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The Ministry for the Future

Kim Stanley Robinson

3.98 · Rating details · 2,507 ratings · 568 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

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Jun 27, 2020 Claudia rated it it was amazing

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

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.

Eve ...more

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Oct 11, 2020 Anissa rated it liked it

Recommends it for: KSR fans

Shelves: speculative-fiction, 2020, climate-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: speculative, reviewed, favorites

This is it. The final big KSR novel. I dreaded starting it, to be honest. Yet another climate book: don’t 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 Robinson’s 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. It’s also a para ...more

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

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.
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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 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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Jan 25, 2021 Bradley rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science, worldbuilding-sf, dystopia-yes-pls, political, sci-fi, 2021-shelf, economics

You know, the first time I saw the title and the cover, I thought this would be a far-future SF, not a near-future prediction. I'm happy to be wrong.

I'm even happier to have loved this novel from the first page to the last. Indeed, over the last 8 years of new novels, I've loved everything that KSR has written, being duly impressed about his improvement with characters and his truly fantastic grasp of science, politics, history, economics, and future speculation. Indeed, my only complaints have You know, the first time I saw the title and the cover, I thought this would be a far-future SF, not a near-future prediction. I'm happy to be wrong.

I'm even happier to have loved this novel from the first page to the last. Indeed, over the last 8 years of new novels, I've loved everything that KSR has written, being duly impressed about his improvement with characters and his truly fantastic grasp of science, politics, history, economics, and future speculation. Indeed, my only complaints have ever been about his characters who usually feel a bit more like vehicles for stories and especially IDEAS more than people, but for this book, it wasn't the case.

I was brought to tears several times.

However, I need to be very clear on this: KSR's strength is absolutely and utterly in ideas. I feel like I just read an accessible novel that outlines all of the biggest real-thought on climate change and possible solutions while having it all put through the meat-grinder of real-politics, real-people, and enormous ongoing tragedies.

The book starts out with millions dying of heat in India.

It picks up with angry people worldwide demanding change and butting heads, devolving into assassinations, new politics, massive setbacks, economic upheavals, MORE climate disasters hitting the affluent people, more chaos, new legislation, MORE political upheaval, more dead, and economic systems that are both familiar and much more complicated than most of us have ever really researched TODAY.

I mean, some of us have. Bitchains, UBIs, carbon monetary systems (not as in burning it, but drawing it out of the atmosphere), and the eventual re-greening of the Earth. And it's a lot more complicated and gloriously explored than anything I can get into with a simple review, but the BOOK does a fantastic job of outlining a gloriously chaotic near-future that would, in other times, be considered a bonafide classic.

The book, frankly, is rich, deserves immense respect, lots of thought, and public discourse.

Maybe most of us are burned out by the seeming impossibility of getting a New Green Deal, one where the new jobs come directly from creating a sustainable future.

But maybe what we really need are the ideas firmly planted in our heads, complete with plans, backup plans, backup-backup plans, and awareness of all the ways it could all go wrong (and will) so we're not blindsided when we lose four billion people (minimum) in the next 30 years.

This novel should be THAT talking point. For how tragic it is, it's FULL of great thought and, dare I say it, HOPE. ...more

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

This might be about great big ideas, but without a decent narrative or memorable, well-developed characters I simply don‘t 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 doesn‘t make this a readable novel for me.

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

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Sep 17, 2020 Andreas rated it really liked it

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 t 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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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 aqu ...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 du 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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Jan 08, 2021 Lindsay rated it it was ok

Shelves: science-fiction

This book follows the progress of the titular Ministry of the Future established as a United Nation body with a mission to "speak for the future". It's told from the viewpoint of several characters in and around the organization as it moves from its initial rather ineffectual roots to being the driving force against climate change across the globe.

So this is a terrible book, and I'll get into why in a bit.

I just want to point out the first chapter though, because it's powerful and brilliant. Wha This book follows the progress of the titular Ministry of the Future established as a United Nation body with a mission to "speak for the future". It's told from the viewpoint of several characters in and around the organization as it moves from its initial rather ineffectual roots to being the driving force against climate change across the globe.

So this is a terrible book, and I'll get into why in a bit.

I just want to point out the first chapter though, because it's powerful and brilliant. What it is, is the account of an aid worker in Northern India during the first heat wave in recorded human history to hit a heavily populated area with a wet bulb temperature that is incompatible with human life. It's powerful because it's only fiction in that it hasn't happened yet. The current trajectory of climate change says this is inevitable by the end of the 21st century. (For more on this I strongly recommend The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses).

If only the rest of the novel matched the standard of its first chapter.

