Kim Stanley Robinson: Ministry for the Future - Carton of 10 Signed Copies (2020, Orbit)
576 pages
English language
Published Dec. 9, 2020 by Orbit.
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
"One hopes that this book is read widely—that Robinson’s audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is …
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)
"One hopes that this book is read widely—that Robinson’s audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination."―New York Review of Books
"If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year)
"Masterly." —New Yorker
"[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year ... it’s terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It’s my book of the year." —Locus
"Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." ―Bloomberg Green
Source: Publisher
I'd thought this one might be solarpunk. It most definitely is not that style, much more old-school, hard-SF. And it is full-on dystopian in the beginning. (The first chapter is traumatically good.)
But the rest of the book was like an economics lecture to me. Never hit emotionally. Plus, some of the solutions didn't seem plausible, so it was hard to see the characters as experts.
By which I mean it's long and has an interesting idea for a plot, but is written in a way that isn't always interesting.
There's something didactic about KSR's novels. He does a lot of telling rather than showing. There are pages and pages of this. Some of it was so tedious that in the last 20% of the book I skipped over parts. I longed for it all to be over so that I could move on to something more interesting and better written.
There are chapters narrated from the point of view of unidentified people who are scientists, refugees, etc. A lot of these all sound like the same rather breathless, over-excited person.
Because of these faults I wouldn't particularly recommend this book.
J'ai lu la version originale en anglais.
Je suis partagé sur le livre :
la mise en scène initiale bouscule et fait réfléchir, l'anticipation s'avère clairvoyante. le livre est bien documenté à de très nombreux titres, malheureusement il y a tellement de sujet à traiter que certains développements (technologiques) s'avèrent inexactes ou au mieux de la fantaisies l'auteur bascule entre description voire essai (documentée) et perspective de personnage. Sur la deuxieme partie ce style s'alourdit et rend la lecture difficile. la discussion des perspectives morales au travers des personnages s'avèrent être la partie la plus intéressante, selon moi. j'ai trouvé le développement heureux final déconnecté avec les travaux récents du GIEC, en particulier la perspective de sobriété n'est pas assez développée j'ai également trouvé certaines résolutions trop candides, j'avoue rester fort cynique quand à l'altruisme des puissants. Cela étant, je trouve cette fiction une bonne introduction au sujet avec des …
J'ai lu la version originale en anglais.
Je suis partagé sur le livre :
la mise en scène initiale bouscule et fait réfléchir, l'anticipation s'avère clairvoyante. le livre est bien documenté à de très nombreux titres, malheureusement il y a tellement de sujet à traiter que certains développements (technologiques) s'avèrent inexactes ou au mieux de la fantaisies l'auteur bascule entre description voire essai (documentée) et perspective de personnage. Sur la deuxieme partie ce style s'alourdit et rend la lecture difficile. la discussion des perspectives morales au travers des personnages s'avèrent être la partie la plus intéressante, selon moi. j'ai trouvé le développement heureux final déconnecté avec les travaux récents du GIEC, en particulier la perspective de sobriété n'est pas assez développée j'ai également trouvé certaines résolutions trop candides, j'avoue rester fort cynique quand à l'altruisme des puissants. Cela étant, je trouve cette fiction une bonne introduction au sujet avec des perspectives alternatives.
Todella monen asian pitää muuttua, jos aiomme elää tällä planeetalla vielä tulevinakin vuosisatoina. Valtaosa kirjojen ja elokuvien tulevaisuusvisioista tuntuu kuitenkin olevan dystopioita, kuvauksia siitä millaista helvettiä elämä Maa-planeetalla on, kun kaikki on mennyt pieleen. Muutamalla seuraaville vuosikymmenille lähitulevaisuuteen sijoittuva Kim Stanley Robinsonin The Ministry for the Future kuitenkin esittää uskottavan, vaikkakin monelta osin silmiinpistävän optimistisen vision siitä, miten kaikenkattava ekokriisi on saatu Maa-planeetalla kuitenkin jonkinlaiseen hallintaan. Robinsonin visiosta kiinnostavan tekee se, että se ei ole vain kaunokirjallista kuvitelmaa, vaan perustuu ihan todellisiin haasteisiin ja ratkaisuihin, ja monet kirjan luvuista ovatkin luonteeltaan pikemminkin tieteellisiä esseitä kuin varsinaista kertomakirjallisuutta.
Kirjan tulevaisuuskuva ei kuitenkaan ole paratiisimainen utopia. Maa siinä vaiheessa, kun ilmakehän hiilidioksidimäärä on saatu laskuun, ei ole enää aivan sama planeetta kuin se oli vielä ennen ilmastokriisiä, ja työn planeetan hengissäpitämiseksi kuvataan jatkuvan vielä tulevillekin vuosisadoille vaikka hiilidioksidiongelma kirjassa on saatukin pois päällimmäisistä huolenaiheista.
