Having fallen so far behind on reviewing I’m going to try to keep up with what I’m reading now rather than trying to catch up in order. Forty Signs of Rain is the start of Robinson’s “Science in the Capital” trilogy about climate change, starring a cast of very well drawn people n the NSF, a congressional office and a biotech startup. It was written in 2004, well before MacLeod’s Intrusion but shares some interesting parallels with that one – married with young children protagonists, biotech companies, climate change leading to European cooling and rising sea levels. There’s just a hint of mysticism in Forty Signs of Rain (less than Intrusion) but it might build up over the trilogy. There’s a flashback to Robinson’s earlier Escape from Kathmandu with the story also featuring Tibetan Buddhists from Shambahla.

This is an excellently written piece of mundane SF. It doesn’t even have the one miracle piece. Somewhat like his earlier Gold Coast (partof the Three Californias trilogy) this is a “if this goes on” tale, though the direction thigns are heading are looking more like they could lead to “The Wild Shore” than the Gold Coast future. It’s unusual these days to have scientist protagonists (early SF like Doc Smith had hero adventurer scientists, but Robinson features working scientists who worry about funding, political inteference, political fallout and the philosophy of science.  While we’ll see how the trilogy pans out, this is an excellent start.

If I’m feeling up to it I’ll tackle “The Years of Rice and Salt” and “2312” after this trilogy but they’re both hefty single volumes, though as a trilogy these three outweight them. Strange that as I’m still a little convalescent from the colitis, (and. in fact just come down with a moderately bad head cold yesterday and today) I feel up to tackling a trilogy of about 1200 pages but not 650+ (Years) or 550+ (2312). I also have still never read his Mars Trilogy though I’ve read most of the rest of his work. Maybe I’ll re-read Antarctica as a warm-up to the Mars Trilogy, soon.