The Ministry for the Future: A Novel
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR "The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I've ever read." --Jonathan Lethem "If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future." --Ezra Klein (Vox) The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis. "One hopes that this book is read widely--that Robinson's audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination."―New York Review of Books "If there's any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity's efforts to try and turn the tide before it's too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year) "Masterly." --New Yorker "[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year ... it's terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It's my book of the year." --Locus "Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." ―Bloomberg Green
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Community Reviews
I didn't find it boring at all but did want to talk with others about the potential policy mitigation suggestions.
Note this week's Washington Post: https://wapo.st/4cyweLk
Reality mirroring fiction...."Dozens of bodies were discovered in Delhi during a two-day stretch this week when even sundown brought no relief from sweltering heat and humidity."
I tried, twice, but can’t get past the first third. It’s just boring. I guess I’m not a sophisticated enough reader to go without a story and characters. Or maybe those come along in the second or final third? This one just let me cranky for having tried.
Imagine what the world will look like if we continue to do nothing to mitigate the warming of the planet. Increasingly frequent and extreme heat waves; massive extinction of entire ecosystems; swells of climate migration across evermore uninhabitable environments. The collective impact of these symptoms will cause suffering and death across the globe. That's where Robinson begins this book: at the apex of our apathy and the nadir of our global response to climate change. With meticulous research and a generally optimistic bend towards human nature, Robinson paints a complex picture of how our ideas and beliefs about money, geopolitical borders, transportation, quality and equality of life, and global cooperation must change if we are to survive ourselves as a species.
I'm not a big sci-fi reader, but The Ministry for the Future is more sci-fi-nonfi, which is why I think this book really appeals to me. The breadth and depth of imagination required to envision this practical (if not slightly utopian) future I really impressive. I wish every politician in the world would read it.
I'm not a big sci-fi reader, but The Ministry for the Future is more sci-fi-nonfi, which is why I think this book really appeals to me. The breadth and depth of imagination required to envision this practical (if not slightly utopian) future I really impressive. I wish every politician in the world would read it.
Uneven. Much of the plot is great and spellbinding. However, it often falls into liberal dreaming in a way that irritated even this liberal dreamer.
Since I live in Switzerland, many of the story's references felt familiar to me. It actually inspired me to look up a couple of destinations for future day trips. That part of the story felt local.
But most of the tale felt as though I were hearing it from some distance away - missed connections and snatches of events that felt incomplete, or that I didn't know how they fit into the story. Breathtaking near escapes that just dissipated. Threats that never materialized, or ended up happening in some twice-removed, after-the-fact fashion.
Despite the locality of the events, San Francisco and Switzerland, I feel the story always kept me socially distanced - not a tale for our times.
But most of the tale felt as though I were hearing it from some distance away - missed connections and snatches of events that felt incomplete, or that I didn't know how they fit into the story. Breathtaking near escapes that just dissipated. Threats that never materialized, or ended up happening in some twice-removed, after-the-fact fashion.
Despite the locality of the events, San Francisco and Switzerland, I feel the story always kept me socially distanced - not a tale for our times.
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