Reviews

Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

redrobot's review against another edition

3.0

This was a typical Neal Stephenson book, probably lower than average on the “consistently holds your interest” scale. The long middle is a bit of a slog, helped out by switching between several protagonists. The arc of one of the characters really moved me, though, and quite unexpectedly. Laks, also known as Big Fish, is a character who follows his interests without really defining his goals, and winds up in a situation where more powerful forces move him about like a pawn on a chessboard. I feel like the denouement could have explored his final choices more satisfyingly. Overall, this book is a decent read, but not on any “must read” lists.

shegde's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

While it has an interesting premise and is well-researched, the writing felt a bit pedantic at times. It took a decently long time for the plot to really build, and even then it never amounted to a whole lot. The world building was also a little odd, as it appeared to be set a few decades in the future, but many of the events on people's minds happened around 2020. 

escapevelocitycollection's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Peter - ** 
 

First of all, let me say that I think this book has a great premise: it explores the geopolitical implications of global scale geoengineering to counteract climate change only a single generation into our future. That said, while it contains a number of thought-provoking ideas, I think it is let down by its execution somewhat.

This book is remarkable in that it’s middle section is its best. It took me a good eight hours of listening to character introduction and set up, about a third into the book, before the plot started progressing anywhere. While some of that introductory listening was enjoyable, the majority felt entirely superfluous and should probably have been scrapped. Then when the plot gets moving, it progressively moves from plausible to improbable to borderline unbelievable, until by the climax, I was raising eyebrows every other line. I’m not sure how I would have liked the book to end, but this wasn’t it.

 The book’s pace is dragged down by Stephenson’s need to describe pretty much everything in detail, whether relevant or not –  whether it is character background, the way the big climate device works, a hitchhiking trip to the Himalayas, or the way a certain character stores the spare parts for his drones. It is not that these are all irrelevant, and some of these explanations are interesting vignettes of a world that could be. But Stephenson does not seem to have mastered the art of conveying this kind of information or character depth without breaking the pace of the story.

In addition, the book oozes a need to be relevant: be it literal internet meme references or mentions of Uyghur repression, deepfakes, the storming of the Capitol, or even the Khashoggi killing, the book is constantly showing off how well the writer followed the news the past two years – in ways that seem to make no sense to characters supposedly living some three decades into the future.

As a Dutch person, there is some extra fun in assessing how well Stephenson read up on his main character, who happens to be the queen of the Netherlands. At times he is remarkably well researched, at others he is hilariously wrong (Allow me to digress here. The queen lives in Huis ten Bosch, which Stephenson describes as ‘’surrounded by ancient forest”. It’s in the middle of the Hague. It’s a park. He’ clearly not been there, but you wonder how he made the mistake. I googled it, and the first hit describes the park as having ‘’eeuwenoude bomen” (ancient, literally, ‘centuries-old’ trees. Probably two centuries at most, and no-one in their right mind in the Netherlands would describe that as ‘ancient forest’, but you just know Stephenson fell for that). What is more, he has his Dutch characters do the very American thing of constantly assessing people, or having them be assessed, by their race – not saying that the Netherlands is never racist, but I feel people with quarter-Indonesian descent are so common here as to be completely unremarkable.

 At the end of the day, there are some entertaining scenes and conversation starters in this book, and as a Dutch reader there might be a few more moments of merriment than for readers from elsewhere. But overall I wasn’t particularly impressed with Termination Shock. Especially given its length and how much of a slog the first third of the book was, I would recommend you find something else to read. 

newtread's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

katel1970's review against another edition

2.0

This was just WAAAAAAY too complicated.

danibeliveau's review against another edition

4.0

Oh man, this book has it all: the autistic, bisexual queen of the Netherlands; a Texas billionaire who shoots a massive sulfur gun into the atmosphere to reverse-geoengineer climate change, without support or permission from any state power; the “performative war” fought on the Indian/Chinese border almost entirely by civilian volunteers whose skirmishes are live-streamed like esports; training armored eagles to snatch drones out of the air. A very fun and cinematic read with some genuinely hilarious moments, though the ending, while super action-packed and entertaining, felt surprisingly irresolute, like it was unsure of what its own ultimate message is. 

nicovreeland's review against another edition

2.0

If I was to sum up modern Neal Stephenson in three words they would be: deep dive everything. While that can sometimes be interesting, there’s just too much of it, and the often mundane details overwhelm and capsize the story. For instance: in the first scene, a depiction of a plane crash is probably 80% excruciating details about how a plane is normally landed and how this plane is landed, and what goes wrong. There’s some world building in there, but so so so much of it smacks of Stephenson doing a lot of research and wanting to put every single bit of it in the novel. So much of it is not necessary for the story. Then get ready for a deep dive on the history and biology of wild pigs. If you like the parts of moby dick with the whale genealogies, you’ll love this. I just find myself wishing for old neal Stephenson and skimming like crazy

He also seems compelled to put ALL of his thoughts into the book he’s working on, so this one, which is ostensibly about climate change, becomes more concerned with the effects and ramifications of covid and post-covid pandemics.

All of these distractions absolutely kill the pace of the story. There’s no drama except the drama of CLIMATE CHANGE and all the main characters agree about that so…. I DNFed at 50%

asukaluthien's review against another edition

3.0

Not my favorite Neal S book. Very interesting story, and I learned a lot about climate change and how it affects different parts of the world, but this book was longer than it needed to be, dragged on a bit in the middle, and was overly scientific. Scientific can be very interesting and entertaining, see Andy wWeir, but here it just felt a bit dry.

cosmeretraveler's review against another edition

adventurous informative reflective slow-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

If you’re looking for something with geopolitics and climate finance this book is for you. You just have to get over the hump of all the character backstories in the first few chapters.

If you’re looking for a weather catastrophe book this is NOT it.

tommi's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny informative reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0