A persistent feature in the science fiction novels of Kim Stanley Robinson—the Mars trilogy, for example—is that human life has become more extended due to certain limited improvements in managing metabolic health, but the characters we see living so much longer also suffer a creeping indistinction of memory. Their farther past loses some texture, urgency, and clarity. It’s replaced by details of the more recent past, like a second youthfulness. It’s not even a main point of Robinson’s novels, which tend to be about revolution and large-scale eco-social projects. But he imagines people stretched hazily over time, as if the window of memory stays the same size no matter the years.
A persistent feature in the science fiction novels of Kim Stanley Robinson—the Mars trilogy, for example—is that human life has become more extended due to certain limited improvements in managing metabolic health, but the characters we see living so much longer also suffer a creeping indistinction of memory. Their farther past loses some texture, urgency, and clarity. It’s replaced by details of the more recent past, like a second youthfulness. It’s not even a main point of Robinson’s novels, which tend to be about revolution and large-scale eco-social projects. But he imagines people stretched hazily over time, as if the window of memory stays the same size no matter the years.
This is fascinating. Do you recommend these novels? (Your description, I should say, already goes some way towards doing so!)
I do recommend them! The Mars novels and his standalone novel Aurora are pretty beautiful and strange.