New York 2140: Booktrack Edition

Written by Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrated by Suzanne Toren, Robin Miles, Peter Ganim and 6 more

New York 2140: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! *
As the sea levels rose, every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city.
There is the market trader, who finds opportunities where others find trouble. There is the detective, whose work will never disappear - along with the lawyers, of course.
There is the internet star, beloved by millions for her airship adventures, and the building's manager, quietly respected for his attention to detail. Then there are two boys who don't live there, but have no other home - and who are more important to its future than anyone might imagine.
Lastly there are the coders, temporary residents on the roof, whose disappearance triggers a sequence of events that threatens the existence of all - and even the long-hidden foundations on which the city rests.
*Booktrack is an immersive format that pairs traditional audiobook narration to complementary music. The tempo and rhythm of the score are in perfect harmony with the action and characters throughout the audiobook. Gently playing in the background, the music never overpowers or distracts from the narration, so listeners can enjoy every minute. When you purchase this Booktrack edition, you receive the exact narration as the traditional audiobook available, with the addition of music throughout.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hachette Audio
• Release date: May 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781549128141

Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson was born in 1952. After travelling and working around the world, he settled in his beloved California. He is widely regarded as the finest science fiction writer working today, noted as much for the verisimilitude of his characters as the meticulously researched scientific basis of his work. He has won just about every major sf award there is to win and is the author of the massively successful and highly praised ‘Mars’ series.

Reviews for New York 2140

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

:sigh:
I don't like NYC. Even the title of the book bothers me, because Hello, New York is a lot more than NYC, y'know.
And I don't like boating tech, or finance, or being told all the details of how climate change is going to go down, or other near future preachiness.
And I think it's weird that there are no actual families in the story. People are still breeding, but none of the people we have names for, just the refugees we're supposed to feel sorry for, and they don't get names.
And there's no slang except a few necessary words, no language drift... 122 years in the future there would be enough that it would totally show, but not be different enough to be back-translated. I did grin at the adoption of the word "township" though....
I really had trouble getting into this.

But then I decided to just skim the nerdy bits, and appreciate Franklin's poetical bent, and watch the other, not quite as interesting, characters, and look for the pops of fun bits and the bits of ideas of how the rest of the world has been impacted. It is huge on "What If" and big on "Sense of Wonder" which is what I look for in SF, so I feel compelled to work through it.
---------
Just over a hundred pages left. I really wish this had been broken up into at least two books. Very disturbing. I mean, most characters are good people, so that's nice. But honestly, if the author's intent is to make even those of us, who are already making less of a carbon footprint than the book's characters are making, feel guilty and lose sleep, he's succeeding. Otoh, if he wants to convert the careless or indulgent, I'm sure he's failing. I will be so glad when this is over. And by this I mean the book. Maybe.
---------
Done. Thank goodness. Glad I read it. Can't quite recommend it to those of you unconvinced.

[treebeard_404 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

When Kim Stanley Robinson is on target, he is one of the best SF writers working today. New York 2140 is definitely on target. But unlike many of his novels, there is a very strong streak of observation and opinion being conveyed here. Robinson believes our current course, economically, politically, and technologically is unsustainable. And he has prescriptions to offer. You may not agree with some (or any) of them. But they're worth reading and considering, because they will make you think about what we are doing and what we should be doing. And Robins carries this off with interesting characters and detailed research that are the hallmarks of his writing.
[Audiobook note: The audiobook version uses multiple readers. All are good. But my absolute favorite is the one who calls himself "Citizen" and reflects on the varied and fascinating history of New York city in a strong New York accent. I imagine I will listen to just the chapters he narrates for the sheer enjoyment and learning of it.]

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent sci-fi book for nerdy readers, with lots of ecology and socioeconomic theory mixed in.

[mmparker-213929 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There's a lot of loopy stuff going on in this book that I might not have tolerated so well a year ago, but goddamn is it made for 2017.

