Termination Shock

“One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming” indeed. One man. One big idea. And it's not really about reversing global warming so much as it is an admitted band-aid. But then it's just left there. Alone. While somehow hand-waving at actual solutions and never actually approaching them.

It's almost like climate change was the pretext for a story about international politics and Texas. Which, okay. But the whole thing just felt weak. Weak jabs at the state of the U.S. as an international mockery. Weak hand waving at real climate change solutions. Weak connection of the concept in the title of the book with the plot.

After we get past 200 pages of wild boars, there are some likable characters and some low-level intrigue. There's some cool barely-future technology, but other than the Big Idea, there's not much else for us there. It's just very near future living, with a folksy Texan and a self-assured European queen. And Sikhs. I learned a bunch about Sikh culture and the Punjab which was great. And yet, almost completely unrelated.

And then the actual build-up happens to an exciting showdown and it ends 2 pages from the end of the book. The end turns out to not be an end at all, but a beginning. Blah.

Someone get Neal a great editor. No disrespect intended, but this had the bones of something great, and just stumbled down the hallway bashing into the walls the whole way. Much like his last book, Fall.

I yearn for the halcyon days of The Baroque Cycle, Anathem and Seveneves. Hell, even REAMDE.