After defying all expectations with his alternative history The
Years of Rice and Salt (2002), Robinson hews back to the expected
with the soggy first of a trilogy that has promise nowhere near
what the Mars trilogy had. Set just a few years into the future,
this one takes as its subject not the colonization of Mars, but
something that should be more close to home and yet feels much more
distant: catastrophic climate change. To populate this
end-of-the-world scenario, Robinson has assembled a pretty
unexciting and vanilla band of egghead experts. There's National
Science Foundation program director Frank Vanderwahl, who has a
tendency, when around humans, to think about them in evolutionary
terms-making it quickly understandable why he doesn't seem to have
had a girlfriend in quite some time. Charlie Quibler is a
stay-at-home-dad and scientific adviser who's working on an
environmental bill that, if passed, could have global ramifications
for the better. Robinson also puts in, just for excitement's
measure, Leo Mulhouse, a researcher at a West Coast biotech
startup-these aren't the most engaging people in the world.
Meanwhile, the only serious signs of climate change-affected by
global warming, which is causing the polar icecaps to melt away,
drastically altering the world's oceans-is that it's really hot in
DC in the summer, and there's a doozy of a storm on the way. Now,
your average 1970s disaster-novel writer might have had the same
nerdy cast of characters but would have given them a few
extracurricular affairs, a brush with the law, something to stir
this mightily dull stew. Robinson is a true square, always has
been, but that's never been a problem until now. As stiff and hard
SF as they were, the Mars books succeeded through the sheer
chutzpah of their epic insight. This one feels like the ho-hum
preview for a run-of-the-mill end-of-the-world story. A hard rain
is going to fall, yes indeed. (Kirkus Reviews)
It's hot in Washington. No sign of rain. The world's climates are
changing, catastrophe beckons, but no one in power is noticing.
Yet. Tom Wolfe meets Michael Crichton in this highly topical, witty
and entertaining science thriller. When the Arctic ice pack was
first measured in the 1950s, it averaged thirty feet thick in
midwinter. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One
August the ice broke. The next year the break-up started in July.
The third year, it began in May. That was last year. It's an
increasingly steamy summer in America's capital as environmental
policy advisor Charlie Quibler cares for his young son, and deals
with the frustrating politics of global warming. According to the
President and his science advisor Dr S, the weather isn't
important! But Charlie must find a way to get a sceptical
administration to act before it's too late - and his progeny find
themselves living in Swamp World. Just arrived in Washington to
lobby the Senate for aid is an embassy from Khembalung, a sinking
island nation in the Bay of Bengal. Charlie's wife Anna, director
of bioinformatics at the National Science Foundation and well known
for her hyperrational intensity, is entranced by the Khembalis. By
contrast, her colleague, Frank Vanderwal, is equally cynical about
the Buddhists and the NSF. The profound effect the Khembali
ambassador has on both Charlie and Frank could never have been
predicted - unlike the abrupt, catastrophic climate change which is
about to transform everything. Forty Signs of Rain is an
unforgettable tale of survival which captures a world where even
the innocent pattern of rainfall resounds with the destiny of the
biosphere.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
