Paperback, 563 pages
English language
Published June 21, 2021 by Orbit.
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, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.
From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever …
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, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.
From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry For The Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
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.
This is speculative fiction rather than hard science fiction. The opening section is one of the most extraordinary I have ever read. It answers the question "what must be done" with both imagination and pragmatic strategies. Excellent!
Actually, the book has no real plot. On the basis of two persons, the book presents psychological trauma caused by climate change and how a high bureaucrat tries to convince other executives to act. Interspersed are short essays. Admittedly, I skipped about a third of the book due to repetition. I would have liked more plot. In the end, there is hope that somehow it will work out, but many sacrifices must be made along the way. What is problematic about the book is that while societies or masses are subjects, they are somehow very manipulated, reactive, history is written by the elite, which takes away a lot agency.
I really did love this book. The first is so incredibly well written and has left a mark on me that will likely still be felt for years to come. I thoroughly loved the level of detail that Robinson gave to explaining some of the key concepts in the book, although unfortunately there was a heavy emphasis on economics that seemed to really drag on. It became a lot of "here's the thing that needs to happen, here is someone saying it needs to happen, here is the thing happening, here is the thing being finished, and here is life afterwards". Which wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't as repetitive.
Overall though, it was wonderful to see a realistic look at the fight against climate change that still ended hopefully and optimistic. It shows the world as it one day could be, and inspires you to want to fight …
I really did love this book. The first is so incredibly well written and has left a mark on me that will likely still be felt for years to come. I thoroughly loved the level of detail that Robinson gave to explaining some of the key concepts in the book, although unfortunately there was a heavy emphasis on economics that seemed to really drag on. It became a lot of "here's the thing that needs to happen, here is someone saying it needs to happen, here is the thing happening, here is the thing being finished, and here is life afterwards". Which wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't as repetitive.
Overall though, it was wonderful to see a realistic look at the fight against climate change that still ended hopefully and optimistic. It shows the world as it one day could be, and inspires you to want to fight for it.
There are a lot of ideas in this novel that do bear thinking about but the narrative, heavily reliant on a series of vignettes from the future, feels disjointed to the point that it keeps stumbling over itself. I do like the eventual optimism of the novel, but did find it a bit too reliant on hand-waving and buzzwords for me to really buy into it.
As a novel, The Ministry for the Future felt a lot like an exercise in wasted potential.
Terrifyingly, largely nonfiction. After a very strong, almost shocking opening, it lacks a strong story arc that pulls you through the book, the kaleidoscopic storytelling feeling a bit artificial. But full of interesting, sometimes essential ideas and insights about climate breakdown, the wider socio-economic system and possible solutions. After only two years already somewhat dated, which makes it even more terrifying.
J’ai bien aimé.
Le changement climatique devient une évidence… alors qu’est-ce que le monde peut faire ?
Cela m’a semblé plutôt réaliste, avec la prise en compte qu’il ne faut pas que de la technologie mais des changements sociaux profonds pour s’en sortir.
Un livre peut-être trop optimiste, mais parfois cela fait du bien.
C’est une sorte de guide sur ce que nous pourrions faire pour nous en sortir.
Cet épisode longnow.org/seminars/02022/mar/02/climate-futures-beyond-02022/ du podcast "Long Now: Seminars About Long-term Thinking" avec Kim Stanley Robinson parle du livre.
What would a worldwide, lasting revolution look like? What would be the obstacles and what tactics would be needed to overcome them? How are we going to survive climate change? These are the themes Kim Stanley Robinson tackles in his 570-page cli-fi novel THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE.
The narrative is disjointed, with epistolary chapters placed throughout. If you roll with it, it works well. You get a well-researched, fairly well-rounded picture across class, power, and geography. The format makes for a clever way to introduce details that otherwise might not fit into a traditional narrative. I also appreciate the global perspective of this book. The U.S. is not at the center at all, and is critiqued heavily and fairly.
THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE envisions a world that includes the Half-Earth concept as one of its solutions to combat climate change. Half of the planet would be reserved exclusively …
What would a worldwide, lasting revolution look like? What would be the obstacles and what tactics would be needed to overcome them? How are we going to survive climate change? These are the themes Kim Stanley Robinson tackles in his 570-page cli-fi novel THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE.
The narrative is disjointed, with epistolary chapters placed throughout. If you roll with it, it works well. You get a well-researched, fairly well-rounded picture across class, power, and geography. The format makes for a clever way to introduce details that otherwise might not fit into a traditional narrative. I also appreciate the global perspective of this book. The U.S. is not at the center at all, and is critiqued heavily and fairly.
THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE envisions a world that includes the Half-Earth concept as one of its solutions to combat climate change. Half of the planet would be reserved exclusively for nature; the other half for humans, centered in sustainable cities. It sounds plausible in the novel, but I had this nagging, bad feeling about it. I kept thinking, you're never going to get 100% compliance on that, no matter how many incentives you offer. And we have a terrible history of forcing Indigenous peoples off their land. Nowhere in the book is that addressed and, so far, what I'm reading about Half-Earth doesn't assuage my concerns.
So, I'm feeling meh about this novel. When I was able to believe it, its hopefulness felt inspiring and relieved some of my fears. When cynicism (reality)? got the best of me, I had to set it aside for a bit, which is why it took me so long to finish it. Plus, I have major problems with a top-down approach that is just repackaged state power claiming to be a solution. (Obama loving this book should have been a red flag for me.) But this is science fiction. It doesn't have to actually solve anything. There were plenty of moments where the book imagines creative ways to forge ahead, and for that, I'm glad I read it, even if I'm probably not going to pick up another Kim Stanley Robinson book in the future.
Kim Stanley Robinson beschreibt in The Ministry for the Future, wie die Menschheit mit dem Klimawandel umgeht. Das Buch ist eine Art fiktionale Dokumentation, die zwischen den sporadischen romanhaften Erzählungen der beiden Protagonisten aus Sitzungsprotokollen, Augenzeugenberichten namensloser Ich-Erzähler und Infodumps zu ökonomischen Konzepten und Glaziologie besteht.
Ehe es besser wird, wird es schlimmer. Und besser nur, wenn dafür harte politische Entscheidungen auf globaler Ebene getroffen werden. Schilderungen, wie die zustande kommen, nehmen großen Raum in dem Buch ein. Das trägt zu seinem immensen Realismus bei, was mir gefallen hat.
Dann allerdings gab es einen wirklich großartigen Schlusspunkt in der Erzählung, bei dem ich überzeugt war, dass nach dem Umblättern ein langer Anhang oder ähnliches beginnen würde. Allerdings geht die Geschichte danach noch sehr sehr lange weiter und wurde eher ermüdend und zäh.
