I got a flash of insight about just why Kim S Robinson’s worlds seem so utopian to me: it’s not just that the people discuss things eternally—for after all that happens in the real world also—but that they listen to each other, and are willing to (sometimes) compromise. And they disagree without vilifying the other side.

The good people, that is, the science/intellectual type people who are at the centre of his books. And also the good kind of politicians. I think that’s what makes me uplifted by the societies he envisions.