Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson, author of "hard" science fiction.

Famous for his "Mars trilogy", a multigenerational saga detailing the initial colonisation, terraforming, and political evolution of the red planet. The books combined accurate, plausible science with speculation on the future issues of politics, economics, and social structures, and helped revive the dream, for many readers, of an attainable home for humans away from the Earth, perhaps spurring the efforts of the Mars Society of which he is a patron.

Books:

• [Red Mars]? (book one of the Mars Trilogy)
• [Green Mars]? (book two of the Mars Trilogy)
• [Blue Mars]? (book three of the Mars Trilogy)
• /Antarctica?
• [/The Martians]?
• /Icehenge?
• [/The Memory of Whiteness]?
• [/Escape from Kathmandu]?

Another loose trilogy had three different novels set in exactly the same geographical location in California, though with wildly different futures portrayed:

• [/The Gold Coast]? in a highly crowded, prosperous California economically dependent on vast military aerospace projects.
• [/The Wild Shore]?, in which a concerted attack by the rest of the world has reduced america to small, low-tech villages (with orbital surveillance and weaponry to ensure they remain so)
• [/Pacific Edge]? - an example of an `ecotopia'

(there's more . . . )