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Science in the Capital #2
Fifty Degrees Below
Kim Stanley Robinson is at his visionary best in this gripping cautionary tale of progress and its price as our world faces catastrophic climate change – the sequel to Forty Signs of Rain. Frank Vanderwal of the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC has been living a paleolithic lifestyle in a tree house in Rock Creek Park ever since a big flood of the Potomac destroyed his apartment block. The flood was just the beginning. It heralded a lot of bad-weather news. Now the Gulf Stream has shut down and the Antarctic ice sheet is melting. The good news is that Frank is part of an international effort by the National Science Foundation to restabilize Earth's climate. He understands the necessity for out-of-the-box thinking and he refuses to feel helpless before the indifference of the politicians and capitalists who run America. The bad news is that Frank has fallen in love – with a woman who is not who she seems. He discovers that their first meeting was no he was on a list all along! Her ulterior motive is political and she expects Frank to spy for her. And thus Frank is drawn into the world of Homeland Security, and other, blacker Washington security agencies as the presidential election year heats up. Then suddenly it's winter …It's winter like the ice age, fifty degrees below. As hellish conditions disrupt the lives of even the most important people, there is a convergence of meteorological and human events with Frank at the centre – catastrophe is in the air. This unforgettable story from the master of alternate and future history brings tomorrow into new focus with startling effect.
603 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 20, 2005
154 people are currently reading
1653 people want to read
About the author
Kim Stanley Robinson
246 books7,397 followersKim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He has published 22 novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 218 reviews
February 3, 2021
Climate-punk continues.
The good stuff:
Frank's treehouse, the flooding of DC, the alternative lifestyles of the rich and homeless, and -- in small doses -- the science behind fixing the climate and the scare-messaging TO all the politicos. The whole Buddhism thing.
The glad-I-didn't-see-so-much-of-in-this-book:
Mr. Mom.
The meh:
Even while the pacing was propped up by tons of great ideas, the pacing got rather wonky when we were subjected to Frank's *ahem* special kind of crazy. Don't get me wrong, I thought he was sometimes very interesting, but other times, I was like... WHY, WHY, WHY, Frank? Too much, in fact. And then, even when I kinda rather liked his foray into Buddhism, I was still struck by the whole fact that he was in the center of all this BIG political/science shindig and he was targeted by surveillance and he had all these clandestine... *sigh* IT SHOULD HAVE WORKED but I found myself going *wtf* more often than not.
BUT this was just my reaction because I WAS getting into the novel more than usual so that IS a good sign. One should always prefer to hate a character over just being utterly bored by him. :)
The climate situation still should have carried the lion's share of the tale. Alas.
I'm looking at KSR's The Ministry for the Future with ever-growing respect. A superior tale.
The good stuff:
Frank's treehouse, the flooding of DC, the alternative lifestyles of the rich and homeless, and -- in small doses -- the science behind fixing the climate and the scare-messaging TO all the politicos. The whole Buddhism thing.
The glad-I-didn't-see-so-much-of-in-this-book:
Mr. Mom.
The meh:
Even while the pacing was propped up by tons of great ideas, the pacing got rather wonky when we were subjected to Frank's *ahem* special kind of crazy. Don't get me wrong, I thought he was sometimes very interesting, but other times, I was like... WHY, WHY, WHY, Frank? Too much, in fact. And then, even when I kinda rather liked his foray into Buddhism, I was still struck by the whole fact that he was in the center of all this BIG political/science shindig and he was targeted by surveillance and he had all these clandestine... *sigh* IT SHOULD HAVE WORKED but I found myself going *wtf* more often than not.
BUT this was just my reaction because I WAS getting into the novel more than usual so that IS a good sign. One should always prefer to hate a character over just being utterly bored by him. :)
The climate situation still should have carried the lion's share of the tale. Alas.
I'm looking at KSR's The Ministry for the Future with ever-growing respect. A superior tale.
July 21, 2017
Even when the subject is boring to death, KSR’s writing is beautiful. However, this volume was hard to digest. I thought the introduction was made in the first part and here the focus will be more on climate change. Well, no. This came also in background and forefront is daily life of Frank, one of the scientists, familiar to us from previous part.
I always watch with fascination documentaries about wild life and most of all, I have an immense respect for the people who dedicate their lives studying and helping animals. Months, years spent in wilderness, without comfort, to watch their behavior and trying to understand them better.
But a scientist living in a tree house in a park in Washington DC seems a little bit odd, to say the least… And the loving/spying/men in black part, likewise. Not to mention the repetitions and so many details which add nothing to the story.
Add to this my ignorance of the Capital's infrastructure and surroundings and you get yourself a confused reader.
I forgot to say this in the review of Forty Signs of Rain : I kept on reading about the Mall. Mall here, Mall there, all scientists were around/in/at the Mall. And I was wondering: WTF are they doing all day at the Mall?! (here, Mall is mainly a Shopping Center…) Finally, I looked up to see what the hell was this Mall and guess what? Something entirely different, lol. I laughed so hard at myself. Here’s the Mall in Washington DC:
Now back to this part: if it were up to me, I would have kept maximum 20% of it. Hopefully, all those 300 pages taken out from Green Earth Omnibus were from here.
That being said, I really hope the next volume will have that spark in it because, no matter how wonderful KSR’s writing is, unfortunately, it’s not enough.
I always watch with fascination documentaries about wild life and most of all, I have an immense respect for the people who dedicate their lives studying and helping animals. Months, years spent in wilderness, without comfort, to watch their behavior and trying to understand them better.
But a scientist living in a tree house in a park in Washington DC seems a little bit odd, to say the least… And the loving/spying/men in black part, likewise. Not to mention the repetitions and so many details which add nothing to the story.
Add to this my ignorance of the Capital's infrastructure and surroundings and you get yourself a confused reader.
I forgot to say this in the review of Forty Signs of Rain : I kept on reading about the Mall. Mall here, Mall there, all scientists were around/in/at the Mall. And I was wondering: WTF are they doing all day at the Mall?! (here, Mall is mainly a Shopping Center…) Finally, I looked up to see what the hell was this Mall and guess what? Something entirely different, lol. I laughed so hard at myself. Here’s the Mall in Washington DC:
Now back to this part: if it were up to me, I would have kept maximum 20% of it. Hopefully, all those 300 pages taken out from Green Earth Omnibus were from here.
That being said, I really hope the next volume will have that spark in it because, no matter how wonderful KSR’s writing is, unfortunately, it’s not enough.
February 14, 2014
Arrrrgh, I really wanted to like this a lot more than I did! The problem is, I can't stand Frank! The last book was evenly split between three point-of-view characters: Anna, workaholic scientist; Charlie, her husband and environmental adviser to a senator, and Frank, a narcissistic professor who enjoys poverty tourism. In this book, we get ONE scene from Anna's point-of-view, two or three from Charlie's (all of which are him worrying about his son, Joe, because Robinson is so intent on making sure we understand that he understands gender stereotyping), and the rest... the painful rest... are the World According To Frank. The endless sociobiological asides, which Frank (Robinson) admits are a character flaw, are as irritating as they were in the last book. We continue to hear in painstaking detail of his pursuit an 'optimodal' lifestyle while the world falls apart around him. There are a whole array of beautiful, strong, intelligent women, who are suddenly nothing but love interests when Frank enters the room. MEANWHILE, THE SEA LEVEL IS RISING, AND WE DON'T GET TO SEE ANY OF IT. I wanted to know more about everyone ELSE'S social adaptations to climate change. Not how it affects a single white male with a huge cash pile to back up his life decisions. All of these huge events are happening -- so we hear, from other characters, or see on the news -- but the only impact we see is that Frank gets a bit chilly and has to move indoors. In my last Frank-related rant, the whole black ops caper thing seems very tacked-on, far-fetched and cliche, thrown in to show how manly and awesome he is when his lady is threatened.
