Kim Stanley Robinson

An American science fiction writer, best known for his Mars trilogy, Robinsons shares his birthplace of Waukegan, IL with Ray Bradbury.
Virtually all of Robinson’s novels have an ecological component; sustainability would have to be counted among his primary themes. (A strong contender for the primary theme would be the nature of a plausible utopia.) The Orange County trilogy is about the way in which the technological intersects with the natural, highlighting the importance of keeping the two in balance. In the Mars trilogy, one of the principal divisions among the population of Mars is based on dissenting views on terraforming; it is heavily debated whether or not the seemingly barren Martian landscape has a similar ecological or spiritual value to a living ecosphere like Earth’s. Forty Signs of Rain has an entirely ecological thrust, taking global warming for its principal subject.