The Stone Gods

First edition
Author	Jeanette Winterson
Publisher	Hamish Hamilton
Publication date	2007
Pages	224
ISBN	0-241-14395-0

The Stone Gods is a 2007 novel by Jeanette Winterson.^[1][2] The novel is a post-apocalyptic, postmodern, dystopian love story with themes of corporate government control, the harshness of war, artificial intelligence and technology. The novel is self-referential as characters make intertextual references while certain characters’ story arcs repeat. ^[3] The novel aims mainly to warn against history's tendency to repeat itself, as well as humanity's inability to learn from past mistakes. ^[4]

A novel in four parts

• "Planet Blue" – set in a futuristic past, where humanity's destruction of its own homeworld, Orbus, seems to be fixed when they come across and terraform another viable planet.
• "Easter Island" – set in the 18th century, a time when Easter Island's inhabitants destroyed many of the moai statues (and the last tree) on their island.
• "Post-3War" – set in "Tech City" after World War III, with Billie educating Spike, the Robo sapiens.
• "Wreck City" – set in the same setting, although moved to a derelict trash city where those abandoned by the corporate-controlled society struggle to live.

Reception

Ursula Le Guin, while criticizing exposition and sentimentality, thought the novel a worthwhile and cautionary tale.^[5]

Andrew Milner, a literary critic and author of Science Fiction and Climate Change, notes that this book is an early example of 'doomer' climate fiction.^[6]