Download New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson [PDF]

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Download New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson [PDF] New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson Ebook New York 2140 currently available for review only, if you need complete ebook New York 2140 please fill out registration form to access in our databases Download here >> Paperback: 656 pages Publisher: Orbit; Reprint edition (March 6, 2018) Language: English ISBN-10: 0316262315 ISBN-13: 978-0316262316 Product Dimensions:5.5 x 1.8 x 8.5 inches ISBN10 0316262315 ISBN13 978-0316262 Download here >> Description: NOMINATED FOR THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2018 Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, New York 2140, presents a grim vision of the impact of a warming global climate. I’m sure Robinson could have easily conjured up a world like that in the lauded, 2016 movie Interstellar, where America’s farmland is sufficiently fried to create a new Dust Bowl and the only solution for humanity is to use gravitational propulsion to escape to a distant galaxy through a recently detected wormhole near Saturn. But instead, a writer who ironically is best known for his own space-escape yarns such as The Mars Trilogy, has set himself a more difficult challenge. Robinson visualizes a world where mankind can’t avail itself of improbable technological advances or convenient astronomical discoveries, and instead must struggle to adapt to a barely recognizable planet.The first and second “pulses,” sudden and violent surges of water from melting ice, have already flooded the low-lying land and the great coastal cities. New York, or more correctly Manhattan, has survived by reinventing itself as a modern-day Venice, with canals and skybridges and bacinos connecting the old skyscrapers, now protected from rust and corrosion by a diamond film coating (OK, somewhat improbable, but easier to accept than warp-speed rocket ships and wormholes in space.)The cityscape may have been immutably altered, the mayor (and the President) may be female, and muskrats may now outnumber sewer rats, but New Yorkers are much the same. Police deal with the criminals, petty and otherwise, social workers tend to the homeless and the dispossessed, and the latest iteration of greedy bankers and hedge fund managers speculate on the trend of real estate prices in the intertidal zone. As always, living space comes at a premium so the 1 percent live in soaring new towers built on higher ground, those in the middle make do with crowded, communal coops in older apartment buildings and converted offices, while the fringe elements do their best to survive in rickety, water-logged walk-ups. And for tenderhearted animal lovers, the Assisted Migration blimp is always airborne, its perils-of-Pauline hostess continually broadcasting to a rapt audience as she does her shtick while transporting endangered species to safe environments from threatened ones (e.g. a half-dozen ferocious but cuddly polar bears to Antarctica.) All is well until Hurricane Fyodor bears down on the city, threatening to envelop it in turmoil and destruction worthy of Dostoyevsky himself. And then all is well again, in love and anti-capitalistic politics if not in climate.Robinson’s conception of New York a little more than a century hence is powerful, and he deserves kudos. I just wish I loved the book unreservedly. Unfortunately, the characters tend to be flimsy, the prose is often turgid, and the plot is difficult to decipher. But I accept its flaws for its triumphs. It is what fiction should be at its best—a willful act of imagination. It is also a stern warning for those of us around today. The year in the title shouldn’t lull us into a false sense of security. All the “bad stuff”, like the apocalyptic pulses, happens between now and 2140, during the lives of our children and grandchildren, if not our own lives.For that reason alone, Robinson’s novel is arguably not science fiction but a powerful social protest novel in disguise. It certainly does what a social protest novel is meant to do, dramatizing the effect of a prevailing social problem—climate change—on its characters, and thereby attuning readers to the depth of the problem, and motivating them to do something about it. It doesn’t matter that the social problem is speculative and its effects are in the future. The speculation is based on scientific fact. Moreover, the social problem for potential readers is not speculative. We’re too complacent about what the planet might look and feel like in the not so distant future if we don’t begin to take radical measures now.Sadly, it’s not for the publishing world to recognize this larger message and market New York 2014 to a broader audience than science fiction fans. Perhaps they feel that Robinson can’t escape his reputation as a sci-fi master. Perhaps they feel that the quality of his writing can’t charm readers outside the genre. Perhaps they’re cowed by the current administration’s denials about climate change and threats to purveyors of “fake news.” Perhaps they feel that science fiction sells and social protest never will. Perhaps they don’t know how to market social protest any more. In any case, the potential audience for an important work becomes limited.Case in point is how the New York Times dispatched the novel with a brief, multiple-title write-up in the Sunday Book Review. New York 2041 was lumped in with Volume 7 of the continuing saga of two warring, galaxy-spanning civilizations, an anthology of djinn-themed short fiction, and a police procedural about the hunt for a mass murderer potentially related to the appearance of a grotesque and deadly extraterrestrial fungus. When the reviewer finally got around to Robinson’s novel, she snarkily observed that “in an age when local real estate agents already toss around terms like ‘Anthropocene’ and ‘flood zone’ over brunch, its audacious futurism arrives feeling a bit obsolete.”Actually, in these perilous times for our country and our planet, what feels passé to me is the attitude that prevails in the lit biz. Why do they continue to overlook—or is it deny?