Our Discussion of New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

The waters rose, submerging New York City.

But the residents adapted and it remained the bustling, vibrant metropolis it had always been. Though changed forever.

Every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island.

Through the eyes of the varied inhabitants of one building, Kim Stanley Robinson shows us how one of our great cities will change with the rising tides.

And how we too will change. Goodreads

Below are a sampling of our comments:

• The explanations of financial machinations were a little like string theory to me – there was a little too much explanation
• The polar bear sequence didn’t make a lot of sense – the bears would have needed separate cages. Why did Amelia open the door?
• Stephan and Roberto were dumb and brilliant… typical “you don’t own us” kids
• Franklin began to evolve as the story went on – he started to care. Interesting that he was the only character in first person
• The Citizen chapters were data dumps – the information could have been woven into the story
• It would have helped to have maps of the city – perhaps before and after the pulse events
• The book could have been shorter – the concept was good, but the book was a little clunky
• Why did the author choose to have Inspector Gen refer to her female co-worker by a first name and a male co-worker by a last name?
• The book had three themes: a love letter to New York, climate change, and economic justice
• The author did a great job of adding details – showing tiny phenomena
• Units of disaster were “katrinas”
• This didn’t seem like science fiction – there were new technologies, but nothing radical. It could have been 40 years in the future instead of 120.
• Perhaps the first and second pulse slowed down the development of technology... tech wasn’t the focus of the story

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you may have about New York 2140. We gave this title the codes DRG, UTP, ECO, POL, NFW, HDS with an average rating of 4.