Icehenge
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 First edition of Icehenge, with cover art by Mark Weber, published by Ace Books as a mass-market paperback | |
| Author | Kim Stanley Robinson |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Mark Weber |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
Publication date | 1984 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 262 |
| ISBN | 0-441-35854-3 |
| OCLC | 11191345 |
Icehenge is a science fiction novel by American author Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 1984.
Though published almost ten years before Robinson's Mars trilogy, and taking place in a different fictional future, Icehenge contains elements that also appear in the trilogy; these elements include extreme human longevity, Martian political revolution, historical revisionism, and shifts in perspective among primary characters.
Icehenge is set at three distinct time periods, and told from the perspective of three different characters.
The first narrative is the diary of an engineer caught up in a Martian political revolution in 2248. Effectively kidnapped aboard a mutinous Martian spaceship, she provides assistance to the revolutionaries in their quest for interstellar travel, but ultimately chooses not to travel with them but to return to the doomed revolution on Mars.
The second narrative is told from the perspective of an archaeologist three centuries later. He is involved in a project investigating the failed revolution, and during this finds the engineer's diary buried near the remains of a ruined city. At the same time, a mysterious monument is found at the north pole of Pluto, tying up with a passing mention in the engineer's diary.
In the final narrative, the great-grandson of the archaeologist visits the monument on Pluto, a ring of standing slabs of ice. He is investigating the possibility that both the diary and the monument were planted by a reclusive and wealthy businesswoman who lives in the orbit of Saturn.