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A review by rae_swabey
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
4.0
I've seen this book described as a 'thrutopia', as in a rendering of the ways we might find our way from our current consumerist society to a more sustainable one, and I enjoyed it on that basis. It's somewhere between fiction, essay, thought experiment and manifesto, and speaks to our current situation in a way that opens up new ways of imagining the future, which is something I'd argue we desperately need to be doing right now.
Robinson is known for his thorough research and fondness for detail and in some of his books I have found that a bit much (hello, Mars trilogy!), but I'm happy to geek out when it comes to saving the actual real-life world in a way that I might not be to the same extent for a fictional one.
This is a bit of a doorstop of a book, but the chapters are short, the characters have enough going on to sustain my interest and the digressions into environmental solutions are pitched in a way that pulls the story along rather than slowing it down.
From the harrowing opening scene I was pulled into the world of the characters, although perhaps more by the world than the characters if I'm completely honest. I needed to see what happened to it, if everything would work out in the end. And the world of the book is our world, so let's hope it does. Robinson certainly paints a convincing picture of how it might.
Robinson is known for his thorough research and fondness for detail and in some of his books I have found that a bit much (hello, Mars trilogy!), but I'm happy to geek out when it comes to saving the actual real-life world in a way that I might not be to the same extent for a fictional one.
This is a bit of a doorstop of a book, but the chapters are short, the characters have enough going on to sustain my interest and the digressions into environmental solutions are pitched in a way that pulls the story along rather than slowing it down.
From the harrowing opening scene I was pulled into the world of the characters, although perhaps more by the world than the characters if I'm completely honest. I needed to see what happened to it, if everything would work out in the end. And the world of the book is our world, so let's hope it does. Robinson certainly paints a convincing picture of how it might.