I'm grudgingly saying it was OK, because in the end it did get a little bit more exciting, and the geopolitical details were pretty good. The sheer inertia of Business as Usual also got a look-in. And the weather descriptions seem pretty prescient, given the 'polar vortex' just last month. But the good bits are few and far between. I'd quite like a fan edit that knits together these three books into one good story, which cuts out most of Frank's Inner Life altogether.
I'm grudgingly saying it was OK, because in the end it did get a little bit more exciting, and the geopolitical details were pretty good. The sheer inertia of Business as Usual also got a look-in. And the weather descriptions seem pretty prescient, given the 'polar vortex' just last month. But the good bits are few and far between. I'd quite like a fan edit that knits together these three books into one good story, which cuts out most of Frank's Inner Life altogether.
October 16, 2020
second read - 11 November 2010 *****. This is the second book of a tightly-coupled trilogy comprised of Forty Signs of Rain (2004), Fifty Degrees Below (2005), and Sixty Days and Counting (2007).
On this re-read of the trilogy, I again noticed the shift of character focus between the first book and the second - Frank Vanderwal's is now the primary perspective. I am identifying less with Frank than I remembered; he seems to have given over some personal control to random impulses, especially after his concussion. I found the description of his mental states fascinating, especially since I suffered a concussion in a bicycle accident about two months ago. Even though mine seems to have been without long-term mental/emotional consequence, that is something I've been watching for.
In this book, a lot of the setting is in a neighborhood of Washington DC along Wisconsin. But that is a street I have seen only one time in my life, while I grew up and live in the state of Wisconsin. So there is always a little moment of adjustment when I have to remind myself that there is no connection between the community he is referring to, and my own associations triggered by repeated mention of "Wisconsin". Where the wind chill often gets lower than fifty below, by the way. I'm pretty sure a fifty below temperature would be devastating here too, but maybe not as much as described in Washington.
first read - 27 November 2005 *****. This book is a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, and is the second in a yet-to-be-completed trilogy called Capital Code.
It is clear now that Frank Vanderwal is the main character of these books. He is a scientist assigned to the review and funding of grants at the NSF in a very new future experiencing sudden global climate change. Global warming has stalled the Gulf Stream, which leads ironically to a deep-freeze of the East Coast of the US. Frank has no place to live in the recently flooded Washington DC area, so builds a tree house in Rock Creek Park from which he commutes to his daily job. The description of his lifestyle and his relations with the various feral animals and humans that now live in the park is related to the feral lifestyle Robinson described in Blue Mars, but is explored through the eyes of an introspective anthropologist. Frank is also friends with the Quibler nuclear family that is a channel between the NSF and the presidential campaign of Senator Phil Chase. He is also developing his spiritual life through his friendship with the refugee Khembalan Buddhists, and is involved with an elusive woman in the intelligence world, who he once met on a stalled elevator.
The style of writing is familiar, with detailed and scientifically plausible concepts, fully developed characters, and this is new - to a very political point. The Republicans are not going to like this book. I wasn't sure after Forty Signs of Rain, but Capital Code is now looking to me like a major work on a level with Robinson's Mars trilogy. It ends with a cliffhanger, and unfortunately I cannot find any information about when the final volume will be released.
On this re-read of the trilogy, I again noticed the shift of character focus between the first book and the second - Frank Vanderwal's is now the primary perspective. I am identifying less with Frank than I remembered; he seems to have given over some personal control to random impulses, especially after his concussion. I found the description of his mental states fascinating, especially since I suffered a concussion in a bicycle accident about two months ago. Even though mine seems to have been without long-term mental/emotional consequence, that is something I've been watching for.
In this book, a lot of the setting is in a neighborhood of Washington DC along Wisconsin. But that is a street I have seen only one time in my life, while I grew up and live in the state of Wisconsin. So there is always a little moment of adjustment when I have to remind myself that there is no connection between the community he is referring to, and my own associations triggered by repeated mention of "Wisconsin". Where the wind chill often gets lower than fifty below, by the way. I'm pretty sure a fifty below temperature would be devastating here too, but maybe not as much as described in Washington.
first read - 27 November 2005 *****. This book is a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, and is the second in a yet-to-be-completed trilogy called Capital Code.
It is clear now that Frank Vanderwal is the main character of these books. He is a scientist assigned to the review and funding of grants at the NSF in a very new future experiencing sudden global climate change. Global warming has stalled the Gulf Stream, which leads ironically to a deep-freeze of the East Coast of the US. Frank has no place to live in the recently flooded Washington DC area, so builds a tree house in Rock Creek Park from which he commutes to his daily job. The description of his lifestyle and his relations with the various feral animals and humans that now live in the park is related to the feral lifestyle Robinson described in Blue Mars, but is explored through the eyes of an introspective anthropologist. Frank is also friends with the Quibler nuclear family that is a channel between the NSF and the presidential campaign of Senator Phil Chase. He is also developing his spiritual life through his friendship with the refugee Khembalan Buddhists, and is involved with an elusive woman in the intelligence world, who he once met on a stalled elevator.
The style of writing is familiar, with detailed and scientifically plausible concepts, fully developed characters, and this is new - to a very political point. The Republicans are not going to like this book. I wasn't sure after Forty Signs of Rain, but Capital Code is now looking to me like a major work on a level with Robinson's Mars trilogy. It ends with a cliffhanger, and unfortunately I cannot find any information about when the final volume will be released.
September 18, 2021
Go for my review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
April 13, 2018
Trilogy by author most famous for the "Mars" trilogy about a group of scientists that terraform Mars - the obvious premise of this set is that the earth itself needs terraforming in response to climate change/global warming and that scientists need to take more of an active involvement politically both with the electorate and with those who have previously controlled their purse strings and that the research bodies need to actively set the research agenda (a new Manhattan project or race for the moon) rather than responding to proposals received.
Main characters are based around the NSF (the US research body responsible for evaluating funding proposals) mainly Anna Quibler (whose husband Charlie stays at home with their hyper-active younger son Joe while working as an advisor, particularly on environmental matters to a famous Democrat "world" senator - Phil Chase) and Frank Vanderwal (initially on a one year secondment from which he resigns to the NSF leader Diana Chang, he then retracts his resignation when she permits him to lead a redirection of the NSF into an aggressive programme to investigate ways to mitigate climate change both medium and short term. Frank is homeless in his second year and ends up living in a treehouse in the park while starting a relationship with Caroline a mysterious girl with whom he was trapped in a lift. Eventually she reveals that she is a government agent, married to a sinister agent, who has been assigned to track Frank who through various of his activities, particularly his relationship with a researcher Yann who worked both for NSF and a biotech firm he was involved in and who is investigating the use of mathematical algorithms which Frank realises could be used to help genetic engineering).
In both books the earth's climate is changing drastically due to: a hyper El Nino in "Forty Signs of Rain" which leads to Washington being flooded and the shutting down of the Gulf Stream in "Fifty Degrees Below" with Europe and US hit by a severe winter, followed by the collapse of large parts of the Antarctic ice sheet. This, the intervention of the NSF in politics and Caroline’s intervention to give Frank an election fixing programme which one of his ex-intelligence colleagues Eduardo manages to reverse, lead to Phil Chase's election as president. The first acts of terraforming are an NSF organised (and reinsurance funded!) dump of massive quantities of salt to restart the Gulf Stream and a USSR effort to build on work by Yann as well as Frank's ex Marta, to engineer trees with the ability to absorb extra CO2, followed by an effort to pump sea water (caused by the into natural basins in dry areas of the world (again with reinsurance funding) and back onto the more stable parts of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Other themes of the book (which at first detract, then dominate and then become the story) are:
• Frank's emphasis that man is at roots a savannah based primate with the history of civilisation being too short to have changed our evolutionary instincts - he often observes and analyses behaviour in this light, but also sees his lifestyle as a return to his original roots - and plays golf Frisbee with a group of free-gans (who only eat food they can scavenge) as well as tracking animals freed from the zoo during the flood.
