The Orange County Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Orange County Trilogy is a collection of three novels set in distinct extrapolated futures, each depicting a summer in Orange County, California. The first book, *The Wild Shore*, unfolds in 2047, sixty years after a nuclear war has devastated the United States, leaving its citizens to navigate a harsh new reality. The protagonist, Hank Fletcher, grapples with survival while learning about the past from his uncle, and ultimately becomes embroiled in a conflict against Japanese forces. The second installment, *The Gold Coast*, takes place in 2027, where the landscape of Orange County is dominated by consumerism and chaos. Jim McPherson, a young man disillusioned by his environment, becomes involved in sabotage against military contractors, leading him on a turbulent journey of self-discovery that culminates in a reckless act of violence. The final novel, *Pacific Edge*, set in 2065, explores the efforts of Kevin Claiborne to protect an ecological utopia while confronting the challenges of urban development and personal loss. The trilogy weaves together themes of survival, rebellion, and ecological awareness, showcasing the evolution of Orange County through the eyes of its characters across different time periods.
On this Page
The Orange County Trilogy
First published:The Wild Shore (1984), The Gold Coast (1988), and Pacific Edge (1990)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—extrapolatory
Time of work: 2027, 2047, and 2065
Locale: Orange County, California
The Plot
The Orange County trilogy is set in three different extrapolated futures. In each novel, a small group of people becomes involved in events that change their lives. Each novel takes place over a single summer, almost solely in Orange County, California.
The Wild Shore takes place in 2047 in San Onofre, six decades after a nuclear war devastated the United States but left the rest of the world intact. The remaining world powers have quarantined the United States and use satellite-based defenses to prevent the country’s redevelopment. Teenager Hank Fletcher lives in a valley populated by a handful of families struggling for survival.
Hank’s life involves farming, fishing, going to swap meets, and learning from his eighty-year-old uncle, Tom Barnard, about pre-disaster America.
Strangers arrive from San Diego by rail handcar, seeking to form an alliance to fight against the Japanese patrolling the coast. Hank and Tom travel with them to San Diego and learn how Russian terrorists exploded two thousand neutron bombs, one in each major U.S. city and town. On their return trip, they find rail bridges destroyed, so they must travel by sea. Japanese forces sink their boat, and Hank is captured. He escapes, swims to shore, and barely survives to walk home.
The San Onofreans decide not to help the San Diegans, but Hank and his friends choose to do so secretly. While Tom is ill, Hank learns about some Japanese “tourists” illegally visiting. He leads a small army of San Diegans to ambush them. They themselves are ambushed, however, and barely escape to return home. One of Hank’s friends is wounded and later dies. Tom recovers and convinces Hank to write a book about his life in San Onofre and the events of that summer.
The Gold Coast portrays a very different future. It is 2027, and Orange County has been developed into an endless tangle of condominiums, malls, freeways, and defense construction plants. Twenty-seven-year-old Jim McPherson, son of a weapons engineer, works part-time and writes bad poetry. His vague desire to rebel against the status quo has no focus; he spends his time cruising the freeways and going to wild parties centered on sex and consumption of designer drugs. His only serious intellectual pursuit is the history of Orange County, learned from his grandfather, Tom Barnard.
While Jim’s father is involved in struggles to gain new contracts and salvage one gained on fraudulent data, Jim is recruited by a friend to help sabotage military contractors. As he gets further involved, his turbulent love life, estrangement from his father, and friends’ problems strain his mental stability. After a madcap tour of Europe with his friends, Jim’s problems become unbearable. While Jim is picking up a shipment of small missile launchers to be used to attack his father’s company, his mental state becomes further disturbed. He spends the night driving around and randomly bombing buildings, then escapes into the mountains with a friend. When he returns, he finds that his terrorist friends were not idealists: Their sabotage was assisted by both defense contractors and drug smugglers. The events of the summer inspire Jim to write about the time when the orange groves of Orange County were destroyed, changing the area forever.
Pacific Edge is set in the year 2065, in the small village of El Modena. Its citizens are seeking to maintain an ecological utopia in a world that is itself peaceful and prosperous. Kevin Claiborne is a thirty-four-year-old building renovator with a love for softball, bicycling, and the land, especially Rattlesnake Hill, the only undeveloped area in El Modena.
Kevin joins the city council and is soon leading the opposition to a secret plan to develop Rattlesnake Hill. With the help of both the town legal counsel and his grandfather, Tom Barnard, Kevin slowly learns that the plan involves use of capital earned by illegal means. Tom was one of those instrumental in changing to the new world order, primarily through dismantling large businesses. Kevin falls in love with the estranged mate of the mayor, and Tom is drawn out of his hermitlike existence by a visiting female professor from India. Tom and his friends watch the first Mars landing while sitting naked, wearing animal masks, and drinking tequila in a natural hot springs pool. During a trip to visit an expert in California water law, they spend a beatific few days camping in the Sierras.
The battle for development of Rattlesnake Hill continues, and Kevin’s new love returns to the mayor. Tom leaves, by sailing ship, with his new Indian friend. He continues to work to get the proof needed to sway the final town vote on development of Rattlesnake Hill. He eventually obtains the proof but is killed in a hurricane before he can get it to Kevin. The town votes to develop, but Kevin finds a solution, arranging a ceremony to dedicate a plaque atop Rattlesnake Hill to commemorate Tom’s death, making the hill an untouchable shrine.