Greenhouse Summer

A century hence. Melted Antarctic ice cap and flooded coastlines, drowned cities and low-lying inland areas. Temperatures have risen to making Paris a tropical destination, and Siberia a super-fertile growing area. The third world is a terminal shambles: 'Lands of the Lost.' Prognosis, according to some predictive weather models: 'Condition Venus'; catastrophic runaway temperature rise and the eventual extinction of all life. Certain meteorological phenomena suggest that is inevitable. Current political and economic trends have led to the inevitable: rule by conglomerates, which are going to wring the last bit of profit out of the situation. They control governments and the fate of the world. 'Blue Machine' is one such, profiting from the eco-mess and maybe even manipulating the weather to ensure that their business grows and they become ever more indispensable. Why it's on the list: Spinrad is the master of the cynical subversive novel. His cynicism often focuses on individual character, though there he tends to find redeeming features in the sheer complexity of the human soul. No such ambiguity is allowed in his view of humans acting as political, corporate and generally sociopathic and monomaniac creatures, having completely surrendered their better values to such lovely traits as greed and hunger for power. This novel looks like a Global Warming tale, and in a way it is. But it's really about political and corporate greed and complete lack of even a smidgen of ethics. Ratings: Grimness: 4, Bizarreness: 1, Hope: 2, Fun-factor: 5.