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    Forty Signs of Rain
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    Forty Signs of Rain
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    Forty Signs of Rain
    Ebook387 pages8 hours

    Forty Signs of Rain

    By Kim Stanley Robinson

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    It's hot in Washington. No sign of rain. The world's climates are changing, catastrophe beckons, but no one in power is noticing. Yet. Tom Wolfe meets Michael Crichton in this highly topical, witty and entertaining science thriller.

    When the Arctic ice pack was first measured in the 1950s, it averaged thirty feet thick in midwinter. By the end of the century it was down to fifteen. One August the ice broke. The next year the break-up started in July. The third year, it began in May.

    That was last year.

    It's an increasingly steamy summer in America's capital as environmental policy advisor Charlie Quibler cares for his young son, and deals with the frustrating politics of global warming. According to the President and his science advisor Dr S, the weather isn’t important! But Charlie must find a way to get a sceptical administration to act before it's too late – and his progeny find themselves living in Swamp World.

    Just arrived in Washington to lobby the Senate for aid is an embassy from Khembalung, a sinking island nation in the Bay of Bengal. Charlie's wife Anna, director of bioinformatics at the National Science Foundation and well known for her hyperrational intensity, is entranced by the Khembalis. By contrast, her colleague, Frank Vanderwal, is equally cynical about the Buddhists and the NSF.

    The profound effect the Khembali ambassador has on both Charlie and Frank could never have been predicted – unlike the abrupt, catastrophic climate change which is about to transform everything.

    Forty Signs of Rain is an unforgettable tale of survival which captures a world where even the innocent pattern of rainfall resounds with the destiny of the biosphere.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateAug 31, 2016
    ISBN9780007396658
    Unavailable
    Forty Signs of Rain
    Author

    Kim Stanley Robinson

    Kim Stanley Robinson was born in 1952. After travelling and working around the world, he settled in his beloved California. He is widely regarded as the finest science fiction writer working today, noted as much for the verisimilitude of his characters as the meticulously researched scientific basis of his work. He has won just about every major sf award there is to win and is the author of the massively successful and highly praised ‘Mars’ series.

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    Reviews for Forty Signs of Rain

    3.5/5

    389 ratings21 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I've read and very much enjoyed Seveneves so I figured I'd give KSR a read on his climate fiction trilogy. I've only ever read one other climate fiction book and it was an anthology that I felt was a bit hit or miss so I still don't know if my scifi loving heart extends too far into this sub-genre. Or, I should just stick to the summer blockbuster movies where the CGI is gripping with great sheets of ice dramatically falling away and crazy mega waves wiping out coastal regions while actors go on about oceanic desalinisation rates and jet stream consequences. Because I have to say, after reading this, I think I like the watching more than the reading of CliFi.

      Technically there's nothing wrong with KSR's story but it feels like it's mostly set up for the big stuff. All the pieces are present: the impending catastrophe, the scientists tasked with a solution, the politicians & politics that must also participate in the solution & the inevitable masses who will suffer no matter what, while fewer survive & will probably wish they hadn't at some point. This makes me think that the strength of the total story of Seveneves was served by making it a big damned book instead of splitting it. I've a sneaking suspicion that I'll like the next book in this series better and likely will feel similarly about part of the third. Unfortunately, as I've read the first, I'm not inclined to jump right into the second. It was a quick enough read but I have to admit that I'm glad this wasn't my introduction to KSR because I'm fairly sure I'd not go on.

