Stephen Baxter - Flood

Flood by Stephen Baxter

I've been introduced to Stephen Baxter via Arthur Clarke's Time Odyssey, a series that Baxter co-authored with the great maestro and I have the suspicion that I'm not the only one. Quite a few people would disagree, but I always thought that what makes a science fiction writer worthy is - amongst other things - the capability of turning one simple idea into a full-blown story that describes a world totally different from the real and then trying to imagine how this world's society would function under the circumstances.Baxter does that well. His narrative might be mediocre and his characters a little shallow, but this book is a page-turner. It really is impossible to put it down as long as your eyes stay open. The idea is simple enough. At some point the waters start rising. Climate-change skeptics and global warming deniers relax. The waters rise fast and it's not because the ice caps are melting. On the contrary, the mainstream opinion about the phenomenon gets a good beating.

Big cities get drowned, refugees aplenty. All geopolitical facts from the past doesn't make any sense now. Baxter takes us through a total reevaluation of humanity's values. Owing land on the high grounds becomes the greatest asset. Independence from foreign trade routes is equally important. Poor countries become rich and vice versa. A group of scientists try to explain the new situation. They get sponsoring from certain individuals. Those individuals who get the data first, act first and end up becoming the most powerful men in the world just because they were the first to understand that buying land on high altitude is the wise thing to do. And the waters keep on rising. Baxter takes it to the extreme. Humans are forced to turn into aquatic creatures. Nepal and Tibet end up being the last superpowers of history. At the end, people live on rafts. There is a generation born that never knew how it is to live on land. All and all, an exciting thriller desperately in need of a sequel.

Reviewed at the social site for books and libraries http://www.librarything.com by trandism

book page, author page