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The Ministry for the Future

Kim Stanley Robinson

3.98 · Rating details · 532 ratings · 168 reviews

From the visionary, New York Times bestselling author of New York 2140 comes a near-future novel that is a gripping exploration of climate change, technology, politics, and the human behaviors that drive these forces.

Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to protect all living creatures, ...more

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Hardcover, 576 pages

Published October 6th 2020 by Orbit (first published 2020)

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Jun 27, 2020 Claudia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley, climate-change, z-to-a-ksr, sci-fi

I dont know what happened that I didnt 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.

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

Its 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.

...more

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Oct 11, 2020 Anissa rated it liked it

Recommends it for: KSR fans

Shelves: 2020, climate-fiction, speculative-fiction

For half of this, I thought I'd rate this around 2.5 stars but around the 56% mark, I felt like the story hit its stride (or I acquiesced to it). I began enjoying it more and couldn't put it down. By the book's end it had me feeling so hopeful that I felt that for me, this was more a 4-star event. So strong 3-star for the whole thing.

I expect infodumps but found an excess of them, even for KSR. There are two main characters, Frank a survivor of the opening heat wave that kills 20 million people For half of this, I thought I'd rate this around 2.5 stars but around the 56% mark, I felt like the story hit its stride (or I acquiesced to it). I began enjoying it more and couldn't put it down. By the book's end it had me feeling so hopeful that I felt that for me, this was more a 4-star event. So strong 3-star for the whole thing.

I expect infodumps but found an excess of them, even for KSR. There are two main characters, Frank a survivor of the opening heat wave that kills 20 million people and Mary who is the head of the Ministry for the Future. Characterization is scant for others and it's serviceable at best for Frank and Mary. This is not a surprise but it just goes further to remind that I don't come to KSR's books for the characters. Because of the varying POVs in the chapters, this book often didn't feel much like a novel for a good bit. There was more economics than this reader was looking for, to the point of eye-crossing at times. On the upside, there's also some simply brilliant wit & voice displayed. My favourite, when a carbon atom narrates a chapter. And I definitely smiled when two characters discussed Maigret briefly.

I don't know that I'd recommend this to anyone unfamiliar with KSR's writing (admittedly this can be a slog for the initiated). I'm just glad I enjoyed this more than Red Moon. It starts off well, is a bit of a slog for a third but finishes very well.

Favourite quotes:

"Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism."

Favourite provocative passage:

"In the United States, the National Students’ Union website showed that thirty percent of the union members had now responded YES to the union website’s standing poll asking them if they were in so much financial distress caused by their student debt that they would like to see the union initiate a fiscal non-compliance strike, by not paying their next debt payment. On joining the union, members had agreed to join any strike requested by thirty percent of the membership, so now the union coordinators called for a strike vote to be sure, and got an eighty percent yes vote, with ninety percent participation. None of this was surprising; student food insecurity, meaning student hunger, was widespread, also student homelessness. So the strike began.

Student debt was a trillion-dollar annual income stream for the banks, so this coordinated default meant that the banks were suddenly in cash-flow hell. And they were so over-leveraged, and thus dependent on all incoming payments being made to them on time to be able to keep paying their own debts, that this fiscal strike threw them immediately into a liquidity crisis reminiscent of the 2008 and 2020 and 2034 crashes, except this time people had defaulted on purpose, and precisely to bring the banks down. The banks all rushed to the Federal Reserve, which went to Congress to explain the situation and ask for another giant bail-out to keep liquidity and thus confidence in the financial system itself. There were calls from many in Congress to bail out the banks, as being essential to the economy, and too connected for any of the big ones to be allowed to fail. But this time the Fed asked Congress to authorize their bailing out the banks in exchange for ownership shares in every bank that took the offer. This was either nationalizing finance or financializing the nation, in that now it was clearer than ever that the country was in effect run by the Fed. And since Congress ran the Fed, and people voted in members of Congress, maybe it was all beginning to work, somehow, because of this strike. Definancialization of a sort. End of neoliberalism.

Favourite hopeful passage:

"That there is no other home for us than here. That we will cope no matter how stupid things get. That all couples are odd couples. That the only catastrophe that can’t be undone is extinction. That we can make a good place. That people can take their fate in their hands. That there is no such thing as fate.' ...more

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Nov 02, 2020 Bart rated it it was amazing

Shelves: reviewed, favorites, speculative

This is it. The final big KSR novel. I dreaded starting it, to be honest. Yet another climate book: dont we know that story? His two previous ones were letdowns: New York 2140 was okay, but ultimately transparent, and Red Moon even formulaic: Stan seemed to have run out of steam.

I think Robinsons decision to stop writing long novels liberated him. And so his final big one is both a synthesis and a departure, and most importantly: totally unapologetic KSR, and a feast as such. Its also a ...more

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Sep 17, 2020 Andreas rated it really liked it

Synopsis: Its 2025, the founding year of the Ministry of the Future which is an agency established in Zürich, Switzerland, to ensure health and safety for the generations to come. A heat wave crawls over rural India just before the yearly monsoon, killing twenty million people, and everything changes.

The story follows Mary Murphy, head of the new ministry, and tells her troubles founding the ministry, bringing banks and governments to political agreements over climate issues, and her long way to Synopsis: It’s 2025, the founding year of the Ministry of the Future which is an agency established in Zürich, Switzerland, to ensure health and safety for the generations to come. A heat wave crawls over rural India just before the yearly monsoon, killing twenty million people, and everything changes.