      I'd only recommend this for CliFi fans, those who can roll with KSR's story telling (there's a pacing & tech spec info thing that occurs which seems to be his way) or those who are just looking to binge all three books in a week (doable).
    • 4/5
      near future: first of a trilogy. starts a bit slow: a lot of the book is setup for the trilogy, making me wonder if it wouldn't have been better to make two books out of that rather than three. anyone expecting a thriller, an elaborate plot, or an absence of scientific concepts will be disappointed, but that's usual with Robinson: he's a writer of many layers and complex personalities, who writes people the reader can care about from the inside out, and he's also amazing for boiling down a whole lot of science so that it never seems incomprehensible, or imposed on the narrative. ultimately the characters are memorable, and so are the problems (mostly scientific and political) they are trying to solve. and that's a whole lot harder than it looks. i come to his books for their ideas, become engrossed in his situations, fall to the charms of his characters, and always recommend him.
    • 3/5
      Kim Stanley Robinson is good writer. Just think about the Mars trilogy or The Years of Rice and Salt. But this book's simply bad. It's not a SF, it's not an ecological thriller, just a propagandistic, although meritorious pamphlet. Bears KSR's detailed realism but this time it's simply boring. And the buddhist mumbo-jumbo's absolutely embarrassing....
    • 3/5
      Not as good as the first Mars book, starts slow, and it seems like he wants to go into great detail about seemingly arbitrary things. Perhaps all will be revealed later... Busy with the second book, and it's going much better.
    • 3/5
      I originally picked this book up as it seemed like an interesting disaster novel (the subtitle after all is "The Forecast Is Catastrophic") set in modern times. Unfortunately it's more of a political and academic policies novel; the vast majority of the book is spent on the minutiae of a US Senators office and the National Science Foundations, it's only in the last 10% of the book that disaster actually strikes and when it does it's in the form of a rather bland flood.The other dislike I felt with this book is there's a romance subplot with one character briefly dealt with but when the novel ends said romance is left complete open and unanswered, I get there needs to be some material for the next book in a series yet this seemed like the tail end of the interaction was missing. You would turn the page thinking it will come back into the story line but never does.On the positive side, the characters were very likable & well pictured, there's a few situational laughs and although it wasn't quite as portrayed it was still an easy read and held a few interesting points in regards to climate change.
    • 2/5
      A nice hard SF book, which I read probably past its peak, which is kind of bad considering it was only written four years ago. But basically all of the information in it that was supposed to blow your mind was stuff I already knew. Hm. The other problem I has with it was a typical hard SF syndrome. Basically the people are never described to much level of detail, so you've got a name and a brain and that's about it. SF characters often are a collection of thoughts and viewpoints, but rarely emotions, and I struggled to be interested in it until about 4/5 of the way through. I understand that the ideas are in the spotlight here, but since the ideas affect humans it's be nice to be involved with those humans. I guess it's a fine line especially when creating a semi-disaster book like this one, to not fall over to the Michael Crichton side where everyone is a brain that will be killed or eaten. I can understand not wanting to jump that fence, but I'd like a little more dirt in my laboratory, if you know what I mean. I'll finish off the series and comment further then.
    • 3/5
      Substance: Interleaved stories of several protagonists in Washington DC and San Diego during a few spring months before a concurrence of cyclical and incidental natural weather events deluge the District. Denver Post: "Robinson presents the warning signs of environmental disaster i a warm, gentle novel of family life. He makes heroes of scientific bureaucrats who still remember why they became scientists.." Guardian (UK): "Robinson has written a slow-moving yet absorbing narrative; it's clear he is pacing himself for the long run of a trilogy. His great achievement here is to bring the practice of science alive -- from the supposedly objective peer review process, to the day-to-day work of researchers in the lab -- and to place this in an all-too-familiar world of greedy capitalists and unprincipled politicians. Robinson's critique of science is heartfelt; scientists should stop being tools in someone else's endgame."Style: Much less ponderous than "Red Mars", and the people are more likable. However, nothing more exciting than normal life happens to anyone, including the great flood, which is no worse than many actual instances just from the last decade, and which occurs in the final few chapters of the book without any dramatic incident for the protagonists. Basically, boring.NOTE: The intent of the book is to warn readers of the danger of Anthropogenic Global Warming. The protagonists consider the science to be settled, and the skeptics to be evil heretics; Robinson's writing makes this very clear, although he does not belabor the point or rant about it. However, he presents absolutely no evidence to support AGW, nor does he give the skeptics a fair hearing. His spokesmen explicitly disavow the idea that the DC flood was caused by global warming, although he posits some indications that such is happening (primarily, and almost singularly, the melting of the arctic ice