| ▲ | thinkingtoilet 16 hours ago |
| Before anyone jumps into this book I would caution against it. This book had many very cool ideas and moments. The way it played out felt very "real". However, in the end there was very little actual story and was very boring at times. I actively dislike Neal Stephenson but if you want a near-future climate story I would recommend Termination Shock over Ministry For The Future. Just a random internet person's two cents. |
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| ▲ | RayVR 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I also read KSR's book. It was interesting at times. However, the research on the financial topics, including the central banks and "global financiers" was quite bad. I don't recall the glaring errors right now, however, given this is an area where I (at least once upon a time) was an expert, it was quite bad to read this and realize there are likely other serious errors in topics with which I am not at all familiar. While this is of course a work of fiction, getting verifiable facts wrong, intentionally or not, ruins it for me. |
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| ▲ | addcommitpush 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The main thing that irked me is that the book focuses on technical solutions as if that's what we're missing (carbon coin! pumping water from under ice sheets! etc.) but completly glosses over the actual consequences. To piggyback on the rest of this thread, people like meat and don't want to stop eating lots of meat. People are not going to like things that make them stop eating meats, whether it's governement buying out producers, a carbon tax, a carbon quota, whatever. "Ministry of the Future" is full of stuff like "and the central bankers could reshape the economy, so they did by doing XYZ" as if "XYZ" was important but barely discusses the fact that "reshaping the economy" might upset lots of people. How were they convinced to give up air travel, cars, etc? | | |
| ▲ | psiops 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think in the book those people were convinced to give up air travel by the eco-terrorists known as the Children of Kali shooting commercial airliners out of the sky, and not shooting down cleaner alternatives like airships. A persuasive argument, to be sure. |
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| ▲ | insane_dreamer 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I thought the idea of a "carbon coin" issued by central banks (the primary financial theme of the book) was on fairly solid ground. I'd be interested to know what you found implausible about it. |
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| ▲ | insane_dreamer 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I agree it doesn't have much of a story. It reads much more like a non-fictional recounting of events, but provides a lot of food for thought about how things might unfold. Just don't approach it like your typical novel. |
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| ▲ | shiroiushi 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sounds a bit like The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkein. If you finish reading LotR and then try to read this book, you'll be in for a rude awakening. |
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| ▲ | photonthug 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Since we’re here.. These are probably everyone’s top 2 eco-punk novels but the rest of an appropriate top 10 list is way more contentious, and imho sources like goodreads or whatever will always have many items that aren’t really even in the genre. So I’ll offer the “metatropolis” anthology, which as a bonus has an audiobook version read by the Star Trek cast. Anyone got anything else? |
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| ▲ | insane_dreamer 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Thanks! I'm generally not into short fiction, but I'll give this one a go. One thing I like about The Ministry for the Future, is that it doesn't focus on the "apocalyptic" aspect (i.e., the usual fighting for survival), but rather examines the political and economic aspects. |
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| ▲ | silenced_trope 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > I actively dislike Neal Stephenson Why is that? I really liked Snow Crash and Anathem. Reamde was okay. I don't remember much about Diamond Age or Cryptonomicon. |
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| ▲ | thinkingtoilet 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I've never felt that in author is wasting my time while reading a book until him. He desperately needs a different, or any, editor. He manages to cram a 400 page story into 700 pages. Just non-stop side tangents and long passage after long passage that goes no where and means nothing to the story. It's fine to have stuff like that to build a world but this he goes overboard. If a character needs to get groceries, he'll turn one sentence about needing to go get groceries into three pages of nothing about how grocery stores work. I find it extremely boring at times, and after you read one of his books and get clued into this, it's hard to read a second book and stay interested. |
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