• The importance of physical exercise and the outdoors – the characters spend extended periods of the narrative backpacking, kayaking and climbing often with no other narrative development involved.
• Mental ability and the brains function – in light of seeming damage to Frank’s judgement and decision making ability following an attack and blow to the nose.
• Buddhism and its relation to science and knowledge - particularly the Tibetan exiles who come to Washington to lobby for the sea level threatened island nation of Khembalung (which then is inundated when a piece of ice breaks of Antarctica)
• Government surveillance - including the use of virtual futures markets with automated players used to assess potential security risks as well as series of competing and ultra-secret agencies.
• The failures of market based capitalism particularly in the light of costs which it externalises such as climate change. The book portrays it as a feudalistic system where workers don’t get the benefit of their own capital production and where the World Bank/free market system has effectively led to the elimination and apparent impossibility of other free, more moral and co-operative systems.
• The 19th Century American Philosophers – Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and naturalist Henry Thoreau.
Main characters are based around the NSF (the US research body responsible for evaluating funding proposals) mainly Anna Quibler (whose husband Charlie stays at home with their hyper-active younger son Joe while working as an advisor, particularly on environmental matters to a famous Democrat "world" senator - Phil Chase) and Frank Vanderwal (initially on a one year secondment from which he resigns to the NSF leader Diana Chang, he then retracts his resignation when she permits him to lead a redirection of the NSF into an aggressive programme to investigate ways to mitigate climate change both medium and short term. Frank is homeless in his second year and ends up living in a treehouse in the park while starting a relationship with Caroline a mysterious girl with whom he was trapped in a lift. Eventually she reveals that she is a government agent, married to a sinister agent, who has been assigned to track Frank who through various of his activities, particularly his relationship with a researcher Yann who worked both for NSF and a biotech firm he was involved in and who is investigating the use of mathematical algorithms which Frank realises could be used to help genetic engineering).
In both books the earth's climate is changing drastically due to: a hyper El Nino in "Forty Signs of Rain" which leads to Washington being flooded and the shutting down of the Gulf Stream in "Fifty Degrees Below" with Europe and US hit by a severe winter, followed by the collapse of large parts of the Antarctic ice sheet. This, the intervention of the NSF in politics and Caroline’s intervention to give Frank an election fixing programme which one of his ex-intelligence colleagues Eduardo manages to reverse, lead to Phil Chase's election as president. The first acts of terraforming are an NSF organised (and reinsurance funded!) dump of massive quantities of salt to restart the Gulf Stream and a USSR effort to build on work by Yann as well as Frank's ex Marta, to engineer trees with the ability to absorb extra CO2, followed by an effort to pump sea water (caused by the into natural basins in dry areas of the world (again with reinsurance funding) and back onto the more stable parts of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Other themes of the book (which at first detract, then dominate and then become the story) are:
• Frank's emphasis that man is at roots a savannah based primate with the history of civilisation being too short to have changed our evolutionary instincts - he often observes and analyses behaviour in this light, but also sees his lifestyle as a return to his original roots - and plays golf Frisbee with a group of free-gans (who only eat food they can scavenge) as well as tracking animals freed from the zoo during the flood.
• The importance of physical exercise and the outdoors – the characters spend extended periods of the narrative backpacking, kayaking and climbing often with no other narrative development involved.
• Mental ability and the brains function – in light of seeming damage to Frank’s judgement and decision making ability following an attack and blow to the nose.
• Buddhism and its relation to science and knowledge - particularly the Tibetan exiles who come to Washington to lobby for the sea level threatened island nation of Khembalung (which then is inundated when a piece of ice breaks of Antarctica)
• Government surveillance - including the use of virtual futures markets with automated players used to assess potential security risks as well as series of competing and ultra-secret agencies.
• The failures of market based capitalism particularly in the light of costs which it externalises such as climate change. The book portrays it as a feudalistic system where workers don’t get the benefit of their own capital production and where the World Bank/free market system has effectively led to the elimination and apparent impossibility of other free, more moral and co-operative systems.
• The 19th Century American Philosophers – Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and naturalist Henry Thoreau.
October 9, 2019
Újraolvasás,vagy valami olyasmi, ugyanis most a trilógia egykötetes, Green Earth c. kiadásában olvastam, amiben Robinson egy kicsit megvágta, átírta és aktualizálta az eredeti részeket.
S továbbra is ugyanúgy tetszett, mint első olvasáskor. Az előző kötethez képest talán az a legnagyobb változás, hogy a nézőpontszereplők (többé-kevésbé) kiegyensúlyozott (fejezetenkénti) váltogatását nem folytatta Robinson, egyértelműen Frank Vanderwal lett a főszereplő, a többiek csak a fejezetek utolsó negyedében, ötödében kapnak egy kis helyet. Engem ez nem zavart különösebben, mivel Frank karaktere eddig is szimpatikus volt, s ez a szimpátia a második kötetben csak fokozódott. Talán a legszimbolikusabban a két-tábortüzes-jelenettel tudnám illusztrálni: a korábbi gondtalan Frank immár nem fiatal hölgyekkel lazul éjszakai fürdőzés után, hanem a Rock Creek Park 21-es táborhelyén melegszik hajléktalan "szomszédaival".
Mert bizony bekövetkezett amitől mindenki félt: megérkezett a -45 fokos tél Washington D.C-be.* Ez a politikusok figyelmét is felhívja végre az éghajlatváltozás problémájára, s arra, hogy azt komolyan kell venni, a vállvonogatás és a látszatmegoldások ideje lejárt. Ennek következtében az NSF (Nemzeti Tudományos Alap) is végre valóban megteheti az első komoly lépéseket, s a nemzetközi összefogás előtt is megnyílik az út. Robinson túl optimista lenne? Ettől nem kell tartani, van ugyanis egy szál a regényben, ami elég félelmetessé teszi az amúgy is kilátástalannak tűnő helyzetek.
Szerintem ez a rész is kifejezetten érdekesre sikeredett, s Frank karaktere is egyre összetettebb. Persze Robinson most is hozza megszokott stílusát, de talán az átdolgozásnak köszönhetően most nem terjengenek annyira túl a technikai részletek.
*
S továbbra is ugyanúgy tetszett, mint első olvasáskor. Az előző kötethez képest talán az a legnagyobb változás, hogy a nézőpontszereplők (többé-kevésbé) kiegyensúlyozott (fejezetenkénti) váltogatását nem folytatta Robinson, egyértelműen Frank Vanderwal lett a főszereplő, a többiek csak a fejezetek utolsó negyedében, ötödében kapnak egy kis helyet. Engem ez nem zavart különösebben, mivel Frank karaktere eddig is szimpatikus volt, s ez a szimpátia a második kötetben csak fokozódott. Talán a legszimbolikusabban a két-tábortüzes-jelenettel tudnám illusztrálni: a korábbi gondtalan Frank immár nem fiatal hölgyekkel lazul éjszakai fürdőzés után, hanem a Rock Creek Park 21-es táborhelyén melegszik hajléktalan "szomszédaival".
