Gradisil
First edition
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| Author | Adam Roberts |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Sonar |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
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Publication date
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16 March 2006 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 464 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 62760985 |
Gradisil is a science fiction novel by British author Adam Roberts.
Gradisil takes place over several generations of the Gyeroffy family, the novel's timeline spanning from 2059 to the first half of the 22nd century, circa 2130. On these generations hang the novel's basic plots – a murder story, a domestic story, a political story and a revenge story. The first involves Klara Gyeroffy and her father, an aeronautics hobbyist, in their establishment of the low Earth orbit settlement of the Uplands. With the advent of more efficient propulsion technology, space travel reaches a new level of attainability, the Uplands phenomenon being a product of direct access, for those wealthy enough, to the lower orbits. The Uplands has no legal or taxation systems, civic obligations, boundaries, politics or treaties.
In 2059 Klara's father Miklós flies Kristin Janzen Kooistra, a tenant who requires a hideaway, for their Upland lodging. Kooistra kills him during docking, it being later revealed that she is a serial killer at large. Klara, orphaned, flees to Jon, a neighbour in Canada, in distress. The pair soon remove Upland and organise a more permanent residence there, with other billionaire eccentrics of the neighourhood.
The next portion of Gradisil is largely an exposition of the environment's domestic capacity, Roberts investigating the challenges and novelties of day-to-day Upland life, the question of zero-g as hindrance and boon, and ever-present logistics issues. Jon and Klara become sexual partners, but she soon tires of him and develops a relationship with Teruo Nakagomi, a shrewd businessman. After falling pregnant by him, Klara returns to Earth to deliver her child. Her daughter, Gradisil, is born in 2063.
Gradisil is about Earthbound conflict as well as Upland conflict. United States-EU tensions of the previous century have become critical, with war finally erupting in 2065. Politically, the Uplands is still a non-entity and the pioneers remaining proudly aloof to "Downland" politics. Klara remains on Earth, supporting Gradisil.
In 2081 the first seizure of "EU houses" by the US takes place in the Uplands. The orbit settlement is now transformed into both a political and military battlefield, with the US anti-Upland and EU pro-Upland, and receives increasing coverage by Earth media over the coming years. Klara is appointed EU envoy to the Uplands in 2075. Two new narrators are introduced: Lieutenant Slater of the United States Upland Corps, providing insights into the exigencies and metamorphoses of that nation's military-industrial complex in the late 21st century; and Paul Caunes, Gradisil's second husband, who would later betray her to US authorities.
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