The rest of the book is the now very familiar future history that this author believes should and will happen. That history is towards a technocentric marxist green global government. The author's calls for this to happen get increasingly strident (desperate?) with each book. In this one he goes a bit further than previous books, advocating for lethal force against polluters and over-consumers. Government-sponsored ecoterrorism in places.

Generally speaking it comes off as unhinged, and requires that the reader forget how humans work. For instance, there's one memorable scene where a group of rural people sadly and quietly leave their small-town homes for the last time because all people who live a rural existence are being moved to high-intensity housing in cities, because that's better for the world in general.

What? Sadly and quietly? What!?

Why? Because they've been told by scientists what's best for them and the world, so they happily comply.

Readers of all genders, may I present the year 2020 as a counterargument?

This ridiculous piece of rose-tinted trash would be getting one star, and only gets two on the strength of the first chapter. ...more

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Jan 27, 2021 Anna rated it really liked it

Shelves: climate-change, fiction

I've been thinking a lot recently about the need to construct a narrative of recovery from disaster, in order to have any hope for the future. My thoughts centred upon the pandemic and how normality as we knew it will never return, but perhaps we can move from emergency into rebuilding something different. The first step towards doing the latter is imagining it as a possibility and envisaging one day not being afraid to leave my home. I am thus attempting to avoid despair despite the truly disas I've been thinking a lot recently about the need to construct a narrative of recovery from disaster, in order to have any hope for the future. My thoughts centred upon the pandemic and how normality as we knew it will never return, but perhaps we can move from emergency into rebuilding something different. The first step towards doing the latter is imagining it as a possibility and envisaging one day not being afraid to leave my home. I am thus attempting to avoid despair despite the truly disastrous state of the UK in January 2021. Racked by the new turbo-covid variant, hospitals overwhelmed, more than a hundred thousand dead in the pandemic and another thousand every day, the worst death rate in the world, in lockdown for the third time, economically crippled by brexit, ruled by a bunch of useless Tory goons who are responsible for it all. As I find Kim Stanley Robinson's books among the most hopeful I've ever read, 'The Ministry for the Future' seemed like it might help.

At first, it was just the opposite. In order to illustrate the horrors of climate change, the book opens with a truly terrifying account of a heatwave in India that kills twenty million people in a fortnight. I was thus punched in the face by my existential terror of climate change, which has been crowded to the side by my existential terror of the pandemic in recent times. It was not pleasant to be reminded that while covid dominates our lives, climate change continues to inexorably undermine the survival of human civilisation. It therefore took me a while to get through the first fifty pages, despite their undoubted readability. Once I'd reacquainted myself with this existential dread, and with the help of escapism in large doses, I found the rest of the book compulsive. I do not think it's science fiction, or at least doesn't read as such. Although there are characters and a narrative, as well as technological extrapolations, it felt more like Francis Spufford's elision of fiction and non-. Except Spufford recounts history with judicious use of fictionalisation, whereas Stanley Robinson gives readers a detailed recovery narrative of the future. In New York 2140 he spoke directly to the reader, and in 'The Ministry for the Future' he does so still more insistently. This book sits you down, takes you by the shoulders, and says earnestly, "Listen to me. We are not doomed by climate change. There is hope for a better world. Do not despair."

The title of the book refers to an agency set up in Zürich under the auspices of the Paris Agreement, with limited budget and no statutory powers, with the purpose of representing the interests of future generations. It is led by Mary Murphy, who uses the UN agency's soft power to influence governments, banks, and businesses. She is a powerful figure, but still essentially a figurehead and co-ordinator. Kim Stanley Robinson is absolutely the last author to intimate that one person can save the world. Her point of view allows the reader to see the many ways to tackle climate change: geoengineering, renewable energy, financial reform, rewilding, transformation of agriculture, transport decarbonisation, and postcapitalist economics. As ever in his novels, Kim Stanley Robinson has a very impressive grasp of the material, beyond any other author I've come across. I discussed this with a friend who is currently reading Blue Mars. He has the trick of extrapolating with considered conviction across an incredible range of disciplines in both the hard and social sciences. Presumably he draws upon a network of experts, identifying key concepts and explaining them with great clarity. I have studied and taught carbon emissions mitigation in academia, so do not praise this lightly. I've read plenty of novels with flimsy and unconvincing economics, in particular. Kim Stanley Robinson synthesises and summarises environmental economics with a succinct accuracy that I can't fault. My knowledge of hard science, engineering, and technology is more limited, but I found his extrapolations almost entirely convincing. I remain sceptical of blockchain, as there's so much baseless hype around it. Nonetheless, I am willing to entertain the possibility that it may be useful if set up and managed as public infrastructure rather than for shareholder returns.