Mert bizony bekövetkezett amitől mindenki félt: megérkezett a -45 fokos tél Washington D.C-be.* Ez a politikusok figyelmét is felhívja végre az éghajlatváltozás problémájára, s arra, hogy azt komolyan kell venni, a vállvonogatás és a látszatmegoldások ideje lejárt. Ennek következtében az NSF (Nemzeti Tudományos Alap) is végre valóban megteheti az első komoly lépéseket, s a nemzetközi összefogás előtt is megnyílik az út. Robinson túl optimista lenne? Ettől nem kell tartani, van ugyanis egy szál a regényben, ami elég félelmetessé teszi az amúgy is kilátástalannak tűnő helyzetek.
Szerintem ez a rész is kifejezetten érdekesre sikeredett, s Frank karaktere is egyre összetettebb. Persze Robinson most is hozza megszokott stílusát, de talán az átdolgozásnak köszönhetően most nem terjengenek annyira túl a technikai részletek.
*
April 6, 2014
...I think Fifty Degrees Below is a better novel than Forty Signs of Rain. It's his most political novel up to that point and probably also the one that is most likely to polarize readers. The tighter focus on a single character will not be appreciated by all readers but does give us the most detailed look into the mind of a type character that Robinson portrays in a number of his novels: the scientist engaged with society, working not just to expand the sum of human knowledge but to put this knowledge in practice too. Through Frank's eyes we see science reaching out to society and politics in a way that clashes with the traditional view of science as the pursuit knowledge only. Will science be able to overcome the shortcomings of the current political process? Will science help us deal with the current crisis better than the current policy of denial?
Fifty Degrees Below poses some very fundamental questions about the way we run the world at the moment. Not everybody will agree with Robinson's views but it makes for fascinating reading. At it's core, this novel is not a thriller but a political statement and the message is 'we need to do something now!' Read it as such and there is plenty of material to think about. It hits a lot closer to home than the Mars trilogy or other novels set in various places in the solar system. Earth is old, full and complicated and changing the direction we're headed is hard. The details of a story tackling such a complex subject and the details of science underpinning will always be debatable but Robinson captures that sense of complexity and inertia in society very well. All things considered I think I got a lot more out of this novel than during my first read.
Full Random Comments review
Fifty Degrees Below poses some very fundamental questions about the way we run the world at the moment. Not everybody will agree with Robinson's views but it makes for fascinating reading. At it's core, this novel is not a thriller but a political statement and the message is 'we need to do something now!' Read it as such and there is plenty of material to think about. It hits a lot closer to home than the Mars trilogy or other novels set in various places in the solar system. Earth is old, full and complicated and changing the direction we're headed is hard. The details of a story tackling such a complex subject and the details of science underpinning will always be debatable but Robinson captures that sense of complexity and inertia in society very well. All things considered I think I got a lot more out of this novel than during my first read.
Full Random Comments review
March 7, 2018
What the hell, KSR.
I enjoyed the first book despite Frank, a loathsome, misogynistic, racist asshole. What do you give me for book two? ENTIRELY FRANK POV.
I loathed this book. I actually hate-read it, where I gritted my teeth and forced myself through periodically saying COME ON! and UGGGH! to myself. It's superficially like The Martian: 20% it's so cool what humanity and science can do if we put our minds to it! and 80% instead of Matt Damon you get Gaston, if he were obsessed with Ralph Waldo Emerson and evo-psych and ranted for hours about how we're all animals on the savanna and that's why you should sleep with him. Oh, and slumming it with the DC homeless population. JFC. I feel dirty, and angry, because KSR knows better and does better, at least by women. There's absolutely no excuse for making me spend this much time with a phenomenal douchebag whose mere presence puts me on #teamasteroid (or in this case, #teamclimatechange). If this is who will save us, let the world burn.
Further disappointment: it's miraculously a distillation of all the worst things about KSR with none of the highlights: the weird fetishistic obsession with his interpretation of Buddhism; misogynists ruling the world; dull, meandering, interiority rather than plot. I don't know how this happened, given that I enjoyed the first book. I can't even imagine what the non-edited, non-abridged version is like.
Ugh!
I enjoyed the first book despite Frank, a loathsome, misogynistic, racist asshole. What do you give me for book two? ENTIRELY FRANK POV.
I loathed this book. I actually hate-read it, where I gritted my teeth and forced myself through periodically saying COME ON! and UGGGH! to myself. It's superficially like The Martian: 20% it's so cool what humanity and science can do if we put our minds to it! and 80% instead of Matt Damon you get Gaston, if he were obsessed with Ralph Waldo Emerson and evo-psych and ranted for hours about how we're all animals on the savanna and that's why you should sleep with him. Oh, and slumming it with the DC homeless population. JFC. I feel dirty, and angry, because KSR knows better and does better, at least by women. There's absolutely no excuse for making me spend this much time with a phenomenal douchebag whose mere presence puts me on #teamasteroid (or in this case, #teamclimatechange). If this is who will save us, let the world burn.
Further disappointment: it's miraculously a distillation of all the worst things about KSR with none of the highlights: the weird fetishistic obsession with his interpretation of Buddhism; misogynists ruling the world; dull, meandering, interiority rather than plot. I don't know how this happened, given that I enjoyed the first book. I can't even imagine what the non-edited, non-abridged version is like.
Ugh!
April 15, 2025
Publié au milieu des années 2000, Fifty Degrees Below est le deuxième roman de la trilogie Science in the Capital, rééditée ensuite dans un volume unique sous le titre Green Earth.
Après un premier roman captivant, j'ai eu un petit plus de mal à plonger dans celui-ci. Je dirais que le démarrage est un peu lent. Kim Stanley Robinson prend un peu plus de temps pour installer son intrigue, les digressions théoriques où l'auteur parle à travers ses personnages sont un peu plus présentes et moins subtiles. Malgré tout, le résultat vaut le coup.
On retrouve les personnages qu'on a avait appris à aimer dans le premier roman, avec cette fois un accent mis sur Frank Vanderwal, le scientifique cynique qui avait décidé de rester à Washington suite aux événements précédents.
Le récit tourne principalement autour des conséquences de plus en plus visibles et importantes du changement climatique, en pleine année d'élection présidentielle américaine. C'est bien fait, prenant, et particulièrement fort quand comme moi on lit cela vingt ans après la publication du roman alors que les effets du changement climatique sont effectivement de plus en plus visibles dans notre présent.
Je vais désormais me plonger dans le troisième et dernier roman de cette trilogie, en m'attendant à une conclusion à la hauteur de ce que j'ai eu le plaisir de lire jusque là.
Après un premier roman captivant, j'ai eu un petit plus de mal à plonger dans celui-ci. Je dirais que le démarrage est un peu lent. Kim Stanley Robinson prend un peu plus de temps pour installer son intrigue, les digressions théoriques où l'auteur parle à travers ses personnages sont un peu plus présentes et moins subtiles. Malgré tout, le résultat vaut le coup.
On retrouve les personnages qu'on a avait appris à aimer dans le premier roman, avec cette fois un accent mis sur Frank Vanderwal, le scientifique cynique qui avait décidé de rester à Washington suite aux événements précédents.
Le récit tourne principalement autour des conséquences de plus en plus visibles et importantes du changement climatique, en pleine année d'élection présidentielle américaine. C'est bien fait, prenant, et particulièrement fort quand comme moi on lit cela vingt ans après la publication du roman alors que les effets du changement climatique sont effectivement de plus en plus visibles dans notre présent.
Je vais désormais me plonger dans le troisième et dernier roman de cette trilogie, en m'attendant à une conclusion à la hauteur de ce que j'ai eu le plaisir de lire jusque là.
July 5, 2015
Great stuff. This continues on from where 40 Signs of Rain left off and I really, really enjoyed it. Frank lives in a tree house! How could you *not* like that? Let me get my thoughts straight on this first before I write something more...
