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kangeikoFifty Degrees Below
by Kim Stanley Robinson
page count: 520
It took me a good 50 pages to realise that Fifty Degrees Below is actually a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain. Nowhere on the book jacket is this indicated; the way it finally dawned on me was when I first (re-)encountered the character of Charlie, the stay-at-home dad to toddler Joe.
Forty Signs of Rain was lovely, and left me feeling like the world was on the edge of catastrophe - but maybe all is not lost. Fifty Degrees Below is that catastrophe realised: the flood has been and gone, and Washington D.C. is still standing (albeit somewhat muddier) but it's the coming cold snap that's going to be the real problem. Scientists Frank, Anna and Diane are working at the NSF to figure out ways of combating global climate change. They seem to have unlimited funding and a great deal of political support, and yet it is not quite enough. Returning from Forty Signs of Rain are Drepung and the rest of Khemabalung delegation, their Indian island flooded and a total loss. They're coping with an in-flux of thousands of refugees into D.C., at a time when the city is trying to rebuild after the flood with little or no government assisstance (think Katrina, only this time resulting solely in property damage - and so if the 'property' is a national monument, it is repaired; if it's a low-cost housing project, it's not). Drepung and the delegation are actually Tibetan in origin, and bring a Buddhist point of view to proceedings, sometimes complementing, sometimes clashing with Frank's neo-paleolithic perspective. Anna, meanwhile, is Charlie's wife (and Joe & Nick's mother) who is starting to notice that something is happening to her baby - but, being very high up in NSF, doesn't have a lot of time to deal with it.
Mixed with all of this is Frank's affair with a mysterious woman who is involved in a superblack, nameless organisation that specialises in surveillance, and speculates on the fall-out of catastrophes...
*
In general, I tend to be a little irritated with books that promise disasters on the front cover, and then fail to deliver. I think that Kim Stanley Robinson's books are especially guilty of this (when reading Forty Signs of Rain I commented to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
athena25 that this was the book version to The Day After Tomorrow in much the same way as Starship Troopers), as the covers continue to promise ever-increasing scales of catastrophe, yet somehow, when you start reading, those catastrophes lack even a single Hollywood beauty shot. In short, there is little to no gung-ho sentimentality in his books: always, the focus is on the science, and on the spiritual implications of terraforming (however inadvertantly). I enjoyed this book a great deal, particularly as it is so topical. I was amused by the use of 'The President' and 'The Prime Minister', without actually giving their names, yet accurately reflecting those individuals' enviornmental policies. I was also pleased by the consideration given to the idea that maybe the USA is NOT the end-all and be-all of climate change, and that the European states might be able to fund significant initiatives themselves. It made the whole thing feel a little less US-centric, and made me - as a Brit - feel a little less powerless.
That said, this book is very much about the USA, taking D.C. - its parks, its streets, its federal buildings - as a microcosm of the East Coast. I have no way of knowing how accurate it was, just that it was convincing. Also convincing were the main characters, especially Frank (who reminded me a great deal of the Mars trilogy's Frank, as a matter of fact) who is a jock and a scientist and sees no contraction in being both of these states at once.
One serious problem for me was the lack of help offered to the reader in reading what now occurs to me is the middle book of a trilogy. Nothing about the book indicated that it was a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, and the only things that indicate that this book is not the end of the series is the number of unaswered questions left: who were the men after Caroline and Frank? What happened to Chessman? Is Joe the reincarnation of a Tibetan lama? (No, I am not kidding.) And will Frank pull his head out of his arse for long enough to actually make a move on Diane? At the end of Forty Signs of Rain, I was frustrated because there were a number of unaswered questions, and no indication of a sequel. Here, I have a little more faith.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, if by 'enjoy' one means that it greatly discomforted me, given the current weather conditions. It is very convincing indeed, to a disturbing extent. Read it, then be frightened about the weather a little more.
