1,644 words
About twenty years ago, I was tasked with editing a science fiction novel, and it proved to be a very educational experience. The book itself was filled with utter nonsense of no value, serving only as a sounding board for a writer’s lists of beliefs and grievances. That book, thankfully, was never published, for the reading experience could easily have been summed up as being forced to watch the author masturbate as their eyes never broke contact with themselves in a hand mirror the reader was forced to hold up. Last month, I was transported back to this specific experience when reading the book which we are discussing today. Yes, it is that bad, but there are lessons to be learned if one is willing to put up with the title’s five hundred and sixty-three pages.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future managed to pull off a very rare feat, one usually reserved for a heinously objectionable person. This book simultaneously manages to waste the reader’s time while also breaking a fundamental contract every author makes with their audience – to be truthful about the raison d’être of their work.
The book starts off on a promising footing. The first chapter is beautifully written and transports the reader into a horrific landscape as hundreds of thousands of people die from a repressive heatwave. Mr. Robinson’s decades of award-winning experience then propel you into a chapter written from the perspective of the sun, right after its heat killed so many. The audience is initially presented with the promise of reading a novel built on much higher concepts than a typical bestseller.
This promise continues for the first hundred or so pages, but very quickly, signs of the book falling off its inceptive stated potential start to appear at an alarming rate. The avid reader would, at first, delight in the vocabulary used by the professionals in the book, which is of an accomplished, executive grade. Very quickly, words such as prevaricate or fuliginous, which are used casually, disappear, and the language devolves to the level used by a fast-food chain’s social media post.
The book’s structure starts out as propitious, with the aforementioned high-concept chapters of points of view from concepts and materials such as carbon to that of code, interlacing with that of the main characters of Frank, who was the clichéd sole survivor of the first chapter, and Mary, the head of the Ministry for the Future, which is tasked with ensuring that the climate crisis does not end all life on the planet.
This structure quickly falls apart on two fronts. First, the novelty wears off, and it quickly becomes apparent that the author is approaching vast topics from a layperson’s perspective, either having done a lot of research or relying on experts without a solid understanding himself. This is especially true when it comes to matters of economics, law, and defence. Sentences such as on page thirty-six, “The courts only work when some petty war criminal gets caught, and everyone decides to look virtuous,” are an early indicator of a very unnuanced adolescent stance and view being forced on the reader. This becomes more apparent in how a terrorist group, which rose from the horror of the first chapter, is written, and how the reader is expected to believe that either it or a mysterious government body hiding behind a do-good department is responsible for mystical levels of operational coordination requiring ineffable resources.
The structure also unravels into a sequence of inconsequential drivel as Mr. Robinson takes on more than he is willing to nurture throughout the book. These two types of chapters are further interrupted by giving a Wikipedia-level description of a scientific concept, and others of various points of view from a wide range of named and unnamed characters throughout the world. The fact that the reader is given no warning as to which type of chapter they are about to read, and that one has to read more than three paragraphs to get a full grasp of exactly whose perspective they are reading, is not only distracting but an immense waste of the reader’s time. The limits to giving an artist leeway all come down to payoff, and none of these chapters enrich the world Mr. Robinson is trying to build. Though the notion of getting the perspective of many different demographics as the world is slowly unravelling is inherently valuable, doing so in such a poorly written manner is made more inexcusable by its tone. When presenting the point of view of the unfortunate, Mr. Robinson is caring, but whenever the viewpoint shifts to those who are either not in the Global South, or who are well off, the book takes a very sanctimonious shade, which casts a very distasteful shadow on the entire novel. One feels like they are being talked down to by someone with no real-life experience, which cannot be further from the truth when it comes to Mr. Robinson. Having read several of his other books, save for New York 2140 and 2312, this book was either a rushed project, a rare misstep, or a project only initially undertaken with the severity it called for.
To mask a rushed project with a misleading attempt at a high-concept novel where there is a feigned and deliberate artistic direction is a disservice to the reader. Having the book’s plot delayed several dozen times, with chapters that do nothing to propel the story or add any depth, is another sin Mr. Robinson commits, one that the reader pays for. Then there is the ultimate immoral act by a writer of writing about matters they are not well-versed in while pretending to be. Whether it be operations in global defence requiring a mystical level of coordination, to that of a fundamental misunderstanding of banking, cryptocurrencies, or of private data, there are plenty of avenues of grief and resentment which Mr. Robinson leaves himself open to. Two-thirds through the novel, it becomes apparent that there was a checklist of topics that were present on the author’s mind, and each was all individually touched upon briefly.
Lastly, this 2020 title is ultimately an unlikely victim of the pandemic. In the years since, the world has changed at unprecedented speeds in every facet imaginable. The proposed solutions that Mr. Robinson explores in the novel clearly came to be unbelievable. The strains on global logistics, banking, and the severe abuses of various cryptocurrencies over the last couple of years alone have essentially nullified any chances of this book being taken seriously. It is unfortunate that this book was recommended by celebrities, past presidents and other notable authors. Either they themselves did not read the book, they are not as literate as we have been led to believe, or they were enamoured of a book that takes on the climate crisis and has a good ending. The literal and overall media landscape is littered with apocalyptic material, and it is easy to understand why people gravitate toward a book that ends with the human race successfully evading the apocalypse.
The book does succeed on some fronts, most notably Frank’s struggle to return to a normal life after his immense trauma. Detailing the various triggers which set off his PTSD and how it manifests reminds the reader that this is the same Mr. Robinson who wrote the well-received (insert colour) Mars series or his more recent work, Aurora. Mr. Robinson’s innate and near-masterful ability to transport the reader into any environment with an efficient descriptive style serves as the constant anchor, even as the structure fractures and becomes unmoored into nonsense. This is broken once the reader’s eyes inevitably fall upon sentences like “Because when the taps run dry society becomes real” on page one hundred and sixty-nine. The adolescent tone of this work saturates almost every page after the book. More importantly, the reader stops caring about the characters in the book as they are worn down with every passing chapter. The breaking point upon which the audience will become severed from any chance of enjoying this book comes when it briefly focuses on one of Mary’s coworkers. It does so with no warning, and within a couple of chapters, they are murdered in a manner that is telegraphed so poorly that the reader most likely could have written the outcome word for word in advance.
It is easy not to recommend this book to almost everyone, but there is a rather large segment of the population to whom I would most certainly insist this book upon. If you do any sort of writing in your professional life, whether that be in emails, notes, reports, or if you are a writer by profession, this book serves as a pristine example of how not only not to write, but also how not to treat one’s audience. We tend to think of large bodies of text in messaging apps, presentations, and emails as disrespectful to others’ time, but this is only true if the content is not worthy of one’s attention. The Ministry for the Future manages to be easily two to three times the length it needs to be, while also filling its two beautifully printed covers with content that serves no one, save for the word-count window at the bottom of a word processor. Getting to the point is one thing, but to purposefully derail and hold another’s time hostage is a fundamental breach of the contract we all sign when we write for another person.
As attention spans are famously being strained at the time of writing this article, if you are going to expect others to read your work, you must respect them by putting in the work. Any correspondence or literary work suffers without a clear and honest mission, and this is where Mr. Robinson’s work ultimately unravels.
Time of writing: April 6th, 2026