While impressively systematic and convincing, the depiction of technological change and geoengineering are not what make 'The Ministry for the Future' memorable. Obviously I appreciated the economics and the reckoning with bankers. What set this apart for me, from Kim Stanley Robinson's other novels as well other climate change fiction, is his depiction of the violent rage against the hyper-rich elite letting the planet burn. Mary shares protagonist duties with Frank May, who barely survives the catastrophic Indian heatwave and suffers from severe PTSD. He is a fascinating character, the exact opposite of all the men in so-called climate change novels that annoyed me with their self involvement (cf Solar, The Lamentations of Zeno). Climate change has taken over his life and over decades the reader watches how this plays out. Unlike much climate change non-fiction (notably The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis), Kim Stanley Robinson acknowledges and reckons with probably the main impediments to tackling climate change: oil companies and the super-rich. Moreover, he examines the question, unmentioned in any climate change non-fiction I've read, of whether killing a few super-rich is morally right in order to preserve billions of people alive and unborn. The answer is not simple and this book doesn't pretend that it is. I found the intensity of Frank's anger very easy to sympathise with - I am constantly seething with murderous rage at the destruction wrought by billionaires. The role of violence and sabotage in turning the world away from climate disaster is carefully judged throughout. Violence is shown to not usually be justified, yet can be effective in desperate situations. Although the Children of Kali and their direct violent actions are only an occasional presence in the narrative, their inclusion is important. (view spoiler)

I don't think 'The Ministry for the Future' works particularly well as a conventional novel, as it doesn't spend nearly as much time with its characters as New York 2140 or the Mars Trilogy. Although I found Mary and Frank interesting characters, their lives were entirely defined by climate change. This is absolutely not a complaint! The book works brilliantly as a manifesto, polemic, and a narrative of possibility. I cannot be the only person who is consumed by fear and despair about the future right now, and needs convincing, analytical, hopeful narratives to counter the blizzard of disasters that pass for current events. Unfortunately, even Kim Stanley Robinson's outstanding writing abilities cannot make much progress against my anxieties in 2021. New York 2140 definitely had a stronger positive impact on me back in 2017. Partly, it's the implication that his books are becoming more and more direct in their message because things are getting worse and worse. Will he write another like this but more so in a couple of years, if COP26 languishes? 'The Ministry for the Future' is adamant that there is still time to avoid runaway climate change and save civilisation. I would very much like to believe that, but am really struggling to at the moment. Lockdown life on Plague Island really doesn't lend itself to positivity. Still, I know that such narratives are important. Maybe I need to construct a personal narrative of becoming less anxious first, then I might be able to think about the climate change situation more clearly. ...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, t ...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 the 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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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 Robinson’s 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 law ...more

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Jan 10, 2021 Lena rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Lena by: Solarpunk BOM

Shelves: solarpunk, audio, clifi

C228-A503-E889-4-CF5-B7-DC-DE51-A9-F60-E95

“Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism: the old saying had grown teeth and was taking on a literal, vicious accuracy.”

What we are doing is not working.

This book is filled with good ideas about how to make the wrenching change from nationalist capitalism to a global carbon aware civilization.

Everyone needs to read this book.

One of his ideas is YourLock, a non-profit Facebook with a Credit Union. Currently there is a web based non-profit Credit Union dedicated to ...more

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

Shelves: 2020

Sometimes 2* and sometimes (fewer) 4*. Really much of the book could have become essays for the New Yorker or something. I really couldn’t 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 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 novel—its sprawling future history, its rigorous picture of institutional change, its structure of feeling, its cascading collisions of big ideas—but what resonates most deeply is that this is a book about and for practical, determined peop ...more

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Dec 22, 2020 Steve rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sci-fi-and-fantasy

Yup, I'm recommending this one as a, gee, that's pretty much a perfect book for end of 2020 (consumed, by this reader, during the waning days of the chaotic rule of the defeated, seemingly mad President, who denied climate change, rolled back environmental regulation, and withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, ... and before the inauguration of the first President who has little choice but to make climate change one of (the transition's, and, come January, the) nation's highest priorities).

Is Yup, I'm recommending this one as a, gee, that's pretty much a perfect book for end of 2020 (consumed, by this reader, during the waning days of the chaotic rule of the defeated, seemingly mad President, who denied climate change, rolled back environmental regulation, and withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, ... and before the inauguration of the first President who has little choice but to make climate change one of (the transition's, and, come January, the) nation's highest priorities).

