The Memory of Whiteness

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An early novel from Science Fiction legend Kim Stanley Robinson, The Memory of Whiteness is now available for the first time in decades.

In 3229 A.D., human civilization is scattered among the planets, moons, and asteroids of the solar system. Billions of lives depend on the technology derived from the breakthroughs of the greatest physicist of the age, Arthur Holywelkin. But in the last years of his life, Holywelkin devoted himself to building a strange, beautiful, and complex musical instrument that he called The Orchestra.

Johannes Wright has earned the honor of becoming the Ninth Master of Holywelkin's Orchestra. Follow him on his Grand Tour of the Solar System, as he journeys down the gravity well toward the sun, impelled by a destiny he can scarcely understand, and is pursued by mysterious foes who will tell him anything except the reason for their enmity.

Reviews

“The Memory of Whiteness is ambitiously, intricately, and deliberately orchestrated, and philosophical to boot….If you are a fan of music, of Jack Vance, of intricately recomplicated tales, you will love Robinson’s novel!” —Analog

“Robinson creates an intellectual dessert, The Memory of Whiteness: physics, music and intrigue; an outré and improbably delicious world; wit and philosophy. A symphony of ideas!” —Greg Bear

“Robinson’s narrative technique is impressive and the richness of his concepts and language is extraordinary.” —Booklist

“Robinson is one of science fiction’s most emotionally evocative writers. [But] this novel is a cerebral tour de force. Carefully structured and full of futuristic notions, The Memory of Whiteness becomes a fable about art and scientific determinism.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“The Memory of Whiteness is about music. It is also about the structure of the universe and the meaning of life….A rich mix of cultures, based on divergent notions of political order, but unified by an appreciation of music as a language that speaks, without the need of translation, to something deep in human nature.” —The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

KIM STANLEY ROBINSON is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of more than 20 books, including the international bestselling Mars trilogy: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, and 2312, which was a New York Times bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awards—a first for any book. 2008 he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. In 2016 he was given the Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction, and asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.” In 2017 he was given the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society.