The Wild Shore is the first novel in Kim Stanley Robinson's highly-acclaimed Three Californias Trilogy. 2047: For the small Pacific Coast community of San Onofre, life in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear attack is a matter of survival, a day-to-day struggle to stay alive. But young Hank Fletcher dreams of the world that might have been, and might yet be--and dreams of playing a crucial role in America's rebirth. “There's a fresh wind blowing in The Wild Shore. ” ― Ursula K. Le Guin “Part Huck Finn and part Our Town.... A well-written, engaging rite of passage.” ― Publishers Weekly “Beautifully written...with a vivid depth rarely encountered in science fiction.” ― The Washington Post 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. The Wild Shore By Kim Stanley Robinson Tom Doherty Associates Copyright © 1984 Kim Stanley Robinson All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-89036-0 CHAPTER 1 "It wouldn't really be grave-robbing," Nicolin was explaining. "Just dig up a coffin and take the silver off the outside of it. Never open it up at all. Bury it again nice and proper — now what could be wrong with that? Those silver coffin handles are going to waste in the ground anyway." The five of us considered it. Near sunset the cliffs at the mouth of our valley glow amber, and on the wide beach below tangles of driftwood cast shadows all the way to the sandstone boulders at the foot of the cliff. Each clump of wave-worn wood could have been a gravemarker, swamped and washed on its side, and I imagined digging under one to find what lay beneath it. Gabby Mendez tossed a pebble out at a gliding seagull. "Just exactly how is that not graverobbing?" he demanded of Nicolin. "It takes desecration of the body to make it graverobbing." Nicolin winked at me; I was his partner in these sorts of things. "We aren't going to do any such thing. No searching for cuff links or belt buckles, no pulling off rings or dental work, nothing of the sort!" "Ick," said Kristen Mariani. We were on the point of the cliff above the rivermouth — Steve Nicolin and Gabby, Kristen and Mando Costa, Del Simpson and me — all old friends, grown up together, out on our point as we so often were at the end of a day, arguing and talking and making wild plans ... that last being the specialty of Nicolin and me. Below us in the first bend of the river were the fishing boats, pulled up onto the tidal flats. It felt good to sit on the warm sand in the cool wind with my friends, watching the sun leak into the whitecaps, knowing my work for the day was done. "Why, with that much silver we would be kings of the swap meet," Nicolin went on. "And queens," he said to Kristen. "We'd be able to buy anything there twice. Or travel up the coast if we wanted. Or across the country. Just generally do what we pleased." And not what your father tells you to, I thought to myself. But I felt the pull of what he said, I admit it. "How are you going to make sure that the coffin you take the trouble to dig up has got silver on it?" Gab asked, looking doubtful. "You've heard the old man talk about funerals in the old time," Nicolin scolded. "Henry, you tell him." "They were scared of death in an unnatural way back then," I said, like I was an authority. "So they made these huge funeral displays to distract themselves from what was really happening. Tom says a funeral might cost upward of five thousand dollars. " Steve nodded at me approvingly. "He says every coffin put down was crusted with silver." "He says men walked on the moon, too," Gabby replied. "That don't mean I'm going to go there looking for footprints." But I had almost convinced him; he knew that Tom Barnard, who had taught us to read and write (taught Steve and Mando and me, anyway), would describe the wealth of the old time, in detail, as quick as you might say, "Tell us —" "So we just go up the freeway into the ruins," Nicolin went on, "and find us a rich-looking tombstone in a cemetery, and there we have it." "Tom says we shouldn't go up there," Kristen reminded us. Nicolin tilted his head back and laughed. "That's because he's scared of it." He looked more serious. "Of course