Okay, have went through my thoughts. Or rather ignored them since I finished the book. Let's just say that as a testament to how much of a KSR fan I am that I have already bought the 3rd book in this series! I have read about 2 thirds of about 3-4 trilogies this year (and countless first or first few books of other series) and for this trilogy - I just had to get the third one. Haha. Trust my library to have Books 1-2 and not 3 of this (and countless other series/trilogies :p).
Anyhow. 50 Degrees Below. Where the first book focused mostly on the Quiblers, this one focuses mostly on Frank. Yeah, KSR does characters like no one else. He makes you care about the people in the book... which indirectly makes you root for what those people care about. *chuckles* Which is... climate change. And there is some really intriguing science to be had in that regard.
Also. Big Brother. Being tagged? And having whole transcripts and files of your life on tape to be pulled out if anyone in the up-and-up ever looked at you funny? Yeah. A bit of the Snowden thing going on in this book too. Makes me think twice about the internet and such. Keep your nose clean and what not.
Also. Part of this book focused on Frank living off the grid. I swear that it read like page from Outside Magazine! And you know what? It even *mentions* Outside Magazine at one point! *chuckles* I used to buy Outside - it was the only mag I bought at one point in time (apart from the odd gaming mag or Popular Science/Mechanics and NGO). So another one of the many things to like about this book.
Also. Since I didn't mention it in the previous book, I really like the Khembalis. Such a great side story.
Can't wait to get started on the third book.
In other news (June 30th): I went to the library last night to borrow "Years of Rice & Salt" but it has mysteriously disappeared from the shelves. And from the library system too! Meh. Now I have to buy it. HAHAHAHA. Removing all trace of whatever books I saved from the library system from GR too. Oh well. After this novel, big brother is more real than you think.
Addendum (July 4th): Not being American, I didn't get the Democrat climate change thing in the beginning... and how Republicans might actually throw this book to the wall in consternation. Honestly though. I think we're all mature enough to appreciate stories that may bruise our fundamentals - isn't that a test of the strength of them? How much they can be bruised? Anyway, being a Catholic, I would vote Republican all the way. #runsaway
Okay, have went through my thoughts. Or rather ignored them since I finished the book. Let's just say that as a testament to how much of a KSR fan I am that I have already bought the 3rd book in this series! I have read about 2 thirds of about 3-4 trilogies this year (and countless first or first few books of other series) and for this trilogy - I just had to get the third one. Haha. Trust my library to have Books 1-2 and not 3 of this (and countless other series/trilogies :p).
Anyhow. 50 Degrees Below. Where the first book focused mostly on the Quiblers, this one focuses mostly on Frank. Yeah, KSR does characters like no one else. He makes you care about the people in the book... which indirectly makes you root for what those people care about. *chuckles* Which is... climate change. And there is some really intriguing science to be had in that regard.
Also. Big Brother. Being tagged? And having whole transcripts and files of your life on tape to be pulled out if anyone in the up-and-up ever looked at you funny? Yeah. A bit of the Snowden thing going on in this book too. Makes me think twice about the internet and such. Keep your nose clean and what not.
Also. Part of this book focused on Frank living off the grid. I swear that it read like page from Outside Magazine! And you know what? It even *mentions* Outside Magazine at one point! *chuckles* I used to buy Outside - it was the only mag I bought at one point in time (apart from the odd gaming mag or Popular Science/Mechanics and NGO). So another one of the many things to like about this book.
Also. Since I didn't mention it in the previous book, I really like the Khembalis. Such a great side story.
Can't wait to get started on the third book.
In other news (June 30th): I went to the library last night to borrow "Years of Rice & Salt" but it has mysteriously disappeared from the shelves. And from the library system too! Meh. Now I have to buy it. HAHAHAHA. Removing all trace of whatever books I saved from the library system from GR too. Oh well. After this novel, big brother is more real than you think.
Addendum (July 4th): Not being American, I didn't get the Democrat climate change thing in the beginning... and how Republicans might actually throw this book to the wall in consternation. Honestly though. I think we're all mature enough to appreciate stories that may bruise our fundamentals - isn't that a test of the strength of them? How much they can be bruised? Anyway, being a Catholic, I would vote Republican all the way. #runsaway
October 5, 2019
Disappointing, at least to me. Some things worked -- continued exploration of the ways climate change could go wrong, characters I still was intrigued by, a couple of nice presentations of weather disasters in interesting detail. But somehow it walked away from the the things I liked best about the first one. Really not as focused on how scientists really work, on how science policy is really made, and much less of a sense of Washington DC as a place. Too much of a focus on surveillance and suspense issues, and on a political campaign, which made this less interesting. I actually had to force myself to finish the book, which I did only because I'd liked the first book so much.
I really liked the first book in this series, Forty Signs of Rain. I've seen few pieces of fiction as good at showing how science interacts with policy issues. I liked the portrayal of the different ways two scientists, now working at NSF, balance their science, their commitment to doing science support for a time, and their personal lives. I really enjoyed the way Robinson gave a sense of great DC spots as they were in 2005, whether work sites for the science community or just fun spots like Second Story Books. All of those things seemed to be subordinated in this book to something more like a techno thriller.
I don't usually force myself to finish a book, and I don't usually take so long to finish a novel. I read this in pieces across two countries, two trips, and at least thirty meals. I had learned to care about the characters enough, and I had enough faith in Robinson's writing to keep going. But it didn't really work for me. Characters that had seemed three-dimensional in the first book became more one-dimensional in this one.
So why even 2 stars? Truth is that I was interested enough to keep coming back, and I wanted to see how it played out. The no-Gulf-Stream winter was interesting, and Frank's decision to live in a post-flood Rock Creek Park treehouse led to some nice ideas. It wasn't a waste of my time. But it was significantly worse than just "pales in comparison to the first book." I'm in no hurry to grab the finale.
I really liked the first book in this series, Forty Signs of Rain. I've seen few pieces of fiction as good at showing how science interacts with policy issues. I liked the portrayal of the different ways two scientists, now working at NSF, balance their science, their commitment to doing science support for a time, and their personal lives. I really enjoyed the way Robinson gave a sense of great DC spots as they were in 2005, whether work sites for the science community or just fun spots like Second Story Books. All of those things seemed to be subordinated in this book to something more like a techno thriller.
I don't usually force myself to finish a book, and I don't usually take so long to finish a novel. I read this in pieces across two countries, two trips, and at least thirty meals. I had learned to care about the characters enough, and I had enough faith in Robinson's writing to keep going. But it didn't really work for me. Characters that had seemed three-dimensional in the first book became more one-dimensional in this one.
So why even 2 stars? Truth is that I was interested enough to keep coming back, and I wanted to see how it played out. The no-Gulf-Stream winter was interesting, and Frank's decision to live in a post-flood Rock Creek Park treehouse led to some nice ideas. It wasn't a waste of my time. But it was significantly worse than just "pales in comparison to the first book." I'm in no hurry to grab the finale.
June 9, 2014
Don't let my low rating get you down, or make you stray from reading this book. Goodreads marks 2 stars as "It was Okay" for a reason. This book, it was okay. I enjoyed the last few chapters alot, and if the entire novel had been like that, the book would have raised up to a 4 star, possibly. But anyway, this is an adult sci-fi novel, good for an under-the-covers read at night when the liht is dim, and you are trying to stay awake. Or fall asleep. Either one.
I started this last year. Over 6 months ago. I started it after reading Amazonia by James Rollins and loving it, figuring that I would try my hand at another adult novel. Sadly, this did not live up to my expectations, but this was a "its not you book, its me" moment in time, if you like this style, then this book would be good for you.
The problem for me was the plot was so slow. There wasn't any plot, really, only a tangent of something that may have ended up being plot eventually. And, ok, it might have been my fault for not realizing this was a series (insert massive facepalm here), but to me the characters also fell flat and I didn't like Frank much. I did like Charlie and Anna though.
