Forty Signs of Rain | ||||||||
Kim Stanley Robinson | ||||||||
Bantam, 358 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Cindy Lynn Speer
If it doesn't sound like the world's most scintillating plot, you're right. This is pretty much all there is to the basic story. These
people are all concerned with trying to find ways to apply science to helping the world become a better place health-wise, and, more
importantly, environmentally, since global warming seems to be the main thing we concentrate on as we spent much of the book following
Charlie and his son Joe around. That's not to say Forty Signs of Rain isn't one of the most chilling books I've ever read.
Forty Signs of Rain is probably one of the most important and
thought provoking books I've read all year (and if you've been following my reviews,
you know that I've read a couple of pretty thoughtful books this year) but it is not about these people. It's about how absolutely messed
up our own system is. It is about how all of these fabulous discoveries and projects get snowed under by lack of funding and poor
management. Companies force scientists to keep their research a secret because if there's anything good to come out of the
discoveries, they want to be able to cash in. It means that people from different companies with different equipment can't compare
notes and perhaps bring the projects to fruition sooner. It also means that sometimes projects are completely buried or
destroyed. Greed is the key, here, and it's a tragedy.
True, science has been around for as long as we have. But what we see as a drive for science with labs and people actually able to get
jobs doing it (in America at least) really happened during World War II, with the rush to build the atom bomb and other weapons. That
means that science (because of its roots and the funding it still gets) has always been associated with military applications. Now,
America has always tried to keep military separate from the government (something that
Kim Stanley Robinson and I both fiercely agree on) but this
means that science, because of its indelible connection, has kept itself from the government, as well. This book is a wake up call of
sorts, to scientists in the United States especially, to go out and fight for what they believe in. Lobby the government, because
they aren't military personnel, they are regular civilians and they deserve to have their voices heard. More than that, we need to have
their voices heard. We need the people who are behind the discoveries and research to be the ones who help make the decisions.
I couldn't stop thinking about this book last night because of the implications Robinson creates. The forty signs of rain that
give the book its title are both scientific data given in front of the chapters and different signs in the text itself, such as
the incredible heat, the fact that there is a group of countries binding together because they are worried about the ocean
rising and obliterating their existence. The realization that you come to, that it's probably too late for the people in the
book, that it's probably too late for us, is the stuff that keeps you awake at night.
Cindy Lynn Speer loves books so much that she's designed most of her life around them, both as a librarian and a writer. Her books aren't due out anywhere soon, but she's trying. You can find her site at www.apenandfire.com. |
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