Robinson ei pyri hahmottelemaan paluuta meneen ajan tasapainoon, …
Todella monen asian pitää muuttua, jos aiomme elää tällä planeetalla vielä tulevinakin vuosisatoina. Valtaosa kirjojen ja elokuvien tulevaisuusvisioista tuntuu kuitenkin olevan dystopioita, kuvauksia siitä millaista helvettiä elämä Maa-planeetalla on, kun kaikki on mennyt pieleen. Muutamalla seuraaville vuosikymmenille lähitulevaisuuteen sijoittuva Kim Stanley Robinsonin The Ministry for the Future kuitenkin esittää uskottavan, vaikkakin monelta osin silmiinpistävän optimistisen vision siitä, miten kaikenkattava ekokriisi on saatu Maa-planeetalla kuitenkin jonkinlaiseen hallintaan. Robinsonin visiosta kiinnostavan tekee se, että se ei ole vain kaunokirjallista kuvitelmaa, vaan perustuu ihan todellisiin haasteisiin ja ratkaisuihin, ja monet kirjan luvuista ovatkin luonteeltaan pikemminkin tieteellisiä esseitä kuin varsinaista kertomakirjallisuutta.
Kirjan tulevaisuuskuva ei kuitenkaan ole paratiisimainen utopia. Maa siinä vaiheessa, kun ilmakehän hiilidioksidimäärä on saatu laskuun, ei ole enää aivan sama planeetta kuin se oli vielä ennen ilmastokriisiä, ja työn planeetan hengissäpitämiseksi kuvataan jatkuvan vielä tulevillekin vuosisadoille vaikka hiilidioksidiongelma kirjassa on saatukin pois päällimmäisistä huolenaiheista.
Robinson ei pyri hahmottelemaan paluuta meneen ajan tasapainoon, vaan pohtii pikemmin sitä, miten täällä eletään kun on täysimittaisesti siirrytty antroposeenin aikaan, ja ihmiskunta ryhtynyt tosissaan kantamaan vastuuta aiheuttamastaan muutoksesta ja planeetan tulevaisuudesta. Kirja valaa kuitenkin uskoa siihen, että tämä ihmiskunnan massiivisin haaste on selätettävissä, kunhan vaan siihen yhdessä ryhdymme. Robinsonille Maa-planeetan elämänlanka on Parisiin ilmastosopimus: siihen tulee tarttua juuri sellaisena historiallisena käännekohtana, kuin millaisena sitä melkein kymmenen vuotta sitten juhlittiin
Kirja sisältää valtavasti tietoa - siis aivan todellista tietoa, ei vain kuvitelmia tulevaisuudesta. Siihen voi hyvin suhtautua myös eräänlaisena ilmastoratkaisuiden oppikirjana. Mitä kaikkea onkaan otettava huomioon?
Robinson ei anna ihmiskunnalle mitenkään kevyttä tehtävälistaa. Paitsi että Pariisin henki pitää institutionalisoida globaalia muutosta johtavaksi "tulevaisuusministeriöksi", ihmiskunnan henkiseen muutokseen tarvitaan vielä paljon muutakin. Emme varmaankaan herää ennen kuin olemme kokeneet kunnon katastrofin. Eikä varmaankaan tuhoisia tapoja ja toimintamalleja saada loppumaan ilman, että jostain nousee sellaista aktivismia, jonka rinnalla Elonkapinakin vaikuttaa ompelukerholta. Planeetalle aiheutettu vahinko on myös jo niin suurta, että tuskin selviämme ilman massiivista ilmastonmuokkausta: sulaneen Arktiksen värjäämistä auringonvaloa heijastavaksi keltaiseksi ja öljynporausinfran käyttöönottoa sulavien ja mereen luisuvien Antarktiksen jäätiköiden pysäyttämiseksi. Talouskin pitää mullistaa: tulee luoda taloudellinen insentiivi hiilen varastoinnille, tehdä rahajärjestelmän tasolla kestävästä toiminnasta kannattavaa ja kestämättömästä tappiollista.
Robinsonin visioima muutaman vuosikymmenen päässä oleva Maa-planeetta on kuitenkin yllättävän samankaltainen kuin nykyinenkin maailma, ehkä vain vähän verkkaisempi, reilumpi - ja varmaankin mukavampi. Mantereiden välillä ei enää liikuta lentokoneilla, vaan ilmalaivoilla, ja rahtilaivojenkin vauhti on hidastunut, kun ne on automatisoitu ja konvertoitu aurinko- ja tuulivoimalla liikkuviksi. Kyllä tällaista tulevaisuutta kannattaa tavoitella.