[lschiff-742783 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

So disappointing. The writing is very bland and feels like a middling-author's transposition of a basic mystery novel set in the not-too-distant-fairly-familiar-future with so many stock, predictable characters. But worst of all is the lack of exploration of this new reality and what it took to get from here to there. "The Citizen" sections just don't cut it for me. Ultimately, he ended up glossing over what should have been the key and most interesting parts of such a book--the details of how, in this changed world, people get through the day and how the transition from roadways to waterways occurred. I want to know, for instance, what people do without toilets and an electrical system, or, if they have plumbing and power grids after significant sea level rise, how in the hell did all that submerged infrastructure get rebuilt quickly enough to support everyone (really? I hardly think so) in metropolitan NYC?

[david_fosco · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

New York, a captivating backdrop for any story and this one's no different.
It starts off slow with major character development but ends with a whirlwind of excitement.

[iira_24 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting premise, but at times a bit heavy. Some of the characters were a bit thin, although I like the multiple perspectives. The world and the overall stroryline are fascinating, and that was enough to pull me though.

Very small text in the pb edition, a pain to read.

[martialalex92 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not post apocalyptic even though it looks that way. Lots on finance and sailing terminology wrapped up in it, but interesting stuff

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In this science fiction dystopian novel set in the year 2140, climate change has caused the ice caps to melt, increasing sea level by fifty feet and flooding New York’s low-lying areas. Many former offices buildings have been converted to housing and now include boat docks in the lower floors. The plot line follows eleven characters living in the MetLife Tower on Madison Square, whose stories begin separately but eventually converge. One of these characters, referred to as “a citizen,” serves as a vehicle for the author to impart information.

This book serves as a warning of what could happen by ignoring, or at the very least not adequately addressing, global warming. It is heavily influenced by the economic bubble of 2008 and its aftermath. The narrative sends a message about how short-sightedness and selfishness could lead to an ecological catastrophe. He describes a possible new global economy and envisions the legal, political, environmental, technological, scientific, and human impacts.

I found it quirky and creative, though difficult to become absorbed into the story and rather lengthy at over 600 pages. The plot and character development take a back seat to the message. There’s A LOT of economics in this book, so be prepared for an analysis of financial markets and discussions of hedging, leveraging, day trading, and financial indices. It’s not all financial though, as it includes bizarre scenes such as polar bears riding in a dirigible, a man that thinks he has seen the ghost of Herman Melville, boys using a treasure map and diving bell, and women participating in the new sport of “water sumo.” I found parts of this book riveting and other parts tedious.

Recommended to those with an interest in science fiction dystopias/utopias, climate change, finance, or economics of the future. I also imagine people who live or have spent a good amount of time in the city of New York may enjoy it for the many local references. Content warnings: profanity and a bit of sex.

Overall, an intriguing premise weighed down by heavy-handed messaging.

[venarain-354758 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I picked this book by chance at the library and then spent the next week reading it obsessively. It's 613 pages long, so it actually took me a while to get through. It was just perfect, laser focused while being huge and sprawling, hopeful so but painfully aware of human nature. It's got its problematic items (ahem, only identifying race when some is non-white? Aren't we passed that yet?) but still, just read it.

[expatscot-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Really good dystopian-type adventure, well it seems more an adventure than a thriller to be honest.

[wishanem · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoy near-future Sci-Fi that isn't relentlessly depressing, and this is that. New York 2140 is the best sort of escapist Sci-Fi, reasonably plausible but showing how to make the best of a bad situation. It is a lot like Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" but for the modern world where we can't imagine colonizing the moon so much as just trying to survive after ecological disaster.

This book features a buddy comedy duo, some scrappy street kids who discover a buried treasure, a stock broker who learns to love, and even an idealistic politician who makes good. There are more than a couple of plot twists, most of them positive, and the overall arc of the story is hopeful.

[danjlaf · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not too bad but a bit dry reading to me. Futuristic situation of climate changes changing NYC is of interest

[nodosaurus · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book tells the story of several people inhabiting a skyscraper in New York City in the year 2140. Global warming has raised the ocean level to the point of flooding lower-elevation buildings in the city. Some people live below the high-tide level. Below sea level in poorer sections of town.