cap). He doesn't address how to eliminate AGW or ameliorate its predicted consequences. How is this science fiction rather than a just another contemporary novel?More importantly, Robinson's novel pre-dates two important events: a British judge's order in 2007 that Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" was so full of errors that it could not be shown in schools without balancing comment, and the revelations from the email controversy erupting from a hacked server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (also known as "Climategate") in November 2009 and a second dump in November 2011. Forbes Magazine: "We need more objective research and ethical conduct by the scientists at the heart of the IPCC and the global warming discussion."Contrast the novel's general attitude and this sentence from one of the protagonists, a Senate staffer, on page 193: "...he was combating liars, people who lied about science for money, thus obstructing the clear signs of the destruction of their present world."Robinson and the Guardian were right about there being liars, greedy capitalists (and socialists and dictators and anarchists and so on and so forth) unprincipled politicians (and lobbyists and journal editors and so on and so forth), and scientists (and journalists and science-fiction writers) as tools -- they just don't recognize that their own side has them in equal or greater measure than their opponents.This blinkered view might be acceptable in a mainstream novel - proselyting for one's own opinions is fair -- but it seems out of character for a science fiction author, who ought to be questioning the people who make grandiose assertions of apocalyptic doom rather than taking their bait hook, line, and sinker.
    • 3/5
      Robinson really let me down with this first in a series about global warming. The plot mainly concerns the main characters going to work and having meetings and endless discussions with scientists. It really is all too much like real life to make for interesting fiction.
    • 5/5
      The first of a trilogy about public policy and global climate change, this novel is a great read. The other two books are also excellent; I particularly enjoyed the settings of al three, mostly in and around Washington, DC, where we used to live.
    • 3/5
      This is the first book in Robinson's series about climate change. The skepticism and academic in-fighting are very well done, while the vast titanic forces are clocked in, and moving right along. It's a complex and interesting narrative.
    • 3/5
      Decent enough, but the start of a mediocre trilogy.
    • 2/5
      A nice hard SF book, which I read probably past its peak, which is kind of bad considering it was only written four years ago. But basically all of the information in it that was supposed to blow your mind was stuff I already knew. Hm. The other problem I has with it was a typical hard SF syndrome. Basically the people are never described to much level of detail, so you've got a name and a brain and that's about it. SF characters often are a collection of thoughts and viewpoints, but rarely emotions, and I struggled to be interested in it until about 4/5 of the way through. I understand that the ideas are in the spotlight here, but since the ideas affect humans it's be nice to be involved with those humans. I guess it's a fine line especially when creating a semi-disaster book like this one, to not fall over to the Michael Crichton side where everyone is a brain that will be killed or eaten. I can understand not wanting to jump that fence, but I'd like a little more dirt in my laboratory, if you know what I mean. I'll finish off the series and comment further then.
    • 4/5
      Reads almost more like a non-fictional account of the slow and not so slow changes occurring on our planet right now as we face the challenges of global warming. A little slow paced, but the lead up promises some great drama in the next installment. The characters are interesting and passionate, and it definitely has the sensation of an impending disaster on the horizon. We know it's coming, and we know it is going to be devastating, but we can't wait to see how the players will rally.
    • 4/5
      Fictional look at the way academic science works and how inappropriate this is for tackling large scale problems such as climate change.
    • 5/5
      The first of three eschatological novels. It is something we are living though. Science can save us, but they are too detached to care. Politicians care but they are too ineffectual to do anything meaningful. The market (will of heaven) is the only hope but we know that markets can and do fail,
    • 2/5
      "If the Earth were to suffer a catastrophic anthropogenic extinction event over the next ten years, which it will, American business would continue to focus on its quarterly profit and loss. There is no economic mechanism for dealing with catastrophe. And yet government and the scientific communicty are not tackling this situation either, indeed both have consented to be run by neoclassical economics, an obvious pseudo-science. We might as well agree to be governed by astrologers. "I really, really wanted to like Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson. Its about scientists who are mostly doing everyday science, worrying about publications, grants, phd students and so forth but somehow they were just dull, dull, dull (don't comment!). Even when breaking into NSF by abseiling through a skylight in order to steal documents they somehow contrived to be dull - which is no mean feat. The most fascinating, and actually I found it genuinely gripping, chapter concerned the manipulation of a grant awarding panel meeting in order to deprive a particular grant of funding.I can't even say the book is "worthy yet dull" since its message, encapsulated in the quote above, is