On 06/17/2018 07:06 AM, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
I recently became aware of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book, New York 2140, via silklister Naresh Narasimhan. Anybody read it and want to add to the nice review below? My gold standard for KSR reviews is our own Bruce Metcalf, right here on silklist, 14 years ago [1].
You are entirely too kind. Sadly, the requests made at the end of that review generated zero response, so I have not yet been moved to a second read.
Andrew Liptak's review is a fair analysis of "2140" (the title it carried in the US), but the book failed to move me sufficiently to write a review. I'm not even sure I kept my copy.
My lack of enthusiasm for this volume was due to the single layer of story -- New York's resilience to the expected changes of the next century. Yes, the stories of various individuals were decent, but it felt more like an anthology of independent stories written in the same, constrained world.
I am disappointed that the innovations the author proposed to deal with high water were so obvious and mundane. One might hope that a century of innovation might bring new technologies to bear on the challenge. I also know too much about the infrastructure of New York, and its high susceptibility to water intrusion, especially salt water. Certainly none of today's power, telephone, or data networks would survive such inundation, costing the book plausibility.
I do have Robinson's "Aurora" and "2312" on my nightstand (and on top of the stack, at that), so perhaps I'll feel motivated to write again. I hope so.
Cheers, / Bruce / [1] https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/silk-list/conversations/topics/11146