—that fiction, like art of any kind, can be and should be a powerful engine for social change? New York 2140 in pdf books New York 2140 Their chemistry and personality clashes and crashes like two trains. He also makes a claim that seasonal construction workers on the Island are called carharts (as in the clothing company) but I have never heard the term nor have any of my island resident friends. After the success of ADVISE Ned CONSENT, he left journalism to write full time.Musashi-san's "Way" is likewise applicable. In diesem Buch wird die Konvergenz von Glücks- und Videospielen aus wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Sicht untersucht. And make sure you know whos coming over for dinner because it could Yrk your last supper. 442.10.32338 New Episode 3 (Interceptor) is the third in the Helix series and packs the same punch as the first two. I think I'll look for more from this author. Yet shared about a 2140 that just Joey and Dean together. If anyone don't jump after york your book, then they just don't want to or they Yodk drowned in fear. Tragically, Just became ill and died before he could persuade a publisher to print his groundbreaking work on the biological roots of human ethical behaviour. I thoroughly enjoyed The Biscuit Witch. Author of: Goodbye, My Darling; Hello, Vietnam Tacoma Blue We Gotta Get Out of This Place. York 2140 New York 2140 New 0316262315 978-0316262 The days are gone when the non-life insurance companies were set up with an exclusive motto of service instead of profit. The setting-the early 1950s-is New well realized through period references and incidents. Earth was to be Goku's first assignment as a Saiyan child, but a childhood injury causing amnesia prevented this grisly fate. Divided into two sections, the book explores which types of paper and brushes to use and the principles of working in color. " (Margaret Patricia Eaton Atlantic Books Today 2013-12-18)"This beautifully crafted volume of images is not typical of most nature photography books that illustrate places and things. Grace, after years of infertility, finds herself pregnant and the baby - named "Florence" for Pancho Barnes - was adored by both her parents. This is a MUST for the Tobacconist 2140 or seasoned vet. Fear of litigation rather than wise reflection drives decisions. The author would be setter served by a professional system of footnoting, as well as a standard bibliography. People make it seem like it's impossible to get through so many repeating names, but even when the characters share a name, almost every single character (until the last generationand by that point the first characters are long gone so that it wasn't really confusing) has a unique name. It's a great way to explain to the littles New you love them, but go outside and play :). I have long been a Nora Groupie, and when she died in 2012, I was devastated. Small sample was collected from Cosmopolitan magazine from york countries issues. On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners focusing on hydrogenated or interesterified animal or vegetable fats or oils and their fractions in Czech Republic face a number of questions. Kara walks on water and tried to walk away from her responsibilities while Rhee was shoved to the side for whatever York. Sproul is a Reformed Presbyterian, 2140 his beliefs are implicit and explicit throughout the book. 74 unit luxury condo-op development on a formerly church owned site Mr.
Recommended publications
  • Kim Stanley Robinson, May 2019
    Science Fiction Book Club Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, May 2019 Kim Stanley Robinson has published nineteen novels and numerous short stories but is best known for his Mars trilogy. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes running through them and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Best Novel. Paul Schulz: Your fiction is basically optimistic, even in your more dystopian works. Do you find it difficult to hold that viewpoint in these times? Yes I do. Civilization is on a bad trajectory, and it will take a lot of imagination, skill and hard work to avoid a mass extinction event, by creating a truly sustainable civilization. Whether we’re up to the task, I don’t know. But since it is still possible, physically, to do it, I think staying optimistic is a political and moral necessity, an act of will power to keep us working for the good. Sometimes I’ve called this “angry optimism” to indicate it’s an attitude that needs to be wielded like a club sometimes. Also, I imagine giving up on optimism or pessimism, and just doing the needed work. In other words, optimism as a choice rather than just a feeling one has inherently. François Peneaud: Do you consider your Mars trilogy to be a realistic view of a possible terraformation of Mars? Not quite realistic, and less so now than when I wrote it, because since then the robotic rovers have discovered perchlorates poisonous to humans are common in Martian sand.