The story follows Mary Murphy, head of the new ministry, and tells her troubles founding the ministry, bringing banks and governments to political agreements over climate issues, and her long way to retirement. Her live is interleaved with that of Frank May, the sole survivor of the heat wave.

Review: This clifi is a very typical Kim Stanley Robinson novel: Less of a plot, more of a speculative extrapolation. Where his New York 2140 featured the rising sea level, his new novel focuses initially more on the direct impact of higher temperatures with the dire killing of people who cannot flee into cooled buildings, because there are none. This is not the only place which KSR lets the reader visit, but also beloved Antarctica with updated climatic implications since his great novel of 1997.

Another central showplace is the city of Zürich. As I lived there for a year, I can assess, that KSR’s lovely descriptions of the town are top notch, and I once again fell in love with this place.

The author wouldn’t be himself if he wouldn’t introduce some radical protagonists into his story who try to change the way our capitalistic world works. In this case, the trauma of the heat wave radicalized Indians who call themselve the “Children of Kali”, a Hindu goddess of Destruction. He envisions them to destroy the whole aircraft business by bringing planes down using an army of small drones directed into the flight paths of the planes. The message is obvious: stop flying, and the industry follows. But they don’t stop there.

Robinson offers an optimistic view into the further future, one where humanity can overcome the climatic change using terraforming technologies, a reformed capitalism disempowering the connection between banks and governments by issuing a blockchain certified carbon coin, and wiping away crappy Facebook by implementing a people owned and operated new Internet.

He finds many angles which are needed to save our children’s world, some may be naive, others could be counterargued. But together they form a holistic view that could work – something that I’m missing in so many dystopian clifis of these days.

I can fully recommend this Near Future Hard SF for everyone who doesn’t focus on plot or character but wants to see a solution oriented future of climatic change. ...more

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Aug 17, 2020 Aidan Craigwood rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Tl;dr: I want to believe. But I find KSRs answers to the challenge of global warming vague and unconvincing, so much so that this attempt at a hopeful, needle-threading future has left me more worried about the next century than when I started reading it.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sci-fi writer in possession of a utopian plotline must be in want of that quote about the end of the world being easier to imagine than the end of capitalism. I think KSR gets a good 5% of the way Tl;dr: I want to believe. But I find KSR’s answers to the challenge of global warming vague and unconvincing, so much so that this attempt at a hopeful, needle-threading future has left me more worried about the next century than when I started reading it.
—————
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sci-fi writer in possession of a utopian plotline must be in want of that quote about the end of the world being easier to imagine than the end of capitalism. I think KSR gets a good 5% of the way in before he paraphrases it here. And sure, a bit of a cliche, but it could be a great declaration of intent, a signpost that this novel won’t just indulge in apocalyptic visions (which he summons to terrifying and moving effect in the opening chapter) but try to chart a course between Scylla and Charybdis towards a better future.

The problem is that KSR doesn’t actually have a very good idea for how we get there, so he cheats. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. Remorselessly. Scylla actually has an allergy to ships, you see, and Charybdis is definitely super-scary but needs to wash its hair when the protagonists come by so we’re all good. It’s the equivalent of reading a right-on but fundamentally incoherent editorial in The Guardian — I really sympathise with the author’s politics and aspirations, but this isn’t the argument to be made for them.

Now, before I lean in to technical nitpicking and complaining about heavy-handed authorial shenanigans, a quick word about The Ministry for the Future’s literary quality. Which is often good, sometimes great, but wildly, spectacularly uneven. There are moments — the harrowing opening chapter “somewhere near Lucknow”, a majestic description of the sun as godlike creator-destroyer, a fraught late-night traverse across an Alpine glacier — that are compelling and even transcendent. And there's a solid if slightly less spectacular novel buried in there about a traumatised disaster survivor trying to cope with a chaotic new century without losing his humanity. But these elements stand tall above a sea of infodumps barely disguised as lectures or bureaucratic notes, a lightly-sketched-in protagonist with inexplicable persuasive abilities (more on that later), and frankly jarring interludes where we hear from the personifications of photons, blockchain, history, the economy, and a carbon atom, amongst others. Some are OK. Some are not. It turns out carbon atoms are hyperactive, ditzy, and into molecular threesomes! Who knew? You do now, reader.

But on to the plausibility issues. In the style of the infodumps above, I’m just going to list some of them out here. There’s a new global carbon e-currency which is guaranteed to increase in value but doesn’t create deflation or liquidity issues because, I dunno, blockchain? (At some point the monetary trilemma and all other macroeconomic concerns are memorably hand-waved away as [Žižek sniff] pure ideology, even if we end up majoring on MMT which I guess is fine). Unstoppable Mach 2 swarm missiles with seemingly unlimited range are used by shadowy extra-state actors but don’t problematically destabilise geopolitics in a way we need to hear about. An open-source replacement for all social media immediately overcomes the network effects of incumbents in about a week, effortlessly circumvents most of the Great Firewall, and doesn’t seemingly require armies of half-traumatised mods and admins to police its content. A UN agency undertaking a weeklong abduction of every single person in Davos isn’t discovered by national intelligence agencies even years later. Wholly unspecified carbon air capture technologies are ready and scalable in the next twenty years. Microwave power transmission is happening from space by the 2030s, which likely means those satellites are being designed and funded…about now?