Ja kyllä Robinsonin kuvaus tähän tulevaisuuteen tarvittavista toimistakin on uskottava. Jotain tämän kaltaista, vaikkakaan ei varmasti juuri tätä, taatusti tarvitaan. Työtä on monella rintamalla: talouden, lakien ja instituutioiden tasolla täytyy tehdä muutoksia, mutta tarvitaan myös aktivismia - ja voi olla, että osa siitä on sellaista mikä tapahtuu varjoissa, hämärässä ja lain nurjalla puolella. Koko sivilisaation tulevaisuudesta kuitenkin on kyse.
I'm going to start with saying I've enjoyed the Mars Trilogy greatly. I've re-read it recently - it does show it age a bit, both by the underlying world moving on and by the narrative structure of a grand epic that feels a bit quaint in 2024.
The Ministry for the Future, though... it's not a book? I mean it's one in the physical sense, but it's not a proper novel. It's a bunch of happy magical thinking stories where everything works out. There's a lot of unconnected snapshot viewpoints, and then Central Banks deploy bitcoin and AI and everything is redeemed, and Russian aircraft carriers save the Antarctic. That's a rather disappointing investor spiel, not a proper sci-fi novel.
I should have known better, seeing as it carries "favourite book of Obama" on the cover. I'm struggling to believe he's read it, as near the middle it calls out …
I'm going to start with saying I've enjoyed the Mars Trilogy greatly. I've re-read it recently - it does show it age a bit, both by the underlying world moving on and by the narrative structure of a grand epic that feels a bit quaint in 2024.
The Ministry for the Future, though... it's not a book? I mean it's one in the physical sense, but it's not a proper novel. It's a bunch of happy magical thinking stories where everything works out. There's a lot of unconnected snapshot viewpoints, and then Central Banks deploy bitcoin and AI and everything is redeemed, and Russian aircraft carriers save the Antarctic. That's a rather disappointing investor spiel, not a proper sci-fi novel.
I should have known better, seeing as it carries "favourite book of Obama" on the cover. I'm struggling to believe he's read it, as near the middle it calls out the assassinations by drone that his presidency made such wide use of - and blames them on him by name.
Then again, it's nice to fantasize about oil execs getting tagged like that.
The blurb said "a rousing vision of how we might unite to overcome the greatest challenge of our time" but I just found it depressing. It is set so close in the future that the climate disasters described will be reality pretty soon. I didn't find the way humanity pulls together very convincing or believable.
Also I'm not sure who the intended audience is - if you're not interested in climate change, there's a lot of dry facts interspersed between a bit of human interest, so not really a gripping read. And if you are interested, like I said it's just depressing: (
I struggled picking a rating for this book. It's one of those books I'm happy to have read, but while reading it some sections were slow and hard to get through.
The book paints a vivid picture of what's already happening with climate change, and how it could get a lot worse. The reactions of different groups of people are interesting, and gave me things to think about.
The book 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. This book aims to be a draw-you-in page turner built on a foundation of current events and present-day science, extrapolated into a claustrophobic tale of human survival in a hostile environment and it does succeed in this. I enjoyed it quite a lot and do sincerely believe that it should be available on more platforms like Shabd.in so that others can read it too.
I wanted to like this, but the prose was often awkward, the dialogue unimaginative, and the exposition was too blatant. Grand events are glossed over in single sentences, then nothing happens for whole chapters. Rather than weaving a thrilling narrative of a possible near future, this is really a repetitive and surprisingly dull series of essays that make up an over-optimistic manifesto for solving climate change.
Content warning Spoilers for the whole book; references to disturbing content
I read this over a few months with an in-person book club, and it was a great choice for that because it has a lot to discuss. It opens with an incredibly harrowing description of the sort of heat wave disaster that the world hasn't seen yet but I think is plausible not far in the future. And from there it basically follows three interwoven threads: * The UN establishes a climate change super-org that gets dubbed the "Ministry for the Future" because its official name is far too unwieldy government-speak * India decides after the heatwave that it can't afford to wait for the world to get its shit together, and starts going it alone on geoengineering, to global consternation but also spurring some more serious action from other parties * The character from whose point of view we saw the disaster is very deeply scarred by the experience and devotes the rest of his life to climate action by any means necessary
In true KSR style, the book is very long on research and loving descriptions of places (mostly Switzerland this time; he's made me want to visit Zurich), and relatively short on three-dimensional characters. I think this one does a better job with the characters than Red Mars, because he picked a couple (Frank and Mary) to focus on and managed to bring those to life somewhat, while letting others just be functions in the story. But it's definitely still his weak point as a writer.
