Author Kim Stanley Robinson on what captivates him about science fiction

Kim Stanley Robinson’s interest in science fiction all started with an orange grove. When he was young, he says he watched southern California suffer what he calls “future shock,” a process by which the natural landscape was rapidly replaced with apartment buildings and roads. This hour on Focus, host Jim Meadows talks with Robinson about how this inspires his writing.

We’ll also talk with Robinson about his Mars Trilogy that depicts a society where people have colonized Mars to escape overpopulation and ecological disaster on Earth. We’ll hear how he imagined life on Mars and how he deals with questions of plausibility as he writes about future time.

During this hour on Focus, we’ll also talk with him about his new book Shalam: A Novel of the Ice Age.

Do you have questions for Kim Stanley Robinson? Maybe you love science fiction and have always had questions about how authors imagine the worlds they do. We’d love to hear from you this hour on Focus!