The Ministry for the Future: A Novel

Kim Stanley Robinson

Oct 2020 · Sold by Orbit

About this ebook

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

“The best science-fiction nonfiction novel I’ve ever read.” —Jonathan Lethem
 
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." —Ezra Klein (Vox)

The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. Its setting is not a desolate, postapocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us. Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis.

"One hopes that this book is read widely—that Robinson’s audience, already large, grows by an order of magnitude. Because the point of his books is to fire the imagination."―New York Review of Books

"If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year)
 
"Masterly." —New Yorker

"[The Ministry for the Future] struck like a mallet hitting a gong, reverberating through the year ... it’s terrifying, unrelenting, but ultimately hopeful. Robinson is the SF writer of my lifetime, and this stands as some of his best work. It’s my book of the year." —Locus

"Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." ―Bloomberg Green

Ratings and reviews

I couldn't finish this book. I got to page 450 out of 570 and realized I was only reading it because I paid for it and dislike wasting money. Then I accepted the reality of sink costs and that the money was already wasted and there was no need to endure the torture anymore. It started well enough, but I was unable to feel anything for any of the poorly written characters. The supposed solutions to the threats of climate change and problems of capitalism were so ridiculous that even with a little critical thought you could poke massive holes in them. Maybe someone would get a kick out of the chapter that lists every single glacier in Antarctica, or the other chapter entirely consisting of stupid fictional names of non profit organizations from around the world. But for me: weak characters + dumb story + silly supposed solutions = 1 ⭐. I wish I could get my money back.

I wanted so badly to like this book. Anyone who wants to read about possible solutions to climate change should read it. That was what peaked my interest, and all of KSR's books I've read before now are great. This book starts off well. The first few chapters are full of great exposition that laid a foundation for what could have been a great book. The characters were so intriuging and the plot had so much potential. And then . . . the book falls flat on its face. It uses so much narrative writing to explain how climate change is being solved that the characters barely get to participate in the story. So when we do get to those chapters the characters have nothing to do. It undermines the development of the characters and completely undercuts the potential of the plot. And there's this weird, half-hearted, love story at the end of the book that seems to try and make up for all of this and it is honestly painful to read it is so boring. Not Robinsons best work at all.

It's a beautiful and well-written book. My issue with it is that the characters act as a foil for the broader environmental crisis for almost the entirety of the book. Frank and Mary are reasonably interesting characters but their relationship is surprisingly flat. The last fifty or so pages of the book take a dramatic turn away from the plot and try to flesh out Mary as a character, which it does well enough but honestly the book could easily have ended around p.450. What's more, all mention of this ongoing environmental crisis basically vanishes after page 400 and whatever scant references are made to current events after this point strain credulity. I understand suspending disbelief in fiction but the ending moves from somewhat realistic to fanatically utopian.

About the author

Kim Stanley Robinson is a New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt and 2312. In 2008, he was named a "Hero of the Environment" by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. He lives in Davis, California.