Overall, I guess I would say to give this book a try if you want to read an adult sci-fi and have nothing else to read. I hope that reading this in 5-6 years, maybe I will like this book more. We'll just have to see.
I started this last year. Over 6 months ago. I started it after reading Amazonia by James Rollins and loving it, figuring that I would try my hand at another adult novel. Sadly, this did not live up to my expectations, but this was a "its not you book, its me" moment in time, if you like this style, then this book would be good for you.
The problem for me was the plot was so slow. There wasn't any plot, really, only a tangent of something that may have ended up being plot eventually. And, ok, it might have been my fault for not realizing this was a series (insert massive facepalm here), but to me the characters also fell flat and I didn't like Frank much. I did like Charlie and Anna though.
Overall, I guess I would say to give this book a try if you want to read an adult sci-fi and have nothing else to read. I hope that reading this in 5-6 years, maybe I will like this book more. We'll just have to see.
December 14, 2011
Kim Stanley Robinson writes what I like to call humanistic science fiction. All this characters are highly developed within his books and the storys just revolve around these fully developed characters.
The three books in the series follow our protaganist through an Earth transformed by severe climate changes and what that does to him personally and how it reshapes society in response to those changes. All three books stand on their own but you get a better picture by reading all three in order.
I recommend this series and the author
The three books in the series follow our protaganist through an Earth transformed by severe climate changes and what that does to him personally and how it reshapes society in response to those changes. All three books stand on their own but you get a better picture by reading all three in order.
I recommend this series and the author
January 24, 2016
This book was particularly timely given this weekend's giant blizzard :) I liked it, and later this year, i'll have to finish the 3rd book in the series. Now - if only we could find some way to get a political candidate like the one described in this book...
August 24, 2017
My very favorite KSR book of all time!
July 28, 2020
Oeoeooeoeop
May 29, 2020
Kim Stanley Robinson Fifty Degrees Below, (Science in the Capital Book 2) My third KSR book and it will be my last for a good long while I think. KSR is a interesting writer he writes long ass 600 page brick novels about climate change and women. His observations are good his interests and knowledge are wide and deep but after reading three of his books I’m struck by two things I find as part of all his books. The best part of his work is his laser focus on climate change and how well he imagine it playing out in our day to day lives. That’s his muse our civilization and it’s path maybe to destruction maybe to transformation he’s good at explaining both, but his two main writing traits are Hypergraphia and personal relationships.
In Fifty Degree Below a book about the District of Columbia following a massive flood that brings about a political sea change in US politics, his is a vacillating interest in a married woman, in 2140 a story about New York life as a half sunken ocean city it’s about relationship with a ex-wife, and in Antartica the love interest is a young out door adventurer who is very tough and self-dependent so I find that this is a pattern where he writes about what he knows and if I were to guess the order of these books according to my theory I might not be able to place the books in the proper order but I can guess the author alter-ego main drive is towards intelligent alpha females (nothing wrong with that) but it does seem to be a main theme of his work, as well as Hypergraphia which he talks about in this book. Hypergraphia is in the epilepsy region, and it actually creates a kind of style. There is a suite of stylistic habits that can be abstracted and quantified by computer to make the diagnosis. Of course sheer mass of output is still the first clue, and it must have been useful to several very prolific novelists, this is a nice match of problem and solution. But even with the hypergraphic greats like Balzac or Dick it seems to have been as much a pain as a benefit, like a kind of priapism, but what I noticed immediately is that these stylistic tics common to hypergraphics are all evident in both the Book of Mormon and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and then of course the Quran, and I thought, of course, all these prophets, writing down the truth at great length—and the religious center of the brain is also tightly bound with the epilepsy center! It’s all one complex! So these scribbling prophets were all suffering from a form of epilepsy, they wrote under the spell of a convulsion.” I believe KSR is a hypergraphia just because I read three of his books the smallest of which was just 624 pages long. So let’s get back to this book what did I think about it. Sorry this was my least favorite of his books so far a ponderous endeavor that centered on a male scientist who lives after the flood first in a tree house he build in a public park then with refugees from Tibet. He’s working on ways to solve climate change, and having some weird encounters with spies who are tracking him because he’s been coming up on deep data farming program they use to track (what-ever-the-hell-it-is-that-concerns-them) need to read the next 600 page novel to find out, Ahhh no thank you this one was just two stars and that is because he’s a great writer but this is a boring novel two stars. Some good insights and a whole lot of wasted pages, Next.
In Fifty Degree Below a book about the District of Columbia following a massive flood that brings about a political sea change in US politics, his is a vacillating interest in a married woman, in 2140 a story about New York life as a half sunken ocean city it’s about relationship with a ex-wife, and in Antartica the love interest is a young out door adventurer who is very tough and self-dependent so I find that this is a pattern where he writes about what he knows and if I were to guess the order of these books according to my theory I might not be able to place the books in the proper order but I can guess the author alter-ego main drive is towards intelligent alpha females (nothing wrong with that) but it does seem to be a main theme of his work, as well as Hypergraphia which he talks about in this book. Hypergraphia is in the epilepsy region, and it actually creates a kind of style. There is a suite of stylistic habits that can be abstracted and quantified by computer to make the diagnosis. Of course sheer mass of output is still the first clue, and it must have been useful to several very prolific novelists, this is a nice match of problem and solution. But even with the hypergraphic greats like Balzac or Dick it seems to have been as much a pain as a benefit, like a kind of priapism, but what I noticed immediately is that these stylistic tics common to hypergraphics are all evident in both the Book of Mormon and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and then of course the Quran, and I thought, of course, all these prophets, writing down the truth at great length—and the religious center of the brain is also tightly bound with the epilepsy center! It’s all one complex! So these scribbling prophets were all suffering from a form of epilepsy, they wrote under the spell of a convulsion.” I believe KSR is a hypergraphia just because I read three of his books the smallest of which was just 624 pages long. So let’s get back to this book what did I think about it. Sorry this was my least favorite of his books so far a ponderous endeavor that centered on a male scientist who lives after the flood first in a tree house he build in a public park then with refugees from Tibet. He’s working on ways to solve climate change, and having some weird encounters with spies who are tracking him because he’s been coming up on deep data farming program they use to track (what-ever-the-hell-it-is-that-concerns-them) need to read the next 600 page novel to find out, Ahhh no thank you this one was just two stars and that is because he’s a great writer but this is a boring novel two stars. Some good insights and a whole lot of wasted pages, Next.
September 20, 2017
I'll be honest --- it's tough for me to be objective about this book. There's a great deal of Liberal Scientist living-off-the-grid-and-saving-the-world porn here, and I like almost all of it. (As I've mentioned before, Frank Vanderwal is one of my favorite fictional characters.) But here's a bit of critical reflection.
1) Between my first read and now, I've delved more into Buddhism and climate change, and I appreciate even more Robinson's takes on both. I think his Buddhism is a little light on philosophy and a little too supernatural, but the book has some nice takes on the reincarnation of leaders like the Dalai Lama. And the climate descriptions remain outstanding. It is frightening to read descriptions written in 2005 that feel like 2017.
2) I feel like the book drags a bit in the middle. Robinson never just does infodumps, but he has a lot he wants to get across about science and politics, and it takes a while to develop all of it, sometimes to the detriment of plot.
3) When you read the first volume, you get a sense of an ensemble cast, with the Quibler family showing aspects of the NSF, presidential politics, and the perils of raising a toddler. A lot of that fades in this volume, and as much as I love Frank, I missed that emphasis.
But, despite any issues, you still get Frank living in a tree and working at the NSF to change the world. Pretty damn awesome.
