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A review by eoghann
Flood by Stephen Baxter
3.0
What if the waters just kept rising and rising?
That's the basic premise of this book. Stephen Baxter avoids the politically treacherous ground of global warming and simply goes for pockets of water under the crust that are somehow released causing escalating flooding.
It's a very simple idea and the early part of the book which is set round about now plays heavily on familiarity first by showing the effects of a relatively modest sea level rise on London and then later the effect of a more substantial rise on New York.
These are places that everyone "knows" so it's easy to connect. It's also why pretty much every disaster movie uses these locations. And that's what the early sections read like too. But since this is Stephen Baxter it's only a matter of time before the science starts to come through.
And as the story evolves it becomes more and more documentary like. There are longer jumps as Baxter shows the progression of the flooding. We move out of the familiar areas and into more remote parts of the world. People's lives change radically.
But at the same time while that happens we start to lose our connection with the central characters. Their lives are harder to relate to and because of the time jumps we don't get to grow with them. It was still fascinating to see where they were going, but I wasn't personally invested in the outcomes any more.
There were sections in fact that felt like they only existed as an opportunity to explain what might happen in a scenario like this. Particularly the exploration of a sunken London. I enjoyed the imagery but by that point it felt like there was really no plot any more. Just a series of disconnected scenes.
Flood is the first part of a duology which is completed by Ark, which I haven't read yet. I mention that because while the book does stand on its own, there are clearly elements set up here that will play out in the sequel. It's possible that may change my view of this book somewhat.
For all its flaws, I'd still recommend reading the book. It is quite fascinating in its exploration of the global flooding scenario
That's the basic premise of this book. Stephen Baxter avoids the politically treacherous ground of global warming and simply goes for pockets of water under the crust that are somehow released causing escalating flooding.
It's a very simple idea and the early part of the book which is set round about now plays heavily on familiarity first by showing the effects of a relatively modest sea level rise on London and then later the effect of a more substantial rise on New York.
These are places that everyone "knows" so it's easy to connect. It's also why pretty much every disaster movie uses these locations. And that's what the early sections read like too. But since this is Stephen Baxter it's only a matter of time before the science starts to come through.
And as the story evolves it becomes more and more documentary like. There are longer jumps as Baxter shows the progression of the flooding. We move out of the familiar areas and into more remote parts of the world. People's lives change radically.
But at the same time while that happens we start to lose our connection with the central characters. Their lives are harder to relate to and because of the time jumps we don't get to grow with them. It was still fascinating to see where they were going, but I wasn't personally invested in the outcomes any more.
There were sections in fact that felt like they only existed as an opportunity to explain what might happen in a scenario like this. Particularly the exploration of a sunken London. I enjoyed the imagery but by that point it felt like there was really no plot any more. Just a series of disconnected scenes.
Flood is the first part of a duology which is completed by Ark, which I haven't read yet. I mention that because while the book does stand on its own, there are clearly elements set up here that will play out in the sequel. It's possible that may change my view of this book somewhat.
For all its flaws, I'd still recommend reading the book. It is quite fascinating in its exploration of the global flooding scenario