    [Show full text]
  • Humanising Climate Change Through Climate Fiction: a Literary
    HUMANISING CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH CLIMATE FICTION: A LITERARY EXAMINATION OF NEW YORK 2140 (2017) BY ROBINSON AND THE DROWNED WORLD (1962) BY BALLARD A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NAMIBIA BY EVA-LIISA ANDIMA 201125471 APRIL 2021 SUPERVISOR: Dr N. MLAMBO Abstract Cli-fi is a neologism that is accredited to Dan Bloom, and it is used to refer to novels, short stories and films whose main focus is on the consequences of climate change (Svoboda, 2016). This thesis employed a qualitative desktop literary analysis and purposively sampled two cli- fi novels, New York 2140 (2017) by Robinson and The Drowned World (1962) by Ballard as they explicitly capture the main theme of this study. The study employed thematic content analysis to analyse gathered data which was systemised into different themes to ease the data analysis and presentation process. Through the ecocriticism theory and the econarratology theory, the study examined how climatic concerns are fictionally expressed in the selected novels, explored the complexity of the relationship between human systems and natural systems as presented through specific environmentally destructive events in the selected cli-fi novels and analysed how cli-fi narratives enhance innovative understandings of the human place in an expanded ecosphere as presented in the selected novels. The study found that in both novels, climate change is “humanised” by the abnormality of growth of humans, animals and plants too, as well as their declining health. Though the identified themes in both novels are similar, each novel expresses each theme uniquely.
    [Show full text]
  • Transcript of 2140
    1 You’re listening to IW, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I’m EM. On a spring day like this, one of my favorite places to go in Manhattan is Madison Square Park. On one corner is one of my favorite buildings, the Flatiron. I’m sure you’ve seen it – it’s basically a giant triangle wedge. On the other side is the old Met Life Building, which is a clock tower with a slender roof and a gold statue on top. The Empire State Building looms over this park in kind of a paternal way. Can you picture it? Good. Now imagine the entire park is underwater. The science is irrefutable. As oceans get warmer, the sea will expand and rise. The only real debate is how high sea level will rise. I love New York history. Sitting here I think about pictures I’ve seen of the statue of liberty’s torch sitting in this park as a gimmick to raise funds for the statue itself. That was 140 years ago. It bums me out to think 140 years from now this park might be gone. So I was fascinated to learn about a new novel called New York 2140. It imagines New York transformed into a giant version of Venice. The park is under water but Madison Ave is a canal. All of the characters live in the old Met Life tower behind me, and they take boats to work. Even more interesting, the author is Kim Stanley Robinson.
    [Show full text]
  • 'At the Heart of Human Politics': Agency and Responsibility in The
    Environmental Politics ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fenp20 ‘At the heart of human politics’: agency and responsibility in the contemporary climate novel Matthew Benjamin Cole To cite this article: Matthew Benjamin Cole (2021): ‘At the heart of human politics’: agency and responsibility in the contemporary climate novel, Environmental Politics, DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2021.1902699 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1902699 Published online: 26 Mar 2021. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fenp20 ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2021.1902699 ‘At the heart of human politics’: agency and responsibility in the contemporary climate novel Matthew Benjamin Cole Harvard College Writing Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA ABSTRACT How might climate fiction inform public perceptions of climate change and its political stakes? While early proponents of climate fiction called on writers to move the public with visceral cautionary tales, recent climate fiction and criti­ cism thereof aims beyond apocalyptic and catastrophic representation, reflect­ ing broader debates regarding fear and agency in the climate imaginary. This context clarifies the modes of imaginative engagement pursued in recent English-language climate novels, including Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140, Richard Power’s The Overstory, and Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island. These works respond to patterns of denial and depoliticization by challenging their audiences to reimagine agency and responsibility in politically expansive and ethically demanding terms.
    [Show full text]
  • Symposium on Science Fiction and the Climate Crisis
    420 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 45 (2018) Symposium on Science Fiction and the Climate Crisis It Just Hasn’t Finished Melting Yet. Aaron Bady recently remarked on Twitter that “All fiction set in the present is now about climate change. It might be ‘about’ characters who are in denial about climate change. But, nevertheless.” In much the same way, climate change opens up a powerful and disturbing new front in the hoary debate about whether “literature” includes a subcategory called “science fiction” or if instead “science fiction” includes a subcategory called “literature”; to be truly “realistic” any narrative now must include within itself the accelerating, cataclysmic degradation of the conditions for human civilization as a direct (if initially unintended) consequence of human technological invention, as well as trace the utterly dysfunctional social and political institutions of a culture that has known about the crisis for half a century and refused to take any serious action in response. From hurricanes to flooding to wildfires and drought and on and on, the parade of global weather-related catastrophes that has dominated the 2000s continues unabated, with the 2017 abandonment of Puerto Rico by the Trump administration to months of power outages and supply shortages only the starkest marker of the way our assumptions about the reliability and stability of both consumer capitalism and modern government are becoming increasingly flexible in the face of ongoing, slow-motion disaster. “In a remote region of Antarctica known as Pine Island Bay,” wrote Eric Holthaus in November 2017 for grist.org, 2,500 miles from the tip of South America, two glaciers hold human civilization hostage.… There’s no doubt this ice will melt as the world warms.… Together, they act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world’s oceans—an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet.
