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A review by alexisrt
The 2084 Report: An Oral History of the Great Warming by James Lawrence Powell
3.0
This is a fictional oral history of our climate change future.
As science, it reads pretty well, though he uses (understandably) an extreme scenario. There were a couple of blips--why so much focus on the loss of hydropower for Phoenix and not a single mention of solar?--but largely good. As history, it's a little weaker, with some of the speculation feeling implausible, even within the constraints of speculative futures.
As fiction.... not so much. The author is a scientist, not a writer. It's cleanly written and compelling, but there isn't really a plot or characters to hang things together. The fictional interviews don't flow into each other, and the interviewees lack distinct voices for the most part.
**spoiler alert -- not that it really matters**
The ending, though, read as a nuclear power rah-rah, which was weird and a little jarring.
As science, it reads pretty well, though he uses (understandably) an extreme scenario. There were a couple of blips--why so much focus on the loss of hydropower for Phoenix and not a single mention of solar?--but largely good. As history, it's a little weaker, with some of the speculation feeling implausible, even within the constraints of speculative futures.
As fiction.... not so much. The author is a scientist, not a writer. It's cleanly written and compelling, but there isn't really a plot or characters to hang things together. The fictional interviews don't flow into each other, and the interviewees lack distinct voices for the most part.
**spoiler alert -- not that it really matters**
The ending, though, read as a nuclear power rah-rah, which was weird and a little jarring.