This book is perfect evidence that Neal Stephenson has about 4/5 of a really good analysis of the world, but that the final 1/4 is very important and absolutely super missing.

The good: the book is decently written, the characters seem believable and there is considerable and obvious research behind them. I learnt things reading the book and I like that. The cast is diverse, and that’s not just a throwaway thing but rather a crucial part of the story, which is really about migration, colonialism and ecological disaster in that order.

The bad: the book is, to say the least unclear about what it’s trying to say. I feel like a story about colonialism, migration and ecological disaster should perhaps not come out mostly on the side of a Texas oil baron and the queen of a colonial empire. It’s also remarkably flat in its handling of China. Essentially every other nation is deeply humanised and shown to have multiple interests working against each other. China is a creepy superpower that routinely does covert terrorism mostly for the fun of it, and it moves as one unit.

Also, as a thriller this is decidedly mid. It’s not very exciting and it’s very very slow.