This second book in Kim Stanley Robinson's richly detailed Three Californias triptych reveals a second, all-too-plausible possible future for Orange County. North America, 2027. Southern California is a developer's dream gone mad, an endless sprawl of condos, freeways, and malls. Jim McPherson, the affluent son of a defense contractor, is a young man lost in a world of fast cars, casual sex, and designer drugs. But his descent in to the shadowy underground of industrial terrorism brings him into a shattering confrontation with his family, his goals, and his ideals. The Gold Coast is an epic work of science fiction that explores a grim future and what one man can do to turn the tides.
"This fine, bleak look at Orange County…offers a stark cautionary tale with a glimmer of hope at the end."
Publishers Weekly
"A rich, brave book…It celebrates, with an earned and elated refusal of despair, the persistent, joyful survival of human persons in the interstices of the American juggernaut."