Is the book climate change dystopia? Maybe. I'll defer to others on genre and shelving. To me, it felt like Oreskes & Conway's sublime, pocket-sized, thought-provoking tour de force, The Collapse of Western Civilization, expanded from novella to full-length novel, with some human elements (and slightly more optimistic elements) built in. Frankly, we need more books like these not only on the shelves, in our libraries, in the classroom, and on assigned reading lists, but in book clubs and discussion groups and in airports and train stations ... and kitchens, etc.

But I concede that I'm giving it five (Machiavellian) stars for the same reasons that I'm going to be recommending it ... and probably buying extra copies.... And that's because stories are powerful, and for the broader reading public, fiction (even sci-fi or dystopia) is easier to digest than non-fiction. And if this book makes people read and think about climate change ... and if it moves the needle of public cognizance ever so slightly, then it's a public good and Robinson deserves our thanks. Sure, Wallace-Wells' powerful and compelling Uninhabitable Earth sold well for its genre, but no amount of teeth-pulling will result in that book being widely consumed by the public. To the extent that, say, Jahren's The Story of More is more accessible or less jarring or easier to digest, its reach (or market penetration), nonetheless, is even more limited. And, despite its poignant elegance, and even with what seems like a tsunami of literary appreciation and a Pulitzer nomination, Rush's Rising is, at best, a niche market book. So, I'm going to recommend this to anyone who is open to reading it (and, alas, isn't daunted by its size, heft, weight, etc.).

This isn't Kim Stanley Robinson's first rodeo, and, truth be told, I'm a slow, but, increasingly, less reluctant fan. I realize I'm in the minority on this, but I didn't love Red Mars, and so it was quite some time before I got to Green Mars, which I enjoyed much more, but not enough to rush out and dive into Blue Mars. And I never got around to the California books/triptych. This was far and away my favorite of his (at least so far).

I could emphasize the nits - it's probably 100+ pages too long, some of the diversions and interjections are too cute by half, some of the voices and perspectives don't resonate as well as others, and (at least for me) Robinson does better with story than people - but that's not the point. It's the right book at the right time. And I willingly add my voice to the chorus of folks recommending it. ...more

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Dec 29, 2020 Melpomene rated it it was ok

this is the most BORING book I've ever read; I fell asleep while reading some passages. I would have DNFed it if I had a choice. Where is the plot?! where are the characters?! If you want to write an essay on Global Warming, then write it as a FUCKING ESSAY. why are you insisting on doing it as a novel? who cares about your political message now? everyone will remember this book as a story with no plot and no character development! ...more

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Dec 26, 2020 Michael rated it liked it

This was my first-time reading Kim Stanley Robinson. I confess I was warned about his penchant for digressing from the narrative in order to insert a nonfiction element. "The Ministry for the Future" is no exception and features many such asides.

The story follows two characters: Frank May and Mary Murphy. Frank is a young American aid worker working in a part of India that experiences a severe, extended heat wave that eventually kills millions. Frank is one of the few survivors of this catastro ...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 lifest ...more

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Dec 18, 2020 Ryan rated it liked it

Shelves: eco

If you look at pictures of American cities a hundred years ago, they don't look much like the cities we see today. But if you look at the General Motors Futurama exhibit from 1939, you'll see a vision for the cities we encounter today. In The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson attempts to create a futurama exhibit of the next century that will take humanity through climate change.

The story initially juxtaposes two characters, Mary and Frank, to nudge readers out of their climate compl If you look at pictures of American cities a hundred years ago, they don't look much like the cities we see today. But if you look at the General Motors Futurama exhibit from 1939, you'll see a vision for the cities we encounter today. In The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson attempts to create a futurama exhibit of the next century that will take humanity through climate change.

The story initially juxtaposes two characters, Mary and Frank, to nudge readers out of their climate complacency.

Mary is a career bureaucrat who lands a job at the Ministry for the Future, an international body that represents the rights of future generations. She engages in a variety of meetings with her staff, with bankers, and with politicians. A curious scene is shown several times at the start of the novel: Mary and her band of bureaucrats meet after work to drink cocktails as they bemoan the state of the world. They are symbolic of today’s greens. When the War for the Climate starts, Mary realizes she has only been working in a discursive war of rhetoric. If she took climate change seriously, what more would she do besides drinking cocktails in a sort of existential despair?

Frank is a survivor of a massive heat wave that takes place in India—millions die around him when the temperature rises so much that A/C cannot keep up and instead crashes the electrical grid. He is very serious about climate change. He begins taking direct actions, including violent attacks. Other organizations, for example, launch drones in flight paths to stop commercial flight powered by conventional jet fuel. When jets start falling, people mostly stop flying. Sabotage, meanwhile, raises the cost of operating coal plants.

