The Ministry for the Future: A Novel

Kim Stanley Robinson, known for his fantastic and epic science fiction, returns to the prescient and tumultuous subject of climate change, looking at our near and further future, at what can be done about the fate of our world, in the Ministry for the Future.

The book opens with a catastrophic heatwave striking India and leaving many without power, eventually killing millions. The book follows with a long series of events happening across the planet all related to climate change and its knock-on effect, as the planet becomes hotter. But there is the Ministry for the Future, a governmental body in Europe, with a goal to combat climate change and save the planet. A tall order for sure.

But unlike other climate change stories, this one is a hopeful one, with a message that we can save the planet and ultimately ourselves if we all work together, and enact some bold and effective plans. Robinson goes deep into the detail, the science, the math, and the business of how this can be done. Fans will delight in the heavy read, while regular readers may need some patience to delve through it all, but ultimately The Ministry of the Future is an engrossing and hopeful story about humanity’s potential.