book data
220 ratings,
3.76
average rating, 44 reviews
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published
February 27th 2007
by Bantam
binding
Hardcover, 400 pages
isbn
0553803131
(isbn13: 9780553803136)
description
By the time Phil Chase is elected president, the world’s climate is far on its way to irreversible change. Food scarcity, housing shortages, diminishi...more
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avg 3.76
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in August, 2008
All loose ends wrapped up...In my review of Fifty Below I worried that Robinson was going to pull some magic "it'll all work out" bit. The thing is, he did...and I didn't even see it until it was done. He uses a sort of narrative time-warp to go from pie-in-the-sky brainstorming to 'maybe we can do this' to 'up and running'. What I'd expect to be a ten-year plan suddenly is going in about a year of narrative time. Hell he wraps up with a trple wedding (close-enough).
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Read in November, 2008
...or closer to 3 and three quarters.
This is the last of a trilogy. The first was a bit lame, sort of wandering around and going nowhere. The second was much tighter. This third and final book is maybe the best of the three.
For me Robinson hit his (so far) peak with Red Mars. Since then this may in my opinion be his best, lacking the deus ex machina ending of Antarctica, the head scratching "what's the point?" of Years of Rice and Salt (in fact, in this book...more
This is the last of a trilogy. The first was a bit lame, sort of wandering around and going nowhere. The second was much tighter. This third and final book is maybe the best of the three.
For me Robinson hit his (so far) peak with Red Mars. Since then this may in my opinion be his best, lacking the deus ex machina ending of Antarctica, the head scratching "what's the point?" of Years of Rice and Salt (in fact, in this book...more
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Read in December, 2008
I think, all three of the books in this series, should have been published as one. None of the three novels stand on their own. Except for never really buying the love story and not particularly liking Frank as a person, I really enjoyed these books. It made me want to look into Buddhism a little more carefully. I did however get a bit depressed about our current environmental situation. A lot of the solutions although perhaps technically achievable I'm afraid I just don't see the political will...more
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Read in April, 2009
A somewhat satisfying conclusion to KSR's global-warming trilogy, but not to the problem itself. Always the hopeless optimist, the author clearly believes that working together on the issue, in ways such as pumping excess sea water into the world's dry basins and onto the antarctic ice shelf, is as much as we can hope for, even under the overly generous political and social conditions he constructs to set the stage. I didn't really expect his characters to "solve" climate change by t...more
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Read in April, 2007
This is the final book in Robinson's "Abrupt Climate Change Trilogy" (I don't know what the official trilogy name is. Maybe it's the "Counting By Tens Trilogy."). Anyhow, this one is more a return to the form of the first book, in that I liked it more than I liked the second, but still less than I liked then first. Got that? I was thinking about this novel the other day, and I realized it had no actual plot. It had a couple of subplots, but no plot. The subplot with the Quibl...more
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Read in January, 2008
The problem with Kim Stanley Robinson's 'trilogies' is that they don't seem to end. We, the readers seem to leave them at a point and the characters in the books go their own ways. That said, KSR has attempted to remedy that somewhat in his latest trilogy-ender 'Sixty Days and Counting'
The first two books in the 'Science in the Capital' Trilogy had the easy parts, introduce the characters and the situation and crank up the heat for the conflict. The final book always has the heavy lif...more
The first two books in the 'Science in the Capital' Trilogy had the easy parts, introduce the characters and the situation and crank up the heat for the conflict. The final book always has the heavy lif...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
Kim Stanley Robinson is a great author. I have loved all his books, especially this trilogy. It all started with Forty Signs of Rain, I was hooked. His characters seem to come to life, and they are all very different. There is Frank (one of my favorite characters) who is an adventurer, rock-climber, kayaker, hiker, scientist, friends, almost Buddhist, and just a regular guy. The Quiblers (a family including a mom, dad, and two boys) are hilarious together. They all have very different personal...more
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Read in December, 2008
Pretty good read.
The big social question of the books was how we get people to act in the 'always generous' mode of our Prisoner's Dilemma. That is, with the world going to hell in a handbasket, how do we keep people from grabbing what they can for themselves while making things far worse for others?