There’s a case study to be had in one of KSR’s coolest ideas, pumping meltwater out from under glaciers to re-ground them. Just drill a hole, and then pump the water out with minimal energy input because the weight of the glaciers means the water rises up almost all the way to the surface! But would it? Well, a) even contained reservoirs don’t bear all the pressure of their overburdens, so probably no, and b) if the meltwater is venting to the sea what pressure there is should be largely relieved by the flow, so double nope. And that’s just the surface-level problem with the idea. For instance, are meltwater pools even connected on a useful scale? What about channelisation under the ice? Is runoff even all that important in affecting glacial velocities? What’s the relative impact of (effectively unpumpable) warm sea water in driving changes in ice shelf pinning lines in Antartica versus (pumpable) surface meltwater runoff? It seems our current state of knowledge about all those questions isn't promising. At best, this seemingly nifty and concrete idea floats on a raft of best-case assumptions. And it’s one of the most superficially plausible and carefully discussed things in the book.

Beyond the technological nitpicks, however, there’s just a seeming desire to wish away the less pleasant realities of the last twenty years. Unprecedented floods of refugees and global depression, fine, very plausible, but the political backlash is contained to, uh, some right wing tough guys making trouble in a park, not, say, even more brutal versions of the Lega, Vox, BNP, and FN rising politically? We’re repeatedly told nationalism is back in a big way, but it’s strangely impotent on the page. Seven thousand travellers die in a single day in an ecoterrorist strike against airlines and states do absolutely nothing of relevance to the plot in response except meekly draw down airplane travel? (Though to be scrupulously fair, huge but ineffective counterterrorist operations are mentioned at one point and then utterly dropped from the narrative). Never mind when the same thing happens with micro-drones threatening swathes of the world population with BSE infection if they continue to eat beef, or power plants being systematically attacked around the world without apparent consequence or backlash. Libertarian ranchers in the US leap at the chance to abandon farms and rewild the prairies, except for unpopular militias easily defeated by a Wild West calvacade. China/US or China/India geopolitical rivalry don’t even get a look in. You get the idea.

What planet is this? Apparently one where the entire politics of reaction, cultural grievance and zero-sum realpolitik that have led to this moment no longer exist. One where the revolutions of 1848 weren’t crushed and replaced by 66 years of revanchism and brutal inequality ending in a catastrophic war. A better place, surely. One I’d like to live in. Just not, you know, the real world.

Instead of wrestling with why global warming is hard to solve, Green Lanternism is left to run riot here, from central bankers being convinced to upend the global monetary system by a Paddington-style Hard Stare to the Swiss government being convinced to try and buck the global power structure by a Hard Stare to a showdown with ecoterrorists who have Stepped Over The Line that is resolved by...you get the idea. All you have to have to save the planet is willpower, and apparently the psychic mojo of the Hypnotoad.

So where does this leave us? This is a painfully earnest, occasionally graceful book that will hopefully inspire like-minded people to action. Maybe even useful action! I suspect it'll be loved by many. And those are all good things. Just pray civilisation doesn’t need anything like the sequence of improbable coincidences, spectacular breakthroughs and authorial meddling KSR seems to think we do. ...more

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Oct 07, 2020 Lou rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The inimitable Kim Stanley Robinson returns with The Ministry For the Future, a damning indictment and terrifyingly prescient exploration of the chaos wrought by climate change, both now and in the near future if we continue as a collective to live in ignorance. With increasing urgency, KSR depicts a startling but ultimately hopeful outlook of our next three decades on earth using his skill for acute observation whilst exploring in a gripping and engrossing manner the issues of climate change, ...more

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Nov 10, 2020 Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a fresh, 2020 cli-fi SF by Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR), which reads more like a manifesto than a fiction novel. I read is as a part of monthly reading for November 2020 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group.

The story starts with a great human-made catastrophe: it is mid-2020s, a heat wave hits India and kills more people than 4 years of the WW1, as well and animals and damages the biosphere. Among a few survivors is a foreign volunteer Frank, who sustains a psychological trauma This is a fresh, 2020 cli-fi SF by Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR), which reads more like a manifesto than a fiction novel. I read is as a part of monthly reading for November 2020 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group.

The story starts with a great human-made catastrophe: it is mid-2020s, a heat wave hits India and kills more people than 4 years of the WW1, as well and animals and damages the biosphere. Among a few survivors is a foreign volunteer Frank, who sustains a psychological trauma due to the calamity. At the roughly the same time, in 2025, the Paris Agreement Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change decides to make a Subsidiary Body, a supranational agency charged with defending the environment and all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves. It was unofficially named “the Ministry for the Future” and it is headed by the other protagonist, Mary. The further story follows their lives (and many others) and their efforts to save the world.

The novel is ‘classic’ KSR, infodump-heavy story well known to funs by his earlier works, e.g. Red Mars. The info covers a broad range of topics, including but not limited to: economics, environment protection, natural habitats, monetary policy, socialism, saving polar caps, income redistribution, market failures, alternatives to air travel, etc. However, in this book his political activism took over his writer’s talent. Both protagonists aren’t very interesting characters and the story is a bit predictive – not even reading the book, I guess most people assume that ‘good guys’ will win and the danger of environmental collapse will be turned over. At the same time as a cookbook filled with possible solutions it definitely shines.

