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A review by nickedkins
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
5.0
There were several things about this book that I enjoyed without qualification: the themes (climate dystopia, collective action, urban policy), the setting (a meticulously imagined drowned New York), and the tight plotting. The one unevenness for me was the language. There were delightful passages where Robinson’s mischievous narratorial tone, deep vocabulary, and sense of rhythm combined to unique effect.
Then there were sentences like this: “The wind whistled in the cat’s cradle of wires overhead in its aleatoric aeolia, surely the greatest music ever heard—if not the music of the spheres, then surely by definition the music of the cylinders.” Which, in my opinion, is a bit too clever for its own good, and pretty clumsy too.
But these were pretty uncommon, and the language at least fails in an interesting way—like watching someone nail nine backflips and smack their head on the tenth.
Then there were sentences like this: “The wind whistled in the cat’s cradle of wires overhead in its aleatoric aeolia, surely the greatest music ever heard—if not the music of the spheres, then surely by definition the music of the cylinders.” Which, in my opinion, is a bit too clever for its own good, and pretty clumsy too.
But these were pretty uncommon, and the language at least fails in an interesting way—like watching someone nail nine backflips and smack their head on the tenth.