One thing this trilogy made me realize is that it's very possible people will flip nearly instantly from being global warming deniers to throwing their hands up and saying, "...more
The big social question of the books was how we get people to act in the 'always generous' mode of our Prisoner's Dilemma. That is, with the world going to hell in a handbasket, how do we keep people from grabbing what they can for themselves while making things far worse for others?
One thing this trilogy made me realize is that it's very possible people will flip nearly instantly from being global warming deniers to throwing their hands up and saying, "...more
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Read in March, 2007
SIXTY DAYS AND COUNTING BY KIM STANLEY ROBINSON: Kim Stanley Robinson has released the conclusion to his trilogy, Sixty Days and Counting, just in time! The hardcover is out and the paperback will be out at Christmas, if not, early next year: just in time for everyone to buy it, read the trilogy, and decide who to vote for in the Presidential elections of November 2008. Again, Robinson is not look to wow and amaze readers with shocking sci-fi events, but keeping true to the close reality of hi...more
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Read in June, 2007
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
KSR fans, sci fi futurists, climate change junkies
Aaah, finally the last of the trilogy. It comforts me to know that there are some people in the world with fantastic ideas about what we can do to fix all the damage we humans have been inflicting on the planet. Although this book lacks any of the spectacular climatic apocalypses of the previous two, it sets about tieing things up. Phil Chase the amazing, but unfortunately mythical politician, has been elected President of the USA and is going hammer and tongs on righting wrongs, both climate, e...more
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Read in November, 2008
Excellent, gripping tale of scientists, politicians, secret agents and buddhist monks leading the world to adapt to hardcore climate change. The writing is impeccable and often very funny. This is the third of a Kim Stanley Robinson trio that is the most current, most innovative and most inspiring engagement in global warming I have encountered, and I highly recommend them.
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Read in February, 2009
This is a fairly realistic view of how mitigating climate change would happen at the government/large organization level, so on one level it's interesting to see this played out. On another level, since the story moves at typical human pace with fairly typical levels of day to day excitement, it still makes for one of Kim Stanley Robinson's somewhat dry, somewhat interesting reads.
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Read in March, 2009
Final book in this climate change trilogy. Enjoyed it alot. Complex (if not always likable) characters, relatively realistic depictions of what we're facing with global warming, and interesting insights into Washington politics and what it might take to change the world. One of the subplots was the election of a democratic president we unfortunately can only dream of, who prioritizes real environmental change and social justice... On the whole, well worth the read...
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Read in February, 2009
Just finished this last night...
Wow.
The cover tag-lines try to make it like this will serve up huge creamy nuggets of cinematic brain candy a la 'The Day After Tomorrow'... but after reading the first two in this series, I knew better.
Luckily, KSR wraps things up very well with our intrepid cast of characters... Frank, his love interest(s), Charlie, Anna, Phil Chase, Diane, Drepung and Rudra...
What I liked best was that it didn't end with everyt...more
Wow.
The cover tag-lines try to make it like this will serve up huge creamy nuggets of cinematic brain candy a la 'The Day After Tomorrow'... but after reading the first two in this series, I knew better.
Luckily, KSR wraps things up very well with our intrepid cast of characters... Frank, his love interest(s), Charlie, Anna, Phil Chase, Diane, Drepung and Rudra...
What I liked best was that it didn't end with everyt...more
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WOW. I wasn't super impressed with the first two, although I think KSR is a real visionary. This one makes up for them, a incredible, thoughtful, hopeful glimpse of a future we could have if we as a world community can just pull our heads out of our collective asses. The setting is a very possible future, just a few years from now. A new administation is in place, with a more promising global vision than the one we've been left holding the bag by. Global crises and extreme climate change are occ...more
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
This book is the culmination of the incredible trilogy. I wish I could make everyone read it, especially civic-minded adults in the USA, and all of our politicians. I have given out the first of the series several times as gifts.
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Read in November, 2008
Admittedly, I somewhat weak and disappointing ending to such an epic trilogy, but I don't see how it could've been anything less, really, with the scope of this story. And dude, the Panchen Lama, wtf? That came out of nowhere.
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Read in January, 2009
This was a thouroughly satisfying 3rd book in this trilogy. Fifty degrees below was hands down the best of the three, which is not the usual results for a trilogy. These three books will be in my top ten for this year and for many years to come.
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quotes from this book
"All the repetitions in the pattern were superficial; the moment was always new. It had to be lived, and then the next moment embraced as it arrived."
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