One of my favorite sections in Kim Stanley Robinson’s famous Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars) occurs towards the end of the series, when the author briefly describes the development of other planets in the solar system. The way Robinson theorized the colony on Mercury always stuck with me: a city on rails, constantly moving to stay inside the sun-scorched planet’s tiny inhabitable zone. What a concept.
It was a pleasant surprise to discover that Robinson actually starts his new novel 2312 in Terminator, the moving city on Mercury, taking the concept from Blue Mars (and, I later discovered, from another novel and short story) and using it as a building block for what may be his most ambitious novel to date: a future history of the solar system, set exactly 300 years into our future. However, one thing should be explained right from the start: despite the similarity of the city on Mercury, 2312 is actually set in a completely different timeline from the Mars trilogy, one in which Mars took a different path. So: a standalone novel, not a sequel.
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