Boom interviews prolific science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson about writing, California, and the future. Topics of discussion include utopian and dystopian visions of the state, the Sierra Nevada and Sacramento Delta, the Orange County of Robinson’s youth, how California’s landscape and environment have informed science fiction, terraforming, utopia, dystopia, and finding a balance between technology and environmentalism.

California faces major challenges adapting to and mitigating climate change. This article examines two scenarios for the future of the state’s responses to climate change and argues that the state’s history of innovation suggests a viable path ahead.

A portfolio of watercolors painted by artist Valerie P. Cohen over the course of a summer at June Lake in the Sierra Nevada.