    [Show full text]
  • Reformed Capitalism Through Radical Ecology in New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
    Reformed Capitalism Through Radical Ecology in New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson Leonardo Chinchilla Mora Master’s Thesis English Philology Department of Languages Faculty of Arts University of Helsinki April 20th, 2021 Faculty: Faculty of Arts Degree Program: English Studies Study Track: Literature Author: Leonardo Chinchilla Mora Title: Reformed Capitalism Through Radical Ecology in New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson Level: Master’s Thesis Month and year: April 2021 Number of pages: 49 Where Deposited: Master’s thesis for the Helsinki University Library Abstract: While eco-fiction has found a vast audience in contemporary literature reception, it is oftentimes ‘sidelined’ as a genre that is not taken seriously due to its dystopian world depictions and ‘improbable’ happenings (Ghosh 11). Nonetheless, I argue that ‘improbability’ is not an issue for Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 (2017) as it represents the perpetuation of twenty-first- century patterns of behavior over the years, magnified by the year 2140 by menacing rising waters that submerge downtown Manhattan. Further, it is my contention that this novel represents a reformation of the capitalist system rather than its eradication since it portrays a diverse cast of characters slowly realizing that the elitist capitalist system is threatening their lives as it only sustains profit, and it depicts the transformation of such a capitalist system into a capitalism that resembles a welfare state with progressive taxation and active citizen involvement. This thesis analyses more specifically the role of community engagement, finance restructuration, and eco-sensitivity awareness as aspects that Robinson deems essential for a reformation of a capitalist system.
    [Show full text]
  • 2021 Nemla Convention Program R.Pdf
    Northeast ModerN LaNguage associatioN FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL AND FIRST VIRTUAL CONVENTION MARCH 10 –14, 2021 Administrative Host Institution: College of Arts and Sciences, University at Buffalo 2021 Sponsor: Department of Romance Languages, University of Pennsylvania BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Brandi So | New York Institute of Technology First Vice President Bernadette Wegenstein | Johns Hopkins University Second Vice President Joseph Valente | University at Buffalo Past President Carole Salmon | University of Massachusetts Lowell American /Diaspora Studies Director Benjamin Railton | Fitchburg State University British and Global Anglophone Studies Director Thomas Lynn | Penn State Berks Comparative Literature Director Katherine Sugg | Central Connecticut State University Creative Writing, Publishing, and Editing Director Abby Bardi | Prince George’s Community College Cultural Studies and Media Studies Director Maria Matz | University of Massachusetts Lowell French and Francophone Studies Director Olivier Le Blond | University of North Georgia German Studies Director Charles Vannette | University of New Hampshire Italian Studies Director Tiziano Cherubini | Baylor University Professionalization, Composition, and Pedagogy Director Maria Plochocki | City University of New York Spanish and Portuguese Studies Director Victoria L. Ketz | La Salle University CAITY Caucus President and Representative Francisco Delgado | Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY Diversity Caucus Representative Jennifer Mdurvwa | University at Buffalo Graduate
    [Show full text]
  • The Genre of the Near Future: Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140
    University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk Faculty of Arts and Humanities School of Society and Culture 2019-04-01 The Genre of the Near Future: Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 Sergeant, DRC http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/12723 10.1215/00166928-7500990 Genre All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. The Genre of the Near Future: Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 This essay explores Kim Stanley Robinson’s attempt to write a fiction of the near future in New York 2140 (2017), and how the novel’s treatment of time and history relates to its generic identity. The near future is defined in John Clute and Peter Nicholl’s standard reference work, The Encyclopedia of Science-Fiction, as ‘a world which is imminently real – one of which we can have no definite knowledge, which exists only imaginatively and hypothetically, but which is nevertheless a world in which (or something like it) we may one day have to live, and towards which our present plans and ambitions must be directed’ (856-8). As useful as this is, ‘imminently real’ occludes difficult questions about temporal and mimetic proximity which Robinson brings to the fore. New York 2140 is peculiar, in the first instance, for the directness
    [Show full text]
  • “Wilderness and Utopia”: on Post-Capitalist Urbanization and the Extraterrestrial Imaginary Interview with KIM STANLEY ROBINSON by DANIEL DAOU and MARIANO GOMEZ-LUQUE
