Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Climate-punk continues.

The good stuff:

Frank's treehouse, the flooding of DC, the alternative lifestyles of the rich and homeless, and -- in small doses -- the science behind fixing the climate and the scare-messaging TO all the politicos. The whole Buddhism thing.


The glad-I-didn't-see-so-much-of-in-this-book:

Mr. Mom.


The meh:

Even while the pacing was propped up by tons of great ideas, the pacing got rather wonky when we were subjected to Frank's *ahem* special kind of crazy. Don't get me wrong, I thought he was sometimes very interesting, but other times, I was like... WHY, WHY, WHY, Frank? Too much, in fact. And then, even when I kinda rather liked his foray into Buddhism, I was still struck by the whole fact that he was in the center of all this BIG political/science shindig and he was targeted by surveillance and he had all these clandestine... *sigh* IT SHOULD HAVE WORKED but I found myself going *wtf* more often than not.

BUT this was just my reaction because I WAS getting into the novel more than usual so that IS a good sign. One should always prefer to hate a character over just being utterly bored by him. :)


The climate situation still should have carried the lion's share of the tale. Alas.

I'm looking at KSR's The Ministry for the Future with ever-growing respect. A superior tale.

View all my reviews