Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is a core piece of my science fiction development. Slow burn Utopianism, set generationally (despite some significantly long lifespans) he managed to balance the speculative aspect of science with the corresponding political and social changes. He juggles a broad canvas over the books, and despite terrorism, disasters and war, ends with a terraformed Mars which felt broadly plausible from where we were in the early nineties (and it was a lot of fun getting there with each book coming out after a summer of University for me)..

The Ministry For The Future is not dissimilar in being a near future bit of terraforming, except here Robinson is terraforming Earth itself for survival. There has always been an ecological aspect to his work, which seems to culminate here in a speculative roadmap to how we get out of the shit we have made for ourselves. It starts in 2023 with a deadly Indian heatwave, and ends about thirty years later, and it is true that his Utopianism has not been destroyed. But it is damn difficult to get to the place of potential safety he gets to and his view is that we won't get there without significant natural disasters, murder and economic and political overhaul. Indeed what is interesting here is not just some of the scientific solutions (draining the bottom of glaciers to stop them slipping into the sea, dying the sea a more reflective colour), but how much of this is economics. That the engine for the the destruction of the human biosphere is mainly driven by capitalism, corporations as machine for growth and profit with no other considerations, and national banks who live to defend currencies no matter what.

The Ministry For The Future is an unusual narrative, and not unlike the Mars Trilogy it only loosely has a protagonist (Mary Murphy - head of said Ministry) and there are chapters told from the point of view of a photon, a carbon dioxide molecule and time itself. Robinson is being playful, his prose often sparse, list like to get across the minutes of the meetings with bankers being had. Morally it is extremely ambivalent. It is clear that he believes that without significant direct action (here, mysterious terrorists randomly shooting planes out of the sky and sinking supertankers), that capitalism will not stop polluting. He cannot see salvation without the destruction of cash, Facebook, and the acceptance of mass refugee emigration. At the same time he is in awe of all the people working in this field already, the hundreds of proliferating projects, some of which might come to fruition. And whilst it is a plausible world map, he is - despite the murder - still a Utopian. As such the book slowly draws to a satisfying but low-key end point romance (Mary Murphy never gets much of a personality beyond trying to save the world, but she is rewarded with a boyfriend at the end). This is not a book to come to for a central personal narrative, the lead character is the biosphere with permaculture and train travel as suitors. But its collage of twenty or so short stories which slip into the flow, state of the world explorations of the African Union taking back mines, or a truly horrendous (but surprisingly undeadly) flood in LA makes the world building work. It believes that humanity can save the world, even that science can do a lot of that heavy lifting, but not without everyone playing a part, though with a sacrifice which is shown to be not that great (again some interesting economic theories come into play). It feels like one last big bit of work, what does the futurologist do in their twilight years. but both made me feel a little better about the world, and reminded me I do have to bloody well do something about it.

[NetGalley ARC]

it is very difficult to review a book which is basically a political manifesto posing as a novel.
Inevitably, Instead of evaluating the story on its merits, how well its written, how engaging, amusing, exciting etc, the plot the reviewer gets sucked in to an evaluation of the political contents. In this case the political stance is radically environmentalist, anti-capitalist and socialist. Any criticism will be taken as proof that you are fundamentally opposed to position taken by the author, and therefore not dispassionately evaluating the work. But here goes: this is a dire book. It is very long, and the story just barely holds together as an excuse for the author's interminable left wing diatribe. There are only two characters of any substance and the leading lady clearly approves of wholesale murder and terrorist activity. This includes the blowing up of airplanes full of people she arbitrarily disapproves of. Any politician and bureaucrat, or any rich or successful business person withholding cooperation from her program is depicted as a sort of James Bond villain and is liable, as they say these days, to be cancelled. Permanently. As a story it is utterly tedious.

I don’t know what happened that I didn’t like his last two novels, New York 2140 and Red Moon, but this one is the KSR that I love: bold, intriguing, with surprising and daring ideas.

It’s in the spirit of Science in the Capital trilogy, but much better and more audacious in its purpose.

It’s year 2025. In January, a new organization is established with the purpose to ensure a safe climate for future generations. Less than two months later, a heat wave struck India and killed 20 million people.

Everything changed after that.

The story is told from multiple - more or less anonymous - points of view, eyewitnesses of the following events from all over the world, for the next 20 odd years. There are also a few page-short chapters told from the PoV of some totally unexpected onlookers. It also follows the path of Mary Murphy, the head of the The Ministry for the Future, the decisions she took to make sure the future will still be available for the next generations and Frank May, the sole survivor from the heat wave that struck Lucknow (oh, the irony…)

Being set so near to our present day, it does not read like a fiction. It expands on today’s political, economic, and social climate and follows a very plausible future path, from my point of view.

The eclectic mélange of narrations makes it even more realistic. There are chapters that literally gave me goose bumps and made me stop reading to ruminate upon. It will seriously make you think about the future, because until it gets better, will get worse. It may be tiresome from time to time, due to the extensive talks or info regarding economic tools, but I looked at them as lessons; not always pleasant, but useful and important.

I think it’s one of those books which should be read by everyone, because it tries to raise awareness about the climate change which is upon us. People, if not affected by something, tend to disregard the problem. Reading this it'll be impossible not to be affected or at least, to raise you some question marks: what if this will happen? Maybe not to this extent, but it will for sure to a certain degree.

It’s one of his best works, not to be missed.

I read this because I thought it would be “relevant”. I was right, it was. But I struggled, it is so depressing. Most of Kim Stanley Robinson’s books are around the theme of climate change, but reading it was like being hit over the head with a thesis on climate change. I would probably have got more out of that. The other problem with it, for me, is that Robinson doesn’t really have “characters” in his novels, and I would be the first to admit that I read for character. Some people read for plot, some for structure, they’re just different ways of relating to a novel. “ Ministry for the Future” is a very different novel to” New York 2140”, which I read a couple of years ago, loved and can still remember. I will remember Ministry for the Future, but with a feeling of foreboding.

Readers who love Kim Stanley Robinson will probably enjoy this, but in this case it wasn’t for me.

3 stars - it's a Marmite book (you'll either love it or hate it!

I would like to say that I found this book deeply insightful and full of hopeful revelation into climate changes, I think I may have Pandemic fatigue as I am tired of reading and hearing of what is causing damage and likely to end the species, some may find thus book timely I found it laborious, I will try and read it again in a few years but now is the not the time