A Short, Sharp Shock

Kim Stanley Robinson

Random House Publishing Group, Dec 23, 2009 - Fiction - 208 pages

Kim Stanley Robinson, award-winning author of the bestselling Red Mars, Green Mars, and the soon-to-be-published Blue Mars, was called "a literary landscape artist, creating breathtaking vistas" by The Detroit Metro News. Now he confirms his reputation for brilliance and for the unexpected in this luminous short work.

A Short, Sharp Shock

A man tumbles through wild surf, half drowned, to collapse on a moonlit beach. When he regains consciousness, he has no memory of who he is or where he came from. he know only that the woman who washed ashore with him has disappeared sometime in the night, and that he has awakened in a surreal landscape of savage beauty -- a mysterious watery world encircled by a thin spine of land. Aided by strange tribesmen, he will journey to the cove of the spine kings, a brutal race that has enslaved the woman and several of the tribesmen. That is only the beginning of his quest, as he struggles to find her identity in this wondrous and cruel land -- and seeks out the woman whose hold on his imagination is both unfathomable and unshakable.

Haunting and lyrical, filled with uncommon beauty and terrible peril, A Short, Sharp Shock is an ambitious and enthralling story by one of science fiction's most respected talents.


From the Paperback edition.

What people are saying

Review: A Short, Sharp Shock

User Review  - Harlan - Goodreads

This book, a quasi-magical quasi-SF novel about a man with no memory, finding his way on a bizarre planet, was totally enthralling and absorbing. After finishing it, my perceptions of reality had ...

Review: A Short, Sharp Shock

User Review  - Rachel - Goodreads

One of my very favorite books!

About the author

Writer Kim Stanley Robinson was born in Orange County, California in 1952. He earned a B. A. and Ph. D. at the University of California at San Diego and an M. A. at Boston University. His first trilogy of books, concerning a post-nuclear holocaust: Orange County, collectively won a Nebula Award and two Hugos, but he may be better known for his Mars trilogy, which chronicles the colonization of Mars and spans hundreds of years. He has won an Asimov Award, a World Fantasy Award, a Locus Reader's Poll Award, and a John W. Campbell Award. His title 2312 (Firsttion) made The New York Times Best Seller list for 2012.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Short, Sharp Shock
• Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2009
• ISBN: 0307573958, 9780307573957
• Length: 208 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Science Fiction / General