Also, whoa, my icon is actually incredibly appropriate! *wins at teh internetz*
by Kim Stanley Robinson
page count: 520
It took me a good 50 pages to realise that Fifty Degrees Below is actually a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain. Nowhere on the book jacket is this indicated; the way it finally dawned on me was when I first (re-)encountered the character of Charlie, the stay-at-home dad to toddler Joe.
Forty Signs of Rain was lovely, and left me feeling like the world was on the edge of catastrophe - but maybe all is not lost. Fifty Degrees Below is that catastrophe realised: the flood has been and gone, and Washington D.C. is still standing (albeit somewhat muddier) but it's the coming cold snap that's going to be the real problem. Scientists Frank, Anna and Diane are working at the NSF to figure out ways of combating global climate change. They seem to have unlimited funding and a great deal of political support, and yet it is not quite enough. Returning from Forty Signs of Rain are Drepung and the rest of Khemabalung delegation, their Indian island flooded and a total loss. They're coping with an in-flux of thousands of refugees into D.C., at a time when the city is trying to rebuild after the flood with little or no government assisstance (think Katrina, only this time resulting solely in property damage - and so if the 'property' is a national monument, it is repaired; if it's a low-cost housing project, it's not). Drepung and the delegation are actually Tibetan in origin, and bring a Buddhist point of view to proceedings, sometimes complementing, sometimes clashing with Frank's neo-paleolithic perspective. Anna, meanwhile, is Charlie's wife (and Joe & Nick's mother) who is starting to notice that something is happening to her baby - but, being very high up in NSF, doesn't have a lot of time to deal with it.
Mixed with all of this is Frank's affair with a mysterious woman who is involved in a superblack, nameless organisation that specialises in surveillance, and speculates on the fall-out of catastrophes...
*
In general, I tend to be a little irritated with books that promise disasters on the front cover, and then fail to deliver. I think that Kim Stanley Robinson's books are especially guilty of this (when reading Forty Signs of Rain I commented to
athena25 that this was the book version to The Day After Tomorrow in much the same way as Starship Troopers), as the covers continue to promise ever-increasing scales of catastrophe, yet somehow, when you start reading, those catastrophes lack even a single Hollywood beauty shot. In short, there is little to no gung-ho sentimentality in his books: always, the focus is on the science, and on the spiritual implications of terraforming (however inadvertantly). I enjoyed this book a great deal, particularly as it is so topical. I was amused by the use of 'The President' and 'The Prime Minister', without actually giving their names, yet accurately reflecting those individuals' enviornmental policies. I was also pleased by the consideration given to the idea that maybe the USA is NOT the end-all and be-all of climate change, and that the European states might be able to fund significant initiatives themselves. It made the whole thing feel a little less US-centric, and made me - as a Brit - feel a little less powerless. That said, this book is very much about the USA, taking D.C. - its parks, its streets, its federal buildings - as a microcosm of the East Coast. I have no way of knowing how accurate it was, just that it was convincing. Also convincing were the main characters, especially Frank (who reminded me a great deal of the Mars trilogy's Frank, as a matter of fact) who is a jock and a scientist and sees no contraction in being both of these states at once.
One serious problem for me was the lack of help offered to the reader in reading what now occurs to me is the middle book of a trilogy. Nothing about the book indicated that it was a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, and the only things that indicate that this book is not the end of the series is the number of unaswered questions left: who were the men after Caroline and Frank? What happened to Chessman? Is Joe the reincarnation of a Tibetan lama? (No, I am not kidding.) And will Frank pull his head out of his arse for long enough to actually make a move on Diane? At the end of Forty Signs of Rain, I was frustrated because there were a number of unaswered questions, and no indication of a sequel. Here, I have a little more faith.
Overall, I enjoyed this book, if by 'enjoy' one means that it greatly discomforted me, given the current weather conditions. It is very convincing indeed, to a disturbing extent. Read it, then be frightened about the weather a little more.
Also, whoa, my icon is actually incredibly appropriate! *wins at teh internetz*