    “Wilderness and Utopia”: On Post-capitalist Urbanization and the Extraterrestrial Imaginary Interview with KIM STANLEY ROBINSON by DANIEL DAOU and MARIANO GOMEZ-LUQUE As critical scholars have suggested,1 both Science Fiction and Critical Theory constitute mirror-image projects with equal footing in utopian thinking. The following interview with science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson reads his work through the lens of urban and design studies. The shared affinities revealed in the course of the conversation make us think that there is room to extend this initial formulation into a triad that includes Science Fiction, Critical Urban Theory, and Design—a critical project yet to be systematically undertaken. For philosopher Henri Lefebvre, the “urban” is a historical socio-spatial process that unfolds at a planetary scale, reshaping not only cities but all kinds of ter- ritories. The notion of “urbanization” is meant to capture the dynamism of this process in contrast with the formal fixity of “the city.”Y our novels strike us as “urban” in the Lefebvrian sense, as you meticulously describe a synthetic land- scape in which buildings, cities, territories, and even planets are reshaped by human activity (and vice versa). Is the category of the “urban,” understood in this dialectical way, a useful rubric to grasp the nuanced spatiality of your novels, and if so, to what extent do you think the notion of “planetary urbanization” could be a complement to the more technical concept of “terraforming” as deployed in science fiction (SF)? Coming from science fiction as I do, the urban is my genre’s home space, histori- cally speaking.
    [Show full text]
  • The Influence of Climate Fiction
    The Influence of Climate Fiction An Empirical Survey of Readers MATTHEW SCHNEIDER-MAYERSON Division of Social Sciences (Environmental Studies), Yale-NUS College, Singapore Abstract Climate fiction—literature explicitly focused on climate change—has exploded over the last decade, and is often assumed to have a positive ecopolitical influence by enabling readers to imagine potential climate futures and persuading them of the gravity and ur- gency of climate change. Does it succeed? And whom does it reach? A qualitative survey of 161 American readers of 19 works of climate fiction finds that these readers are younger, more liberal, and more concerned about climate change than nonreaders of climate fiction. Drawing on concepts from ecocriticism, environmental psychology, and environmental communication, this article suggests that “cli-fi” reminds concerned readers of the severity of climate change while impelling them to imagine environmental futures and consider the impact of climate change on human and nonhuman life. However, the actions that resulted from readers’ heightened consciousness reveal that awareness is only as valuable as the cul- tural messages about efficacious action that are in circulation. Moreover, the affective re- sponses of many readers suggest that most works of climate fiction are leading readers to associate climate change with intensely negative emotions, which could prove counterpro- ductive to efforts at environmental engagement or persuasion. Based on one of the first studies to empirically examine the reception of environmental literature, this article dem- onstrates a novel interdisciplinary approach to environmental literature (empirical ecocriti- cism) and points the way to future research in this vein. Keywords climate fiction, climate change, literature, ecocriticism, environmental futures, empirical ecocriticism Introduction iterature focused on climate change has become a major trend in English-language L publishing and reading over the last decade.
    [Show full text]
  • Robert E. Kopp Address: Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Rutgers University Curriculum Vitae 610 Taylor Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854 USA
    Robert E. Kopp Address: Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Rutgers University Curriculum Vitae 610 Taylor Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854 USA Phone: +1-732-200-2705 / Web: www.bobkopp.net August 2021 Email: [email protected] / Twitter: @bobkopp Education Ph.D. (Geobiology), California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA June 2007 M.S. (Geobiology), California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA June 2005 NSF and Harrison Brown Memorial Moore Graduate Research Fellowships Student, Agouron Geobiology Summer Course, USC Wrigley Institute, Catalina Island, CA July 2004 S.B. (Geophysical Sciences), University of Chicago, Chicago, IL June 2002 General and Departmental Honors; Junior Phi Beta Kappa; Student Marshal Professional Appointments Director, Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS), Rutgers 2017- University, New Brunswick, NJ Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 2017- Associate Director, Rutgers Energy Institute, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 2011-2017 Associate Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 2014-2017 Assistant Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 2011-2014 Rutgers Institute affiliations: EOAS, Rutgers Climate Institute, Rutgers Energy Institute, Rutgers Global Health Institute Rutgers graduate faculty affiliations: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Oceanography, Statistics, Planning & Public Policy (Associate) AAAS Science & Technology Policy
    [Show full text]