1) Between my first read and now, I've delved more into Buddhism and climate change, and I appreciate even more Robinson's takes on both. I think his Buddhism is a little light on philosophy and a little too supernatural, but the book has some nice takes on the reincarnation of leaders like the Dalai Lama. And the climate descriptions remain outstanding. It is frightening to read descriptions written in 2005 that feel like 2017.
2) I feel like the book drags a bit in the middle. Robinson never just does infodumps, but he has a lot he wants to get across about science and politics, and it takes a while to develop all of it, sometimes to the detriment of plot.
3) When you read the first volume, you get a sense of an ensemble cast, with the Quibler family showing aspects of the NSF, presidential politics, and the perils of raising a toddler. A lot of that fades in this volume, and as much as I love Frank, I missed that emphasis.
But, despite any issues, you still get Frank living in a tree and working at the NSF to change the world. Pretty damn awesome.
February 21, 2015
Second in a series about climate change. Like the first one, this was long and not especially exciting to read. Not much happens. The Gulf stream conveyor shuts down. It gets incredibly cold in W. Europe and the eastern US. Scientist geo-engineer a fix. That's pretty much it.
While I wouldn't characterize this book as exciting, I did enjoy it because--at this point--I am pretty invested in the characters. The main character, Frank, is a scientist who decides to try and live as paleolithic man once did (as much as he can). He befriends some very cool displaced Tibetans. The other main character, Charlie, is a DC senate aide whose boss becomes President. There are feral zoo animals in the woods outside of the capital. There is a romantic subplot.
That's pretty much it. I'm not sure one could characterize any of this as science fiction. It's very realistic.
Anyhow, I'll read the third one, too. There is something compelling about the story.
While I wouldn't characterize this book as exciting, I did enjoy it because--at this point--I am pretty invested in the characters. The main character, Frank, is a scientist who decides to try and live as paleolithic man once did (as much as he can). He befriends some very cool displaced Tibetans. The other main character, Charlie, is a DC senate aide whose boss becomes President. There are feral zoo animals in the woods outside of the capital. There is a romantic subplot.
That's pretty much it. I'm not sure one could characterize any of this as science fiction. It's very realistic.
Anyhow, I'll read the third one, too. There is something compelling about the story.
August 20, 2013
Shit just got real in the second book in Robinson's climate change trilogy. With DC recovering from the floods experienced at the end of Forty Signs, the climactic situation only devolves further. However, at the same time, the political situation improves somewhat (not surprisingly, the Republicans opt to fellate their petrochemical johns while the world is drowning and burning and freezing around them), with NSF stepping forward in the vacuum of action to do something. Unlike a lot of 2/3 novels, the story does not lag and does not function as filler between books 1 and 3. I like the focus on Frank in this book, because the Quiblers bring out my bloodthirsty side (the precocious Nick, Robot Anna who channels her primate self while breastfeeding PITA Joe, and Manchild Charlie). Reading this book was like rolling downhill (or like the cascading effects of climate change): Once I got started, I couldn't stop until I ran into the house at the bottom
September 19, 2014
I stopped two thirds of the way through, which is the first Robinson novel with which I've done that. The problem is that Robinson took the least interesting character from Forty Signs of Rain and made him the main viewpoint character. Frank is obsessed with sociobiology (which, as someone who majored in anthropology, I am thoroughly convinced is bunk), so there are several (an incredible number) of lengthy objectifying descriptions of women and their evolutionary fitness. Frank's biggest personality trait in this book is "that feel when no gf" and it becomes incredibly tedious. The surveillance subplot is tedious as well, even in this post-NSA leak time.
It's a bummer, but I don't feel bad not continuing this series. The environment collapse in real life is almost certainly past the point of no return anyway, so reading this just bums me out.
It's a bummer, but I don't feel bad not continuing this series. The environment collapse in real life is almost certainly past the point of no return anyway, so reading this just bums me out.
May 25, 2010
Frank takes to the woods
Palaeolithic lifestyle
Now comes the big freeze
Palaeolithic lifestyle
Now comes the big freeze
Read
May 19, 2016KSR wades in hip-deep.
Jesse's guest review:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
Jesse's guest review:
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
July 27, 2024
I disagree with readers who considered this novel apocalyptic, or dystopian - that does NOT fit this novel or series. The series is about climate change, an actual process that is being scientifically documented as we speak. Dying Earth novels a la Jack Vance are far future affairs where everything is running down and everything is hopeless and despair is everywhere.
An excellent novel! And an excellent series!
My rating system:
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals to B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
If there were half-stars, I would have gone with 4 1/2.
An excellent novel! And an excellent series!
My rating system:
Since Goodreads only allows 1 to 5 stars (no half-stars), you have no option but to be ruthless. I reserve one star for a book that is a BOMB - or poor (equivalent to a letter grade of F, E, or at most D). Progressing upwards, 2 stars is equivalent to C (C -, C or C+), 3 stars (equals to B - or B), 4 stars (equals B+ or A -), and 5 stars (equals A or A+). As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don't waste half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.
If there were half-stars, I would have gone with 4 1/2.
January 6, 2024
A 4.5
This book was so influential on me when I first read it in about 2007. I got so much nostalgia from rereading. I wanted a life like Frank's, optimodal, doing the various things I love (not that they are the same as Franks). And now I have been doing it for years! I have pursued interests, leapt before I looked, and I am loving it! It also helped shape my view on humanity as evolved apes - seeing us through the lens of evolution. Very powerful.
Caroline's part is the only weakness. Not her relationship with Frank, but her husband and their tracking and such.
KSR's optimism beams bright. I smile that he thought (hoped?) a big event or two would change people's minds about climate change and motivate them to work on it. That hasn't happened. And I laughed out loud that he had Boomers leading the way! But that's also why I love the author, he is an optimist, and I need to hear that.
This book was so influential on me when I first read it in about 2007. I got so much nostalgia from rereading. I wanted a life like Frank's, optimodal, doing the various things I love (not that they are the same as Franks). And now I have been doing it for years! I have pursued interests, leapt before I looked, and I am loving it! It also helped shape my view on humanity as evolved apes - seeing us through the lens of evolution. Very powerful.
Caroline's part is the only weakness. Not her relationship with Frank, but her husband and their tracking and such.
KSR's optimism beams bright. I smile that he thought (hoped?) a big event or two would change people's minds about climate change and motivate them to work on it. That hasn't happened. And I laughed out loud that he had Boomers leading the way! But that's also why I love the author, he is an optimist, and I need to hear that.
October 10, 2023
This is taking a long time to finish. Boring side stories having to do with a main character living in a tree house, the DC zoo, a bunch of spies, Buddhist refugees...and oh yeah, something about climate change is in there.
Really disappointing. It's like he's stringing out one good book into the 3 volumes. Not sure if I'll bother with the third one, this one is just confusing and weird. Damned shame really.
Really disappointing. It's like he's stringing out one good book into the 3 volumes. Not sure if I'll bother with the third one, this one is just confusing and weird. Damned shame really.
February 23, 2024
I had no idea how absolutely boring and pointless this story would be. I also didn't realize that you really need to read the first book and then the next one. As I mentioned in one of my updates, I did not appreciate the way that the main character viewed women. I slugged my way through in hopes that there would be some point to the story and was disappointed. Unfortunately, I will not read one of his books again.
September 25, 2016
Fifty Degrees Below (Bantam Books, NYC: 2005) is the second novel in Kim Stanley Robinson’s global warming trilogy (the first is Forty Signs of Rain). In this book, the novel shifts its attention from Anna and Charlie Quibler and their quirky sons onto NSF scientists/bureaucrats Frank Vanderwal and Diane Chang.
