New York 2140 - Book Review
New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson, is an SF novel set in a New York that has large parts of it underwater because of global warming.
The premise is good, and the description of how this was handled, including the tech is nice.
Unfortunately, large parts of the story are quite annoying, in particular near the ending.
There is also a "let the people take over everything" semi-communist theme going on - which include super taxes that were actually tried in real life and never worked (i.e.: the people being taxed just move out of your jurisdiction and take either their current money or future earnings with them), or just having the government handle everything (which sounds nice because the government in theory wouldn't be as greedy, except that in most instances it actually is and tends to not know what it is doing, because there is no competition to force it to actually be competent).
I actually only finished the book through stubbornness - the story wasn't going anywhere for the last few chapters.
Not even remotely recommended.
The premise is good, and the description of how this was handled, including the tech is nice.
Unfortunately, large parts of the story are quite annoying, in particular near the ending.
There is also a "let the people take over everything" semi-communist theme going on - which include super taxes that were actually tried in real life and never worked (i.e.: the people being taxed just move out of your jurisdiction and take either their current money or future earnings with them), or just having the government handle everything (which sounds nice because the government in theory wouldn't be as greedy, except that in most instances it actually is and tends to not know what it is doing, because there is no competition to force it to actually be competent).
I actually only finished the book through stubbornness - the story wasn't going anywhere for the last few chapters.
Not even remotely recommended.
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