SF John Barnes - Kaleidoscope Century

[warshipadmin]

Once upon a time JB wrote a rather fun book called A Million Open Doors. He's written a bunch of others, none perhaps with the same panache. Anyway I picked up KC. Damn not much fun here. It is the story of a KGB operative who has life extension drugs, and works around the world as the world falls apart over the 21st century. Eventually as a result of the Meme Wars an AI meme takes over the remaining human populace on Earth, but luckily they've established various colonies on various planets and the moon and so on, and the meme can't get them. The main character is a nasty piece of work, but the story is well told. All the science is completely hand wavy, but not too ridiculous.

[warshipadmin]

Here's the usually reliable Jo Walton reviewing it (in too much detail) https://www.tor.com/2010/02/23/nasty-bu ... e-century/

TLDR Well written, possibly brilliant, book but she doesn't like it.

Yup

[Rocket J Squrriel]

John Barnes also wrote a great book called 'Mother of Storms'. It came out in 1994 and is a doomsday/weather gone wild book. Big cast of characters but they all fit nicely in the various slots and come together as needed especially at the end. The future tech is dated but not badly. The eco freaks and their attitude do seem rather familiar today.

General jest is that its set in the near future in a world were the US endured the 'Flash'. Which is an EMP bomb in near space of the US and aground nuke in DC. For some reason the UN, which has more power, made the US give up Alaska at its rival in Siberia wants. UN launches a mini-antimatter missile strike at Siberian missiles hidden in the Artic Ocean. They are destroyed of course but it also triggers a clathrate, methane stored in a form ice, collapse and release massive amount of methane. The 'storm' is a hurricane in the Pacific named Clem that get very big and very powerful and doesn't die out. Instead it travels in a big circle in the Pacific. Oh and it spawns 'daughters' who can become as big as mom and can spread into other oceans. If its not stopped, we die.

There is a couple of ways to try but the best one involved a moon sized iceberg in the Kuiper Belt. Getting there and bringing it back in time to save the world is a problem.

Its a fun book!

[warshipadmin]

I've seen it recommended. Sadly my local library seems to have purged all 1990s SF, I may have to spend some money.