I have to admit, policies advocated by KSR are often too left-wing for me. I’m from the ex-USSR, I know the faults of socialism. I dislike his adoration of Russia and China, two quite aggressive authoritarian states. It maybe less profound than pro-Chinese Red Moon, but nevertheless saying ‘they are fine because the USA is not a paragon of virtue’ is wrong. Situations with Tibet, Yugurs, Hong Kong, Taiwan for China or with aggressions of Russia in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014) as well and internal suppression of ‘the other’ from LGBTQ+ to political opponents should make both regimes international pariahs, and their leaders, with their cults of personality – personas non-grata. Of course, some alt-right may accuse the author of selloff to authoritarians, but it is not so: he mentions 1989 Tiananmen Square and HK protests, which is enough not to get published in China, as well as after Putin Russia…

I’m an economist by trade and while I agree with some of his arguments in that sphere (as well as with the fact that environmental problems are very real and urgent), I think he gets quite a few points wrong. Say, for example, he mentions bancor proposed by Keynes on 1944 Bretton-Woods conference:

John Maynard Keynes, the chief British negotiator, also suggested at Bretton Woods that they found an International Clearing Union, which would make use of a new unit of currency to be called a bancor. The purpose of the bancor would be to allow nations with trade deficits to be able to climb out of their debts by calling on an overdraft account with the ICU that would allow them to spend money to employ more citizens and thus create more exports. Nations making use of their overdraft would be charged 10 percent interest on these bancor loans, which could not be traded for ordinary currencies, or by individuals. Nations with large trade surpluses would also be charged 10 percent interest on these surpluses, and if their credit exceeded an allowed maximum at the end of the year, the excess would be confiscated by the ICU. Keynes thus hoped to create an international balance of trade credit which would keep countries from becoming either too poor or too wealthy.

The story is true, but ‘keep countries from becoming either too poor or too wealthy’ is wrong – say the USA has trade deficit since 1976 – it hasn’t become poor in these 44 years… moreover, Keynes suggestion was made in a very specific situation, when private credit markets and economies in general were everywhere subordinated to the exigencies of war finance, while in his earlier works, written in what was much closer to our current globalized world he made quite different proposals.

There are several more claims connected to the economics, which I find dubious. I still liked to read them discussed in some depths.

It is not a SF as much as environmental manifesto, a book on a very important topic but not an easy of smooth read. Nevertheless, it is actually an utopia, even if it doesn’t seem so at the start.

...more

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Oct 23, 2020 Cathy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2020, planned-2020

This might be about great big ideas, but without a decent narrative or memorable, well-developed characters I simply dont care. If I want to read essays about possible solutions for climate change, I do that. And if I want to dive into blockchain or speculate about economics and virtual currencies, I talk to my colleagues at work. Throwing in the odd chapter with minuscule plot and barely there characters doesnt make this a readable novel for me.

Mary and Frank were not bad and I liked the ...more

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Jul 12, 2020 Peter Baran rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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 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] ...more

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Oct 12, 2020 Eliot Peper rated it it was amazing

The Ministry for the Future follows the scientists, diplomats, and activists working across decades and continents to forge a future you might actually want to live in from the shattered remains of a civilization on the brink. I love so many things about this novelits sprawling future history, its rigorous picture of institutional change, its structure of feeling, its cascading collisions of big ideasbut what resonates most deeply is that this is a book about and for practical, determined people ...more

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Nov 06, 2020 Denise rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020, ebooks-purchased-2020, october-2020

Sometimes 2* and sometimes (fewer) 4*. Really much of the book could have become essays for the New Yorker or something. I really couldnt follow details about the carbon bitcoin but I understood the concept. More interesting to me was the creation of the natural corridors for wild animals- and the Half the Earth policy.

There is a thin plot woven throughout. It could have been so much more. Still I appreciated the odd friendships between Mary and Frank, Mary and Art. Some of the other vignettes ...more

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Oct 24, 2020 Robert rated it it was amazing

A short guide on how to enjoy reading The Ministry for the Future:

1. Be aware that it occupies a peculiar spot between fiction and non-fiction. The book features individuals, it even drives home a powerful point about individual engagement, but it is not focused on personal stories. While some chapters do go on at length about personal trauma, others are literally meeting minutes. Reams of fictional near-future history. Details on geoengineering techniques. The infamous infodump. If it is an ...more

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Jul 25, 2020 Sarah Connor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a big book. It's not often I read a book and come away with a list of things I want to look up and find out more about, but this book did that for me. It's moving and painful and hopeful and inspiring, and I found it utterly absorbing.

What's it about? It's about everything, but primarily global warming. The horrors we are unleashing are laid out clearly. This is a call to stop and think and change. Kim Stanley Robinson places global warming firmly in the context of our neoliberal ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 John Adkins rated it it was amazing

Shelves: earc, 2020, net-galley

The master of Cli-Fi or climate fiction returns with another story of scientists and politicians working to save our planet from years (centuries) of environmental neglect. The titular ministry is an international group rising out of the Paris Accords that takes a big picture approach to trying to save the planet, and is failing. That is, failing until a disastrous heat wave in India kills millions and the world is reluctantly energized to finally do something - though it may be too late. ...more

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Jul 24, 2020 Adam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi, speculative, hard-sci-fi, 2020-release, read-in-2020

This was a marvelous book. While it may not appeal to everyone due to less emphasis on character- or plot-driven material, it will appeal to hard science fiction readers who enjoy novels of ideas (and ideas and ideas...). The book alternates between two main characters and short chapters told from the point of view of scientists, politicians, economists, farmers, refugees, military personnel, and less tangible narrators like photons and the sun. This is a near-future, literary science fiction ...more

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Nov 29, 2020 Manuel Antão rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2020

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Horizon Shift': "The Ministry for the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson

