Termination Shock

A Novel

Hardcover, 896 pages

Published Nov. 15, 2021 by William Morrow.

ISBN:
978-0-06-302805-0
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4 stars (15 reviews)

Termination Shock takes readers on a thrilling, chilling visit to our not-too-distant future – a world in which the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.

One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet – and all of humanity – should it be applied?

Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

1 edition

Classic Stephenson

4 stars

Content warning Mild spoilers about some topics covered by the book

Review of 'Termination Shock' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I wanted to like this more, because I was an early Stephenson fan from Zodiac days, and I still consider Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon to be masterful storytelling. But this? Almost insultingly silly character development, implausible relationships, and a strangely attenuated focus, given the backdrop of the most complex and unrelentingly global problem of our age. If Kim Stanley Robinson's approach to anthropocentric climate change tries to take too sweeping a view (at the expense of character development and human cultural complexity), here Stephenson suffers the opposite failing: too narrow a focus on the relationships around a particular technology, which reveals his increasingly stark limitations as a character-based storyteller. The one character he does manage to make compelling? Well, no spoilers, but I was shocked at the lazy (and infuriatingly bad) conclusion of that particular arc.

Review of 'Termination Shock' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Neal Stephenson's (@nealstephenson) #TerminationShock is just the fun romp through the psychology of future technologies and problems that we should expect. Stephenson's central question for the work seems to be: when consequences from human alteration of the atmosphere finally catch up with us, how will we deal with it?

Stephenson's answer to that question is interesting. He starts with invasive species (anti-aircraft feral hogs), discusses the wet bulb over 98.6F problem with earth suits, moves to persistent disease (COVID-23 and COVID-27), and addresses the elephant in the room: climate engineering.

Overall, while climate change is at the center if this piece of speculative fiction, the mood is just so absurdist and full of pulpy fun that every page and new idea is interwoven and compelling. If you have been caught in the doom-and-gloom contemporary discourse of climate-induced global collapse, Termination Shock helps you to see a future without reflexively shutting …

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