Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Ministry for the Future: A Novel"

Charles T. Betz: As an exemplar of climate change fiction and its didactic objectives, this is great. But as a piece of literature, I found it lagging in certain places, and the end was simply underwhelming.

United States on Sep 14, 2023

Nota bene: Ein aussergewöhnliches Buch, das einen nicht loslässt. Politthriller, Zukunftsvision und Aufklärung über die Klima- und Umweltkatastrophe in einem. In den 2030er Jahren sieht er weltweit Kräfte am Werk, die versuchen, die Menschheit und den Planeten noch zu retten: zwischen globaler Notenbankpolitik und Terrorismus, Basisdemokratie und Gaiautopien kommt alles vor. Darin verwoben die Schilderung persönlicher Schicksale ohne falsche Romantik. Sehr packend, absolut empfelenswert!

Germany on Aug 22, 2023

Andrew: Good eBook; good value

United Kingdom on Jul 24, 2023

spectopia: I've seen this book described as a 'thrutopia', as in a rendering of the ways we might find our way from our current consumerist society to a more sustainable one, and I enjoyed it on that basis. It's somewhere between fiction, essay, thought experiment and manifesto, and speaks to our current situation in a way that opens up new ways of imagining the future, which is something I'd argue we desperately need to be doing right now.

Robinson is known for his thorough research and fondness for detail and in some of his books I have found that a bit much (hello, Mars trilogy!), but I'm happy to geek out when it comes to saving the actual real-life world in a way that I might not be to the same extent for a fictional one.

This is a bit of a doorstop of a book, but the chapters are short, the characters have enough going on to sustain my interest and the digressions into environmental solutions are pitched in a way that pulls the story along rather than slowing it down.

From the harrowing opening scene I was pulled into the world of the characters, although perhaps more by the world than the characters if I'm completely honest. I needed to see what happened to it, if...

United Kingdom on Feb 22, 2023

Arjun: Es un libro con sentimientos encontrados para mí. Empieza muy bien y capta tu atención. Me enganché después de unos pocos capítulos, pero luego pierde su magia en el medio. Es un libro que intenta ser demasiadas cosas en una. Quiere ser ciencia ficción, ciencia, filosofía y como resultado pierde un poco la trama. Algunos de los personajes no están completamente explorados, aparte de Mary y Frank. Las ideas para hacer frente al cambio climático son buenas y novedosas, pero están bien combinadas en un argumento fluido. Un buen libro con potencial para ser grande.

Spain on Jul 27, 2022

Joe Karpierz: Kim Stanley Robinson's latest novel, THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE, joins many of his other works in the climate fiction genre, most recently NEW YORK 2140. As usual, Robinson comes at the topic from a different angle than one would expect. The focus of NEW YORK 2140 is not the catastrophe that got the world to where it was at (although some of that topic is explored) but how civilization in 2140, particularly in New York, is dealing with the aftermath - how we would live, work, travel, and get along (or not) with each other. THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE realizes that climate change is here and affecting us right now, and tries to bridge the gap between the mess we're in and, hopefully, a good place that we'll be in somewhere down the line.

The title of the book comes from the name of a fictional subsidiary body of the Paris Climate Agreement. The organization's goal, in a very broad sense, is to define and develop ways that humanity can correct the wrongs it has done to the environment, with a focus on reducing carbon admissions. It certainly deals with a lot more than that, of course, as the main characters, Mary Murphy - head of the Ministry - and Frank May - a survivor of...

United States on Apr 10, 2021

FeydRautha: Kim Stanley Robinson est l’homme qui a terraformé Mars. L’auteur américain de hard-SF est, et sera longtemps encore, célèbre pour sa trilogie Mars la rouge, Mars la verte, Mars la bleue dans laquelle il imagine la terraformation de la planète Mars sur plus de deux siècles, en abordant aussi bien les aspects techniques que sociologiques et politiques. La trilogie reste à ce jour la référence en la matière. Mais lui qui avait laissé croire au monde qu’il serait un jour possible pour l’homme de quitter la planète mère, certes au prix d’efforts colossaux, et de coloniser le système solaire, avait surpris en 2015 avec le superbe roman Aurora (Bragelonne, 2019) en prenant le contre-pied de ses productions antérieures et de la science-fiction en général. Il s’y montrait très pessimiste, mais réaliste, sur la possibilité d’une l’expansion de l’humanité au-delà de la surface terrestre. Le message délivré était alors qu’il n’existait qu’une seule planète à même de nous accueillir, celle-là même que nous détruisions sous nos pieds.

Au-delà des aspects purement scientifiques, dont la maîtrise rigoureuse par l’auteur a peu...

France on Dec 20, 2020

Scott: 60 Billion dollars a year is a lot of money.

That simple point is at the heart of my thoughts on The Ministry for the Future, a new work by Kim Stanley Robinson, which I've just finished. Before the review, some caveats. I have read several of the author's novels - 2312, New York 2140, Red Moon. I like them all. This one is not bad. I bought it. You should buy it, too.

That said: The Ministry for the Future is different. It is a collection of vignettes and reports from a variety of sources and perspectives (even the sun gets to have its say) amounting to a loose, mostly unconnected set of storylines with lightweight characterizations and a plot with less of a traditional narrative flow. It throws out economic theories, technical solutions, and proposed political changes to address the challenge of climate change, but none in great detail. Another critic said the book still 'oddly works' despite these flaws and I have to agree. I think it works because it is a broad survey of a more hopeful future in which humanity actually addresses and turns the corner on climate change and all of these little reports collectively add up to a positive outcome. That's encouraging and...

United States on Oct 23, 2020