Is it fair to take Robinsons point generally as an objection that 'setting up institutions or laws to protect the needs of future generations might not make any difference anyway'? Or would you go even further, to argue that 'there's no point doing anything about this'? If we assume the first of those two options, we could have a conversation about when and where laws ...more

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Oct 06, 2020 Trevelyanwright rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The future history novel is a very specific type of science fiction: relying on a narrative rather than a plot. Its desperately unfashionable and since Wells and Stapledon novelists have made their histories implicit and revealed through action and plot rather than attempting to write a history of the future. Kim Stanley Robinsons work, especially his Mars series, might be seen as tiptoing into this arena. Now with The Ministry of the Future hes dived straight in. The ecological and political The future history novel is a very specific type of science fiction: relying on a narrative rather than a plot. It’s desperately unfashionable and since Wells and Stapledon novelists have made their histories implicit and revealed through action and plot rather than attempting to write a ‘history of the future’. Kim Stanley Robinson’s work, especially his Mars series, might be seen as tiptoing into this arena. Now with The Ministry of the Future he’s dived straight in. The ecological and political themes that have always driven his work are now front and centre as he tracks the history of the earth over the next thirty years.

The novel starts with an apocalyptic event: an extreme heat event in India that kills millions. Virtually the only survivor is Frank, an American aid worker. He is one of only two characters who have what could be called a storyline. The other is Mary, an Irish politician who is chosen to head the titular Ministry, brought into being in Switzerland to advocate for the generations not yet born in decision-making that affects the planet’s sustainability. Their paths cross when Frank, radicalised by his experience, kidnaps Mary to impress upon her that respectful lobbying and polite advocacy is not enough.

And this is KSR’s central theme: that what politicians, business leaders and international organisations are currently proposing is not enough. So what might be enough? The Ministry of the Future is a future history that looks back to track how a vast cast of characters across the globe could plausibly arrive at a course of action that was enough. He puts this ending upfront, shifting the narrative from focusing on whether to how.

The future history format frees Robinson from even pretending to use his research for anything more creative than informing.This novel will leave most readers knowing much more about carbon sequestration, glacial movement and methane production than they did at the start.
A vast cast: refugees, Presidents, scientists and even non-humans voice a collective oral history of how the world moved, at great cost, from heading towards catastrophe and extinction to sustainability. This may be the only novel where the photon and the market are chapter narrators. And it’s the operation of that market that Robinson sees as lying at the heart of the climate emergency: from offshore tax havens and globalisation to the actions of central banks he sees the economic game is firmly rigged against the implementation of any meaningful change through the current channels.

Mary - with Frank as her prompter and conscience - has a central role in finding new channels, from trying to persuade world central banks to adopt the carboni, a new global currency that would reward carbon capture; to sanctioning a ‘don’t tell, don’t know’ campaign of terrorism by others within her Ministry. Might the death of a few thousand business leaders and populist politicians be the ‘enough’ that will lead to the necessary change? Here they are seen as committing crimes against humanity: their actions not just robbing, but killing, future generations before they are born.

Read this as a novel and I suspect the lack of action and characters could be frustrating. Read it as a roadmap of our future and it challenges us to think about how much we would be prepared to do: and whether that might be enough. ...more

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Sep 28, 2020 Jordan rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020

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The Ministry for the Future is a stark look at a realistic and chillingly credible climate emergency situation. The story starts in 2025 when The Ministry for the Future is established to help the world combat climate change and when India experiences an extreme heat wave that kills twenty million people, which comes as a stark and tragic warning of how disastrous things have become in the world. This isn't technically a horror book, but with how Find this review at Forever Lost in Literature!

The Ministry for the Future is a stark look at a realistic and chillingly credible climate emergency situation. The story starts in 2025 when The Ministry for the Future is established to help the world combat climate change and when India experiences an extreme heat wave that kills twenty million people, which comes as a stark and tragic warning of how disastrous things have become in the world. This isn't technically a horror book, but with how eerily realistic and plausible it seems, it definitely gives me some pretty terrifying vibes about what life could be like if things took a turn for the worse in a dramatic way.

One thing I really appreciated about this book was the international focus Robinson employs. Rather than have a US-centric story as many scenarios tend to follow, the base of operations is set up in Europe and there were constant inclusions from other countries and continents across the globe. In fact, it is India that ends up being one of the more dominant players and instigators for creating change and ends up being on par with the other big countries in terms of power and voice. Robinson successfully created a well-rounded look at how these environmental changes could affect all areas of the globe in varying drastic ways.

The entire book is told in varying POV chapters from different people's experiences with the new restrictions and climate changes that occur. One of the more interesting ones follows a man who was an eyewitness to the Indian heat wave and subsequently suffers from extreme trauma as a result of his experiences. It was interesting to watch him attempt to re-adapt to life after this traumatic event, as well as everything he was involved with after the fact. There are quite a few other varying people we follow, and a few surprising one-off POVs as well (such as the sun and photons--yes, I said photons), which I thought added a nice creative literary flair.

There were a lot of times in this book where I felt as though I were reading some nonfiction book or treatise, and I'm not sure if I loved it or not. Part of me loved it because it made it feel even more realistic and like an important warning for out future, but it also wasn't necessarily the most enjoyable from an entertainment standpoint at all times. Nonetheless, it was still near-constantly interesting and I found myself continuously stopping to look up certain facts or figure to find out if things were true or not (and turns out, a lot of it was!). Robinson is known for his well-researched and thought out stories and that is no exception in this book.