The first book in this trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain, developed slowly, which seemed to reflect the author’s perception of America’s slow reaction to impending global climate change. However, that book ended with a stunning crescendo when Washington DC was inundated by the storm of the century, resulting in a flooded capital city. Fifty Degrees Below picks up where that book left off. As the story begins, Frank has decided to remain with NSF for another year, but found himself homeless after surviving that nearly biblical deluge. Unable to find an affordable place to live, Frank decides to “go feral”, similar to the escaped exotic animals from the National Zoo. In the process, Frank befriends a group of homeless people in the local park and builds a treehouse where he tries to survive even when the wintertime temperatures plunge dramatically. As the title of the novel implies, the temperatures in Washington DC reach fifty degrees below zero — a response to the melting of the polar ice caps that cause a total stagnation of the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream.
Frank loses much of his surly facade in this book as he develops a close but casual relationship with Diane, his boss at NSF, and as he also begins to do “science-y things” with the Quibler’s older son, Nick. Later in the novel, Frank also spends a fair amount of time with the Khembalese. Throughout the book, he reflects upon man’s special relationship with nature and how humanity’s struggle against the environment has shaped our thoughts and reactions to nature and other people. In fact, we see him transformed into a socially conscious (but socially unsure) scientist.
At several points in the story, significant weather events are mentioned, such as tornadoes along the east coast of Canada, excessive rain in California, and drought nearly everywhere else, but surprisingly, these seem to be almost an afterthought.
Unfortunately, I found several aspects of this book to be either peculiar or completely unbelievable. For example, Charlie Quibler was still the environmental advisor to Senator Phil Chase, but he never seemed to work very much. Because the senator was running for the presidency in this book, I would have expected Charlie to work 100 hours per week during the campaign. On the other hand, this presidential campaign did provide an interesting tangential storyline about a secret government conspiracy to steal the presidential election (à la Diebold) and about governmental spying on innocent Americans. Does this sound familiar?
Another detail that I found unconvincing was the Khembalese stoicism after they witnessed the loss of their island nation due to a huge storm combined with rising sea levels. Also, this might be nitpicking, but I was puzzled as to the reason that the National Zoo would allow its precious exotic animals to roam freely throughout a city park, especially when one of those animals was an adult jaguar. Weren’t they worried that the jaguar might eat someone? I also was confused as to why Frank would choose to live in a treehouse in a city park during the coldest winter recorded in Washington DC. Oh, and speaking of cold temperatures, fifty degrees below zero should result in a lot of deaths in Washington DC, especially among the homeless, wouldn’t you think? However, we don’t see any deaths, even though Frank personally knows about a dozen homeless people.
Anyway, I am not entirely sure what to think about this book. It was interesting, although not as believable as the first book in the series. It introduces enough loose ends into the plot that the last instalment of the trilogy has the potential to provide the reader with a satisfying conclusion, or conversely, the finale could also come completely unraveled. For the most part, I read this book to satisfy my curiosity, to find out how the author would develop the story further while maintaining its scientific realism. Even though Robinson obviously did a lot of research into the climate change science that provides the framework for this book, I thought the scientific development was rather superficial, although some of the ideas that the author proposes were interesting. Perhaps this casual treatment was necessary to avoid boring the audience and to prevent the plot and character development from stagnating?
Nevertheless, this book is the most realistic and believable portrayal of climate change that I’ve read. Despite my criticisms, I am still looking forward to the last novel in this trilogy because I want to find out what happens and I want to know how the author resolves the story while remaining loyal to the science, the plot and the characters. Further, it seems that Robinson is building this story toward some important and thoughtful observation about our fate as a species, as a nation and as individuals, and I want to find out what that is.
NOTE: Originally published at scienceblogs.com on 8 June 2007.
The first book in this trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain, developed slowly, which seemed to reflect the author’s perception of America’s slow reaction to impending global climate change. However, that book ended with a stunning crescendo when Washington DC was inundated by the storm of the century, resulting in a flooded capital city. Fifty Degrees Below picks up where that book left off. As the story begins, Frank has decided to remain with NSF for another year, but found himself homeless after surviving that nearly biblical deluge. Unable to find an affordable place to live, Frank decides to “go feral”, similar to the escaped exotic animals from the National Zoo. In the process, Frank befriends a group of homeless people in the local park and builds a treehouse where he tries to survive even when the wintertime temperatures plunge dramatically. As the title of the novel implies, the temperatures in Washington DC reach fifty degrees below zero — a response to the melting of the polar ice caps that cause a total stagnation of the warm Atlantic Gulf Stream.
Frank loses much of his surly facade in this book as he develops a close but casual relationship with Diane, his boss at NSF, and as he also begins to do “science-y things” with the Quibler’s older son, Nick. Later in the novel, Frank also spends a fair amount of time with the Khembalese. Throughout the book, he reflects upon man’s special relationship with nature and how humanity’s struggle against the environment has shaped our thoughts and reactions to nature and other people. In fact, we see him transformed into a socially conscious (but socially unsure) scientist.
At several points in the story, significant weather events are mentioned, such as tornadoes along the east coast of Canada, excessive rain in California, and drought nearly everywhere else, but surprisingly, these seem to be almost an afterthought.
Unfortunately, I found several aspects of this book to be either peculiar or completely unbelievable. For example, Charlie Quibler was still the environmental advisor to Senator Phil Chase, but he never seemed to work very much. Because the senator was running for the presidency in this book, I would have expected Charlie to work 100 hours per week during the campaign. On the other hand, this presidential campaign did provide an interesting tangential storyline about a secret government conspiracy to steal the presidential election (à la Diebold) and about governmental spying on innocent Americans. Does this sound familiar?
Another detail that I found unconvincing was the Khembalese stoicism after they witnessed the loss of their island nation due to a huge storm combined with rising sea levels. Also, this might be nitpicking, but I was puzzled as to the reason that the National Zoo would allow its precious exotic animals to roam freely throughout a city park, especially when one of those animals was an adult jaguar. Weren’t they worried that the jaguar might eat someone? I also was confused as to why Frank would choose to live in a treehouse in a city park during the coldest winter recorded in Washington DC. Oh, and speaking of cold temperatures, fifty degrees below zero should result in a lot of deaths in Washington DC, especially among the homeless, wouldn’t you think? However, we don’t see any deaths, even though Frank personally knows about a dozen homeless people.
Anyway, I am not entirely sure what to think about this book. It was interesting, although not as believable as the first book in the series. It introduces enough loose ends into the plot that the last instalment of the trilogy has the potential to provide the reader with a satisfying conclusion, or conversely, the finale could also come completely unraveled. For the most part, I read this book to satisfy my curiosity, to find out how the author would develop the story further while maintaining its scientific realism. Even though Robinson obviously did a lot of research into the climate change science that provides the framework for this book, I thought the scientific development was rather superficial, although some of the ideas that the author proposes were interesting. Perhaps this casual treatment was necessary to avoid boring the audience and to prevent the plot and character development from stagnating?
Nevertheless, this book is the most realistic and believable portrayal of climate change that I’ve read. Despite my criticisms, I am still looking forward to the last novel in this trilogy because I want to find out what happens and I want to know how the author resolves the story while remaining loyal to the science, the plot and the characters. Further, it seems that Robinson is building this story toward some important and thoughtful observation about our fate as a species, as a nation and as individuals, and I want to find out what that is.
NOTE: Originally published at scienceblogs.com on 8 June 2007.
December 1, 2024
I still don't know why I like this. Interesting characters? Fewer committee meetings than the first? I could have done without all the "whoop whoop" monkey (I forget what particular species.) imitations in the audiobook.
Maybe what I liked were all the philosophical and scientific discussions between the characters.
Maybe what I liked were all the philosophical and scientific discussions between the characters.
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