It was my first time reading this author, and I was pleased to find a pretty cerebral work that looked at tough problems (man’s mistreatment of the Earth and climate change) in a introspective and productive way.
The format of the book itself is unique. On one hand it tells a story instead of preaching about a problem, and lets the reader see the effects of unchecked climate change (which are fictional at the time but feel like they may not be far off) through the eyes of fictional voices from the future. Some of these voices are fully developed characters, while others are representative of a larger group. Sometimes this is hard to follow, but in the end I think the effect and the risk was worth taking in pushing along such a wide-reaching narrative.
I enjoyed the book and found a lot in here that I wasn’t expecting. How some characters knew the routine of hospice care, or the profile of the city of Zurich, and incidentally the Swiss people. It was an ambitious novel in unexpected ways – and while I would have cut some of the fat out it was in the end pretty satisfying to me.
Some readers may look at this as a book that proposes concrete solutions to our problems – solutions that run towards the violent or extremely radical at the very least. While I can’t comment on the technical feasibility of the scientific or economic solutions (I’m not smart enough to know if they are even realistic or not) I can say that it was good to read a story about people proposing solutions and finding the will to (sometimes) painfully implement them. Some of the solutions in this book are pretty unbelievable – not technically but socially – and if you can get by that I think you’ll enjoy the story.
This was another long book – I’ve had a run of long books lately. Next I am reading 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin.