This book feels like a warning, but it's still a story that can be enjoyed and the different avenues of possible ways to safe/change things provide some really interesting content. It asks a lot of questions about what could happen and how we could fix things, as well provides insight into the different solutions and possibilities that could occur. Definitely a thought-provoking and worthwhile story that I do recommend for anyone interesting in the environment and international relations.

Overall, it's four stars from me! ...more

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Oct 24, 2020 Juliano Dutra rated it liked it

Ordinarily, i would give 2 stars for the quality book's narrative and plot. The third star is for the importance of the theme, especially in the current times of negation of global warming. But I found that the extrapolation - consequences - of climate change is vague and simplistic. As I mentioned, the thematic of the book is fundamental nowadays, but for those who are already concerned and looking for good sources on the subject, it ends up being a pile of infodumps - even more than you could ...more

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Oct 16, 2020 Adam rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-favourite-sci-fi, science-fiction, favourites, 2020

Kim Stanley Robinson's angry optimism at its best.

Maybe KSR's masterpiece, even more so than the Mars trilogy, 2312 and Aurora?

It's really a huge book of ideas. Every couple of pages he'll drop, in a single sentence, ideas that would fill entire SF novels. KSR is respected but I still think he's vastly underrated by modern SF fans. On the one hand, he refuses to flatter the hard sf fantasists who think human space travel is necessary/inevitable, and on the other hand he's not writing character ...more

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Sep 29, 2020 Jameson rated it liked it

Kim Stanley Robinson is a super talented writer and full of ideas. That being said, I had a hard time with this title as it drags on for large sections and doesnt seem to have any real narrative other than climate change and effects of that on humanity short and long term. Excellent writer, but gets bogged down too much for me. ...more

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Nov 11, 2020 Kateblue rated it did not like it

Shelves: reviewed

I hate to say it, but everyone should read this book. I give it one star because I really hated it. Nevertheless, I think everyone should read this book.

No, it is not about time travel, which is what I was hoping for. It's about climate change. I almost didn't make it through. It's really depressing. I was going to stop at about 30%, but then completed it by skipping LOTS of paragraphs. Eventually, it gets somewhat hopeful, but I don't see that happening IRL. Even at the end, though, there's ...more

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Nov 11, 2020 Salam Tims rated it really liked it

Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR to sci-fi readers) is a master novelist with a penchant for realistic (no space opera, faster-than-light starships, or galactic empire) science fiction dealing with humanity's prospects over the next few centuries. Much of his work deals with the space exploration and settlement. His Mars trilogyRED MARS, GREEN MARS, and BLUE MARSis an epic imagining of how humans might claim, fight over, and humanize a new world. I loved the Mars books and consider his novel 2312 to be Kim Stanley Robinson (KSR to sci-fi readers) is a master novelist with a penchant for realistic (no space opera, faster-than-light starships, or galactic empire) science fiction dealing with humanity's prospects over the next few centuries. Much of his work deals with the space exploration and settlement. His Mars trilogy—RED MARS, GREEN MARS, and BLUE MARS—is an epic imagining of how humans might claim, fight over, and “humanize” a new world. I loved the Mars books and consider his novel 2312 to be one of the best depictions of human colonization of the solar system I’ve read. His writing can be categorized as “hard” sci-fi in that it is all grounded in realistic projections of current science and technology. Beyond STEM disciplines, his work also draws upon extensive research in social and life sciences. He is a polymath and a humanist.
He has turned his attention to climate change on Earth in two novels: NEW YORK 2140 and most recently THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE (TMFTF). Some critics have found fault with the former work as too optimistic. I doubt that many will say the same about his latest.
TMTF is grimly realistic, sometimes horrifying, in its depictions of climate change and its probable impact on humans and human institutions over the middle decades of this century, which he rightly describes as an evolutionary “bottle neck” and possible extinction event for most life on Earth, including humans. It reads like collaboration between the late sci-fi master, John Brunner (STAND ON ZANZIBAR, THE SHEEP LOOK UP) and climate activist Bill McKibben (DEEP ECONOMY: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, EAARTH: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, THE END OF NATURE). I have no doubt KSR has read both authors, as have I. The structure and style of the novel—multiple character points-of-view, interwoven story lines and vignettes—is very much like Brunner’s work. Like McKibben’s books, it is peppered (maybe “seeded” is a better term) with densely factual non-fiction segments that are tutorials on numerous subjects, including: the probable near-term consequences of climate change —physical, political, social, and economic—and what can aptly be called “tutorials” on geology, meteorology, monetary theory, capitalism. A recurring theme is that socio-economic inequality lies at the root of climate change and drives our resistance to do anything about it. You will not come away from this book rooting for the 1-10% of humanity that owns 80-90% of the world’s wealth and virtually run its governments. You may also come away ashamed and embarrassed at how the political economy of the U$A is the worst offender driving climate change and likely last adapter of any moves to halt and reverse it.
Don’t let any of this put you off! The book is ultimately albeit cautiously optimistic. It describes the many ways that science and technology can be harnessed to slow the movement of the world’s glaciers into the seas, and to reduce and even draw down the build-up of carbon that is cooking our oceans and atmosphere. It describes how the power of the world’s national banks might be harnessed to issue “carbon coins” that encourage and empower those technologies. It describes how the world’s suffering masses, not its ruling class, ultimately rise up in myriad movements to force change.
It’s also a page-turner—though you may be tempted, as I was, to skim some of the denser exposition of economic theory. I “whipped through” its 563 pages in less than two-weeks of bedtime reading. I strongly recommend reading it and hope it will find its way into a TV miniseries, though I’m not holding my breath on that. Check it out! ...more

