The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Winterson, Jeanette. The Stone Gods. First Mariner Books, 2009.

The Stone Gods takes place in the distant past (which is more futuristic than our own times), primitive times, and not-so-distant future. The novel is narrated by Billie in “Planet Blue,” “Post-3 War,” and “Wreck City” and narrated by Billy Crusoe in “Easter Island.” Readers learn that all protagonists are essentially the same person reborn into new contexts and circumstances. It is a story of a soul through time, making the same mistakes and loving the same people, and making moral choices along the way.

Section 1 of the novel focuses on Billie’s time on Orbus, a dystopia and futuristic planet that existed long before our own. Billie is countercultural; she does not believe in “genetic fixing”, which ceases the aging process, she believes the government is corrupt, and lives on an organic farm while everyone else lives among robots. She is horrified by the “state-approved mass illiteracy” and believes in books, real food, and real life (13). Her resistance to her regime’s agenda is not unnoticed, and she soon learns the government is tracking her and planning her downfall. At the same time, she is falling in love with Spike, a robot created by the government.

Section 2 of the novel centers on Billie’s romance and eventual decision to die with Spike, a robot with whom she has found true love, despite her initial reservations. The two travel to Planet Blue, intending to kill the dinosaurs and colonize it so that people from Orbus can travel there—Orbus has been polluted to the point of death by the humans who live there. In a bungled attempt to kill the dinosaurs on Planet Blue, the colonizers from Orbus accidentally trigger an ice age. Billie decides to stay on Planet Blue with Spike, knowing that she is choosing her own death in doing so.

Section 3 shows Billie and Spike sheltering in a cave as the world around them ends. They discuss their impending death, each unable to believe it. "'Life believes it will never end'" Spike says, and when Billie says this belief is only self-delusion, Spike responds, "'Or perhaps the truth. This is one state—there will be another'" (89). Indeed, the next section, “Easter Island”, shows that there is in fact another, and Billie is reborn as Billy, a gay sailor, and Spike is reborn as Spikkers, a gay European man. They are both stranded on the same island, and Spikkers dies in Billy’s arms in a cave, just as Spike died in Billy’s.

Section 4 begins with the story of World War III, which Billie has lived through. MORE, a global corporate company, has replaced government, and Billie is tasked with caring for the first Robo sapien, Spike. Winterson then begins the “Wreck City” portion of her novel, which showcases the resistance to the MORE regime as the “alternative” to the status quo. When Spike goes missing, Billie befriends the bartender in Wreck City and begins searching for Spike with him.

Section 5 develops the friendship between Billie and Friday, showing a mutual respect between them despite different backgrounds. Billie learns that the government is after her, accusing her of stealing the Robo sapien. Thoroughly disillusioned with her regime, Billie and Spike bid each other a weepy farewell before Billie is killed by the MORE’s army. Winterson shows Billie’s soul meeting her soulmate—strongly implied to be Spike—in what is either their next life or the afterlife. The ambiguous ending shifts the responsibility of interpretation and storytelling to the readers, who are invited to grapple with the meaning and trajectory of their own lives.