The book goes through a grim ride, in which there's a lot more loss, and it takes a huge amount of work and delay to get to meaningful global action. All of which seems sadly realistic to me. I think KSR's also right that in the end the levers will be social and financial system changes, not some amazing new technology. But his proposal for those changes feels weirdly credulous about Bitcoin, and thin on details about how it would actually achieve its social objectives - which would be fine for a straight work of fiction, but is jarring compared to how much deep research there clearly is in the climate system and technology parts of the story.
It eventually leads to a sort of optimistic conclusion, a somewhat believable scenario of humanity living within its means at last, and some aspects of that vision being genuinely appealing. But that end state has two glaring omissions which ultimately detracted a lot from the book for me.
One is that there's been a triumph of this "half Earth" movement about physically limiting human habitation to half of the land surface, to rewild the rest. But... everywhere habitable is someone's ancestral land. What happened to those people? Were they consulted, compensated, persuaded, or moved along yet again? And most of those ecosystems' stable pre-industrial states were ones of dynamic equilibrium actively maintained by humans - simply withdrawing wouldn't do what this book seems to assume it will.
The other is that there's this lovely vision of long haul travel being done by boat and airship, which in turn is practical because people get to work on their laptops. Which would be great for me! But what's a plumber supposed to do? I can only be so happy about a future in which migrants' ability to see our families is contingent on us having remote work compatible jobs. And the way that's not discussed left me feeling like KSR had only really thought about this future for himself.
After a strong start in the first few chapters I was struggling to get through the rest. The writing was plain and disjointed, the plot and characters thin, and it often read more like journalism, some climate change manifesto or a physics lecture, rather than fiction.
I have never been the biggest Kim Stanley Robinson fan, because my personal taste tends toward strongly character-driven stories. I've seen people say that, in KSR's stories, the setting is one of the characters. OK, fair enough ... but not exactly what I'm usually looking for.
But this book is gripping even for someone like me, and I think only Robinson could've written it. In some ways, it's more of his hard/near sf, and the setting (and what happens to it) is, indeed, the main focus. The character-driven stories are good, but alone wouldn't do it for me.
But it's also timely, relevant for all human beings. And it's both starkly terrifying and one of the most genuinely hopeful takes on our current situation that I've ever seen. It doesn't deny anything ... and yet it offers a clear case for hope.
Read it.
Content warning Mild TMFTF spoilers
Skimmed a whole lot of this book. Partly my fault for having read too much Robinson, including 2312 quite recently. Partly because he basically copy pasted a number of themes and vignettes directly from that book into this one (Mandragon, rewilding the Earth, etc), with very large parts of the rest copied from his earlier works like the one on Antarctica. Guy likes what he likes but it gets friggin old!
Not sure what to think about Mary x Frank, it’s not quite gross and he did treat it with some care but still incredibly awkard/slightly smelly. KSR has never been good at the interpersonal stuff anyhow.
Very high level, it suffers from the combination of his IMHO unearned optimism (his grand society wide planet changing exercises were a lot more believable when they were set farther in the future and on other planets!) and a huge dose of already poorly aging “the news in my book” syndrome. Cryptocurrency mentioned positively, having just missed COVID, and the Ukraine war, makes it really suffer as a near-future work.
I wanted more action, less blockchain.
Ministry for the Future was a Good book. It’s unfortunate that KSR got bogged down in crypto as anything approaching a potential solution to a climate-induced economic collapse. And I found it especially hard to believe that world governments would ever agree to issue global citizenship to refugees.
Still, I found the accounts of various near-future climate disasters—and the peoples’ responses to them—to be very realistic and compelling.
KSR is clearly an optimist while I’m for sure a doomer. I Want To Believe but MftF didn’t win me over. Where’s the fascism? It’s the elephant in the room.
More than anything, the book got me thinking a lot, and presented a perspective I haven’t really seen before, which is rooted in a deep understanding of the problems and their severity, but still retains a sense of optimism that I largely don’t share. It felt good to see the world adapt …
Ministry for the Future was a Good book. It’s unfortunate that KSR got bogged down in crypto as anything approaching a potential solution to a climate-induced economic collapse. And I found it especially hard to believe that world governments would ever agree to issue global citizenship to refugees.
Still, I found the accounts of various near-future climate disasters—and the peoples’ responses to them—to be very realistic and compelling.
KSR is clearly an optimist while I’m for sure a doomer. I Want To Believe but MftF didn’t win me over. Where’s the fascism? It’s the elephant in the room.
More than anything, the book got me thinking a lot, and presented a perspective I haven’t really seen before, which is rooted in a deep understanding of the problems and their severity, but still retains a sense of optimism that I largely don’t share. It felt good to see the world adapt to crisis.
I want to call it a solid 3.5 out of 5 but since this platform only gives me whole stars I'll err on the side of a 4.