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Nov 16, 2020 Bryan rated it really liked it

Shelves: top-sci-fi-of-2020, science-fiction-to-read, science-fiction-read, obama-s-reading-list-2015, 32-for-2020

Revolutions no longer include guillotines

KSR is one of the best science fiction authors alive. His newest book offers something in rare supply these days, a hopeful future. How can we adapt to meet the challenges of climate change, growing nationalism, and the very real grasp of the kleptocratic billionaire ruling class? Everyday people. The sands are shifting and we will have to make sacrifices but his newest book shows how power might break away from traditional structures and how we may forge ...more

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Oct 28, 2020 Dan Trefethen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, science-fiction, climate-fiction

In a review of New York 2140 I said that Robinson reminded me of Victor Hugo, the famous public intellectual of France who sought to influence public policy with his novels, and inserted chapters into the books that stepped outside the action and spoke directly to the reader.

Stan Robinson goes back to that method here, in a long book with short chapters (106 chapters in 576 pages). He jumps back and forth between following a plot line involving the head of the titular Ministry and providing In a review of “New York 2140” I said that Robinson reminded me of Victor Hugo, the famous public intellectual of France who sought to influence public policy with his novels, and inserted chapters into the books that stepped outside the action and spoke directly to the reader.

Stan Robinson goes back to that method here, in a long book with short chapters (106 chapters in 576 pages). He jumps back and forth between following a plot line involving the head of the titular Ministry and providing informative background on ecology, finance, politics, and all manner of relevant things. This may seem jarring, but the separate chapters are so short that they read like mini-essays on a topic, then we're back to the plot.

Channeling Victor Hugo, Stan describes for us what is bound to happen over the next few decades due to climate change, and through his Ministry outlines steps that can be taken to mitigate it (mainly by nation-states and central bankers, because that's how the world works).

The 'fixes' he comes up with are a blend of technology and policy, mainly financial and monetary policy. Pumping water out from under glaciers to nail them back down to the land underneath is a cool idea (pun intended), but his more ingenious ideas have to do with policy and finance: Creating a 'carbon coin' that pays to sequester carbon, not just tax it; create a blockchained alternative to digital money that removes dark pools of money and takes huge amounts of capital out of the hands of bankers; and formally connecting large swathes of wilderness to help stop the crisis in animal extinctions.

I'm rating this book highly because we need to consider massive and unusual methods to reverse the damage we've caused and to keep the world's social and economic orders from collapsing. I don't see this book as a utopian novel about climate change, because utopia implies an end state; we will not reach an end state in our lifetimes on this issue, but Robinson shows how we can rethink our approach to climate change and begin to stave off the disaster that looms ahead.

The United States needs a Victor Hugo, and Stan is stepping up to the role. Highly recommended. ...more

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Oct 21, 2020 PvOberstein rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book is about being a bystander to the greatest revolution in human history.

Let me back up. This book is about Mary Murphy, the head of the titular Ministry for the Future. The books premise is that, in the near-future, the MftF is created out of an inspired interpretation of the Paris Agreement, with the mandate of advocating on behalf of the future generations of humanity. Which means coming up with a solution for climate change to safeguard the lives of generations yet unborn. This is a ...more

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Nov 04, 2020 Roger Whitson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'd read about Robinson's new novel and was nervous to begin reading. The summer had been particularly bad: a pandemic, wildfires, a crazy American election. And indeed the first chapter was harrowing and horrifying, a nightmare of deadly heatwaves that are sure to impact us soon. I'm anxious for what the future may bring. But Robinson's novel is also so full of hope, and in such a time as these, his voice is so urgently calling to us to "keep going," keep moving forward - even or especially ...more

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Nov 07, 2020 Mark rated it really liked it

Its a topic that Kim has addressed before, but I dont think that it has ever been more relevant. After showing a world devastated by climate change in his ...and Counting trilogy, not to mention a submerged New York in New York 2140, Ministry for the Future is another tale suggesting a near future world under stress and approaching environmental catastrophe.

From the publisher: Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organisation was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and It’s a topic that Kim has addressed before, but I don’t think that it has ever been more relevant. After showing a world devastated by climate change in his ‘...and Counting’ trilogy, not to mention a submerged New York in New York 2140, Ministry for the Future is another tale suggesting a near future world under stress and approaching environmental catastrophe.

From the publisher: ‘Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organisation was simple: To advocate for the world's future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.’

Kim has often highlighted such events before, but I think that the first chapter of The Ministry For The Future is perhaps his grimmest yet. Set in 2025, it tells of a heat wave in India as seen by American Frank May, which kills twenty million people. It is bleak, unremitting and devastatingly grim, yet told in an affectingly subdued way that gets a message across – this is our world and it is now.

The result of this catastrophe is a lot of blaming and finger-pointing between different countries. India begins to seed the atmosphere to reduce the temperature, something the outcome of which is unknown and also flies in the face of international agreements. Led by Mary Murphy, The Ministry for the Future, an new international agency set up with Zurich, Switzerland, has the job of trying to ensure health and safety for the future of the world, steps in to try and defuse the situation and try to find a way to make progress. Mary Murphy and her team travel around the world to try and discuss with a broad range of people how to do this. In doing so, she also comes across Frank, who, traumatised by the fact that he has survived the Indian catastrophe, looks to terrorist environmental groups to try and help bring about environmental change. Not every choice is easy, nor every solution workable, but through the book Kim discusses thoroughly possible ways forward.

