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Forty Signs of Rain
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Review
by: L.I.
Rapkin
Kim Stanley
Robinson's latest novel, Forty
Signs of Rain, is a concatenation of Buddhism, evolutionary
psychology and climate change in near-future Washington, D.
C. and southern California. It's the first book in a trilogy
that takes place in the same fictional realm as Robinson's
earlier novel, Antarctica.
National
Science Foundation administrator Anna Quibler, her visiting-scientist
co-worker Frank Vanderwal, and her husband Charlie, a political
advisior on climate change and stay-at-home dad, are at the
center of the novel. Events are set in motion when the embassy
from a small, Buddhist, island nation moves into the same
building as the NSF. What follows is a play-by-play of the
interaction between science and policy, with color commentary
(by way of Frank Vanderwal) of how evolutionary psychology
affects both of the above. The inside workings of a California
biotech company provide a foil to the public-sector work of
the NSF. The novel comes to a climactic* end in which both
one of the major characters and the East Coast's weather pattern
undergo a major paradigm shift.
Robinson
has described
his recent work as a "utopian black comedy," which is
both accurate and far better than anything I could come up
with. He has an almost visceral grasp of Buddhism, and elegantly
restrains himself while at the same time dropping in lots
of wonderful tidbits. We get an excellent protrayal of stay-at-home
parenthood, as well as a compare-and contrast of the inner
workings of the NSF and a small California biotech company.
And Robinson does something I always love seeing--showing
the psychologist's fallacy of assuming that human beings behave
rationally, via the running gag of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The supporting character of a Phil Chase, a combination of
a Californian version of Paul Wellstone and a game show host,
is one of my favorite people in the book, and I hope we see
more of h! im later in the trilogy. I am also all a-tingle
with anticipation to see where Robinson goes with the foreshadowing
regarding members of the Khembalung embassy.
Forty
Signs is quite different from the recent, Hugo-nominated
The Years of Rice and Salt. Rice and Salt
immerses the reader in another world, while Forty Signs
makes one think long and hard about the short-term future
of this one. I firmly believe it ought to be required reading
for the highest of higher-ups in the current administration.
I got yer global warming right here.
*Apologies
for the pun
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