Who is doing more to protect the well being of future generations, Mary wonders?

There are many problems with Frank's strategy. But one is that it's very difficult to have a society in such an unstable world. KSR, however, looks at the inequality and environmental damage of today's society to argue that its imbalances undermine the integrity of society. To achieve a better equilibrium, KSR has Mary pursue a carbon coin policy. Carbon coins are a crypto currency that, so far as I can tell, come from the real world. KSR envisions them alongside blockchains and wants them to become a sort of longterm investment that rewards people for keeping carbon in the ground. If fossil fuels can be made to become underwater assets, then the smart investment would become these carbon coins. Later, people are rewarded for sequestering CO2 in their soil. I wasn't convinced that these carbon coins would take off in the world I live in; on the other hand, the world surprises me every day.

I worry that the idea that violence can be condoned to generate change is beginning to pop up again at the edge of environmental discourse. It is not hard to find “human extinction” rhetoric from greens and in fact there's even a group called Extinction Rebellion that carries out non-violent actions now. People today are dying of air pollution, and I suspect KSR is right to point to heat waves as a threat of mass deaths in the near future. In a recent episode of the Ezra Klein Show, Matthew Yglesias argues that climate change is terrible, but it’s not as bad as Extinction Rebellion claims because if it were then we would condone bombing coal factories. We don't condone such actions, Yglesias thinks, for instinctively correct utilitarian reasons. (There are also studies that suggest the most successful movements are non-violent.) In Ministry for the Future, KSR asks whether a heat wave that kills of millions of people might radicalize a not insignificant segment of the population. Although I'm not sure it will lead to a green revolution in India—it seems just as likely to cause people to double down on coal, I think—it doesn’t seem crazy to think it could cause people to decide that they should sabotage coal plants.

What else follows from this shift? Many of the chapters are about various forms of geoengineering. India goes rogue and releases sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, a form of solar radiation management. Scientists begin pumping melt water out from under glaciers to allow them to settle back onto rock, thus slowing their movement into the ocean. Nordic countries pump snow into the Arctic to stop heat from being absorbed by the deep blue sea (ice reflects light back out of the atmosphere relative to the ocean). Direct air carbon capture technology becomes efficient enough to do at a larger scale. My sense is that most greens hold their nose when they think about geoengineering, perhaps because people that like geoengineering often also see in it an excuse to keep burning fossil fuels, or perhaps because greens see the planet as quasi-sacred. But, again, it doesn't seem crazy to me that mitigation and adaptation efforts will involve some attempt at geoengineering.

Here are some criticisms. The Ministry For the Future is not a very conventional plot / character driven novel. Even by KSR’s standards, there are a lot of digressions and essays—even some riddles. The chronology is mostly blown out, not so different from Last and First Men, which means that the characters are mostly just movers and their personalities are not so much more complex than “earnest + bureaucrat = Mary.” If memory serves, KSR has contributed to State of the World Reports, and I interpret him as using the form of a novel to provide a narrative context for those reports. He then uses speculative fiction to get people to think with more creativity about how we might respond to climate change. Though useful, the approach is maybe not so thrilling. The direct actions carried out by the people are rarely met by corporate retaliation, but it seems likely to me that fossil fuel companies would hire mercenaries in the world KSR envisions here. Last but not least, there is almost no role for or acknowledgement of companies like Tesla that are popularizing EVs.

There are some useful lessons here. First, The Ministry for the Future reminds us that many changes compound in unexpected ways. Second, it nudges climate discourse, which is often focused on the next four years, ten years, or twenty years, to a longer frame. Finally, it takes the goal of reducing atmospheric CO2 seriously enough to game out for a popular audience how that might happen internationally. Generally, we do discuss greenhouse gas emissions in a sort of "we'll have more electric cars and then [waves hand]" sort of way. KSR reminds readers how often our actions are just a "war of discourse." ...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 st ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 John Adkins rated it it was amazing

Shelves: net-galley, earc, 2020

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. Robins ...more

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Jul 24, 2020 Adam rated it it was amazing

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

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 bo ...more

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Jan 06, 2021 Bryan Alexander rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics, near-future-sf, climate-change

Ministry for the Future is a powerful vision of how humanity might respond to the unfolding climate crisis over the next generation.

I picked this novel for our online book club, and reviewed it carefully there. Check it out, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. ...more

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Oct 28, 2020 Dan Trefethen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, science, 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 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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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 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 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 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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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. 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 politic 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

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 ee 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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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.” — 3 likes

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

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