Ministry for the Future is an ambitiously big book, though with short chapters. It has a broad global sweep, travelling from India to Europe, to Brazil to Argentina and even Antarctica, deals with weighty topics intelligently, and is full of ideas that reflect difficult choices ahead. Admittedly, there are places where it can be a little dry – the book covers such broad topics as the role of tax in global society, the Paris Climate Agreement, the creation and function of the International Monetary Fund, Jevons Paradox and Modern Monetary Theory, for example – the point is that many aspects are examined and made readable in order to suggest ways to show the challenges and then make progress that are rarely easy but refreshingly positive. Whilst the issues discussed are not new, Kim’s low-key style reminded me of Arthur C Clarke’s writing, in that people talk their way around things at look at many options before making decisions. I found it to be one of the more accessible and readable KSR novels of late.

Whilst it could be said that Ministry for the Future is a political agenda dressed-up as fiction, my abiding feeling at the end is that it shows hope – a sensible and rational way out of the mess we live in, and reflects a heartfelt belief that sensible people, wanting to do the best for as many people as they can, can work in difficult situations to make the world a better place. And at the moment, with all of the political and environmental chaos going on around us, it is therefore the novel we need. It does not give easy solutions but it does give well-considered ones.

Thoughtful, literate, intelligent, and most of all positive – Ministry for the Future is not the global catastrophe story some might suggest but it is a tale from one of our genre’s most moral novelists. A book to make you think, and realise that humans can do anything, if they want to. ...more

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Oct 29, 2020 Barnaby Haszard rated it it was amazing

Let's see if I can do this. The effects of escalating carbon emissions will lead to human catastrophes of extraordinary scale - heat waves, inundations - and when the representatives of affected countries turn up angry to international symposiums and throw their numbers of dead on the table, the world will take notice - but it won't take action until there is mass financial disobedience, the simple refusal to pay trillions of imaginary dollars owed, at which time the entire financial system will Let's see if I can do this. The effects of escalating carbon emissions will lead to human catastrophes of extraordinary scale - heat waves, inundations - and when the representatives of affected countries turn up angry to international symposiums and throw their numbers of dead on the table, the world will take notice - but it won't take action until there is mass financial disobedience, the simple refusal to pay trillions of imaginary dollars owed, at which time the entire financial system will collapse and be reborn under the auspices of central banks trading in currency backed by carbon sequestration. They will only be following the money, true, and money will still rule everything, but the money will now have a sound moral and ethical underpinning. In the meantime, those who hang on to the old ways and power structures - the shipping and airline industries, for example - will be hit by violent acts of highly organised eco-terrorism on a mass scale, some carried out by dark wings of international organisations, whose commitment to a lasting greater good will accept a few million dead if it gets the point across; this in addition to targeted assassinations of the most obscene polluters and pursuers of inequality. Socialism will finally overthrow capitalism in this way, ushering in public ownership of all the basics - home, food, water, job, energy - and a comfortable minimum standard of living mandated through democracy across much of the world. All this but all that carbon has still been burnt, the glaciers are still melting, so some very expensive geological interventions will be necessary: drones to recover the Arctic with sea ice, pumps to draw water up from underneath glaciers and spray it on top so it freezes again, dye sprayed in oceans and over land to reflect more solar rays back into orbit so the sea doesn't boil so soon. Then there's the ever-multiplying eco interest groups reforesting and creating larger habitat corridors and generally giving more of the planet back to non-anthropocentric ecosystems, leading to government-backed schemes to buy whole towns out and move their populations to the suburbs and let fauna wander their deserted streets unbothered. A more equitable society is the result, and a more equitable planet, in which humans might endure for longer than they otherwise would have.

So. I found this book utterly compelling, to the point that I need to find some sceptical reviews to pick holes in Robinson's science, which is explained in frequent short chapters and seems sound. These crash courses are so frequent as to comprise about half the book; reading it is like going on a curated Wikipedia tour on climate change economics. There is plot dropped in, often revolving around the titular Ministry and its head but also darting in and out of dozens of other communities across the planet - refugee camps especially - and it is propulsive enough. But it's the way Robinson constructs his utopia in asides that drew me in so thoroughly. I've never read anything like it. ...more

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Nov 19, 2020 James rated it it was amazing

Review of Kim Stanley Robinsons Ministry for the Future....

Possibly the most important book ever written.. 106 chapters each one part of a novel and yet recognizably something else.

I think what Stan Robinson has done is write a new type of literature. A predictive prototype for what could happen over the next 20 years. What he describes is a result of our present trajectory and a wide set of plausible fictional actions.

Its science fiction. An account of scenarios about our probabilistic future ...more

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About Kim Stanley Robinson

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Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer, probably best known for his award-winning Mars trilogy.

His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the 15 years of research and lifelong fascination with Mars which culminated in his most famous work. He has, due to his ...more

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Cast naked into the wilds of the Paleolithic Ice Age, a young apprentice braves the elements in Shaman, a prehistorical novel by the science...

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“I am a god and I am not a god. Either way, you are my creatures. I keep you alive. Inside I am hot beyond all telling, and yet my outside is even hotter. At my touch you burn, though I spin outside the sky. As I breathe my big slow breaths, you freeze and burn, freeze and burn. Someday I will eat you. For now, I feed you. Beware my regard. Never look at me.” — 2 likes

“A mammal never forgets a bad scare; and they were mammals.” — 1 likes

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