that we can invent our way out of the current crisis and, in fact, enable such invention by giving more money and power to scientists. It covers the issue of changing society and behaviour but comes to the conclusion that this is so deeply rooted in the Savannah brain evolved millions of years ago that we might as well give up on that route. Not that I necessarily object to the idea that scientists should have more money and power but I don't think that should be used as an excuse to abdicate responsibility for more wide-ranging changes.The book also doesn't really end, it just sort of stops. I mean, there is a big cataclysmic (at least if you live in San Diego or Washington) weather event but that is merely a climax. The stories that have been driving the novel don't really stop just because there has been a flood. I suspect Robinson would argue that it is obvious (or at least obvious enough) where most of the stories are going to end by this point but I would disagree - especially the re-incarnated Tibetan Llama sub-plot that is only introduced properly on page 324 (the book has 355 pages) despite a fair amount of foreshadowing, is mentioned once thereafter and just left dangling. The whole thing had me checking for "first in a major new trilogy" bylines secreted in places I might not have noticed around the book... and I now see from teh comments here that there are indeed sequels.As a pet peeve the book also features an angelic toddler. Despite being mentioned as more troublesome and energetic than his sibling this toddler could sleep for America. He sleeps so soundly and reliably his stay-at-home Dad takes him (sleeping on his back) into a critical meeting with the President in order to discuss the details of a climate change bill. OK so Gwendolen has always treated the concept of sleep with deep contempt but I doubt most real parents of even reliably sleeping toddlers would contemplate trying to do this. The book tries to show how difficult it is to work while caring for a toddler but I was just amazed at how much this particular parent appeared to able to get done.Its not a bad book by any means but I wasn't gripped by it and was mostly bored or irritated in turns. A disappointment.
    • 5/5
      Stunning. A wonderful scientific science fiction work, the feel for how science is actually practised and funded is intricately detailed and correct, the additional climbing terms also capture reality. First in a trilogy about global warming, set slightly into our future. Anna and her co-worker Frank, work at a funiding body the (fictional) National Science Foundation, reviewing and awarding research applications. Anna's husband father at home, works for an "environmentally friendly" senator, but no-one seems to take global warming seriously, business as usual, even the "League of drowned nations" newest members, monks in exile form Tibet, can't get anything done. Then two storms collide at hightide ... All the rest of the science is very accurate, I'm not a climatologist but I hope KSR has done equally accurate research here too. The events seem a bit "Day after Tomorrow" like, but the writing is supurb. I hope the quality lasts throughout the trilogy.
    • 4/5
      Forty Signs of Rain is, in some ways, an infodump about global warming and the threats it holds. The characters are scientists (mostly working at the NSF) and government employees working to manipulate the system to force the government to take the threat of global warming seriously and to do something to address the problem.In between, we get lots of amusing anecdotes and insights into topics such as driving in Southern California and Washington, D.C., the Buddhist approach to science, the beauty of athletic performance, and so forth.
    • 5/5
      This is the first of a new trilogy. I'm currently reading the just released second chapter, "Fifty Degrees Below". I quite enjoy it because Robinson manages to touch on so many disparate elements through the lens of characters who are leading very normal, human lives. There's current science surrounding global climate and global warming, Buddhist philosophy, and the very real intersections of politics and scientific research, and how it gets done in the real world.Of particular prescience is the startling similarities between the climax of this book and what happened to New Orleans this past summer.I quite enjoyed the read although I don't feel it's as strong as his "Mars" novels - but I'd still highly reccomend it to anyone who enjoys hard science fiction.
    • 4/5
      “Forty Signs,” written in 2004, is as relevant if not more-so now thirteen years on. The denial and political delaying and obfuscation described in the novel have not abated in the real world, perhaps even worsening. That Robinson chose to name his superstorm that floods DC “Sandy” is an ironic and haunting coincidence.

      For those who expect dramatic acts of violence and shoot-em-ups, this will be a disappointing book. But in the tradition of sci-fi that describes dystopian futures, this novel projects a possible future from the science. I fear it may be all too predictive.

    • 4/5
      With Forty Signs, Kim Stanley Robinson seems to have changed to a heavily philosophical writer. I don’t want to trivialize the issue of Global Warming, but I did not want to read an extended treatise on it that tried to masquerade as a novel that started out dealing with biotechnology. I’ve read other stories that successfully integrated two diverse themes, but this one fails. The Biotech angle never materializes into anything other than a distraction and a stage for some of the characters.Despite this, Robinson created a work that was hard to break off from. The characters were well done, the dialog flowed and the plot, what there was of it, seemed reasonably plausible and well explained. The story just never took me any place.