together, sometimes separated. It isn’t always clear whether or not they are travelling along the same ridge all of the time, as their several encounters with a mysterious mirror seems to give them access to another version of the world

Throughout his work Robinson continually makes use of climbing, going somewhere vertically. This novel concerns people who are climbing horizontally -- going where, who knows? Possibly A Short, Sharp Shock is an allegory of life after death or something like that. But who cares? It is a vivid and fast-moving story, fresh and elemental in its imagery, and with a strong mythical feel of the birth of worlds about it.

If you like Ursula Le Guin you’ll like this. If you like Kim Stanley Robinson’s work, be prepared for something very different.

Copyright (c) 2001 John Howard