Just Finished Reading: Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson
This was a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain in which due to unprecedented levels of rain and an ocean storm surge Washington D C is heavily flooded. In KSR’s follow up Washington is hit by another climate related disaster when a stalled Gulf Stream plunges the northern hemisphere into the worst winter on record with temperatures falling (you guessed it) to fifty degrees below zero. The story revolved around the lives of a group of scientists who fight against Government scepticism and lack of funds to restart the Gulf Stream thereby ‘saving the world as we know it.’
At a smidge over 500 pages long this was quite a slog. Although pitched as a climate thriller it actually spent surprisingly little time on the climate and was far from thrilling. The story, such that it was, was a muddled affair interweaving as it did (or attempted to do) a totally unnecessary love story, a rather laughable espionage sub-plot and the main theme of radical climate change. KSR obviously did some research on the subject of Global Warming but then failed to actually apply it to ‘real’ situations. I’m fairly positive that if Washington’s (or any other cities) temperature dropped so drastically it would cause rather more problems than the author alluded too. The book could have easily been 100-200 pages shorter. If the author cut out all of the unnecessary characters and plot lines and added rather more drama it could have been a much better book. I know that KSR is capable of doing so because I really like his other work. This was a rather wasted opportunity I felt. I probably won’t be reading the next book in this series.
My reading does seem to be rather ‘hit & miss’ at the moment which isn’t good. Maybe I need to branch out a bit more?
5 comments:
Ooh... having finished His Dark Materials, I have now just read another fantastic book that I can highly recommend. A short one, too. I shall be blogging about it shortly.
I grew up in New England, and I can remember our outside thermometer reading 50 below zero in the middle of winter once. It really wasn't catastrophic. We just stayed indoors. *shrugs*
I heard The Road by Cormac McCarthy was rather good. Also World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. Both seem to fit your reading preference.
scott... I heard that World War Z was appalling.
Though strangely I am reading something similar ATM... [grin].
Appalling as in gore or just a terrible book? I don't really know that much about it other than a lot of people I like liked it. heh
Heard of The Road? That's the book I've been told is the best thing written in a while. It's hard for me to say though since I only really read non-fiction, but you seem to like the sci-fi stuff.
Scott asked: Heard of The Road? That's the book I've been told is the best thing written in a while. It's hard for me to say though since I only really read non-fiction, but you seem to like the sci-fi stuff.
'The Road' doesn't ring any bells.... I'll check it out.
I do read mainly SF for entertainment but do read a bit (not enough) non-fiction too. Fiction probably makes up 90% of my reading and about 75% of my purchasing. Needless to say the backlog of non-fiction is growing faster than my fiction backlog.
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