One plot line involves elderly man who studies old maps and two young boys. The man believes he’s discovered the location of an old shipwreck that had been carrying gold. The two boys take it on themselves to look for it.

Two hackers trying to unbalance the current government, which has become more oppressive and has concentrated money and power in smaller numbers. They have created some code to disrupt Wall Street. This is the underlying theme of the book, money is the main social problem and bringing down the finial system is a way to free it.

The building janitor lives, by choice in an under-high-tide apartment. He seems to be part of the story mainly to explain some features of the technology and find tools.

A reality tv start who lives aloft in a large balloon is trying to save endangered species. A couple of other characters who’s main purpose is to provide ideas and access to equipment.

The story is told as an adventure story. It ultimately brings all the characters together to focus on changing the world. I found the book a little preachy at times. I think Kim Stanley Robinson has better books, but this one is good.

[tatere-23877 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A helluva book, a helluva book. Amelia Black is absolutely Best Girl. About halfway thru I became convinced they were all about to die horribly bc I liked them too much.

[grandpahobo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book. The individual stories are interesting and expertly woven together. There are no lulls.

While the ecological disasters brought about by climate change are dominant theme of the book, I was just as intrigued by the effects of disaster capitalism the author portrays. Its amazing to think that after so much destruction and reconfiguration of society, capitalism would survive and thrive, just like cockroaches and mosquitoes.

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was a rambling story with a cast of characters (Franklin being the most annoying) - from water rat orphans, to financiers, to a social media star in a blimp - the rest of them traversed sunken lower Manhattan via boat and sky bridge. The stories are there to illustrate some ideas of how humans would survive 50 feet of sea rise in the future. The political denouement was shallow and seemed naive, but it was a fun future city to visit.

[pdill8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson is a trip into a future in which climate change has rearranged the landscape, but many of the issues are business as usual in America for politicians and financiers. I was torn on this book- on one hand I loved the world building. New York City has become the Super Venice, streets replaced with canals. It was so thought out, so vivid! On the other hand, as the story line progressed it became like a Socialist Fountainhead. The details of the stock market got to be a little much for me and the political message was a bit too heavy handed. Glad I read it- not for everyone!

[abycats_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brief comment: not meant for listening. Read this book instead.

[lavaturtle · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Only made it 50-some pages into this tome before quitting, because I find the writing style irritating and the plot had not yet started. I wanted to like this book, because it seems like the kind of hopeful solarpunk post-apocalyptic thing I'd be into. But I think Robinson's style is just not for me.

[renbedell · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A near future exposition on what New York would be like becomes completely flooded due to global warming. The story follows assortment of people in different walks of life on how they deal with a crisis that has become an everyday life. It is nice to see the generational differences on how each character responds to the new way of life. The book centers more on what the world would look like in the future, therefore it focuses on world building, but in a realistic world. There is very little plot. It is well written and narration was fantastic. Although it may not be the best book to read through audiobooks as I found it easy to drift since there is no plot to hold on to.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Robinson’s optimism is increasingly more academically interesting to me than emotionally resonant, but he is good at worldbuilding, so to speak. A half-drowned NYC is still a center of global financial capital, and also of people who come to try to make better lives, although the city is trying to limit the entrance of refugees in order to concentrate on its own struggling residents. Various residents of an apartment building/co-op whose lower floors are now a boat dock make their way, some of them actively trying to take down capitalist exploitation and others just trying to survive it. Lots of quotes about New York, many of them witty. Channeling Whitman, Robinson writes, “Mother Nature bats last, and Mother Ocean is strong, and we live inside our mothers forever, and Life is tenacious and you can never kill it, you can never buy it,/So Life is going to dirve down into your dark pools, Life is going to explode the enclosures and bring back the commons,/O you dark pools of money and law … /Hoping for safety, hoping for cessation of uncertainty, hoping for ownership of volatility, O you poor fearful jerks,/Life! Life! Life! Life is going to kick your ass.” And I never saw it before, but Robinson clearly makes sense as an heir to Whitman in his faith in an unending, unpredictable human future.

[questbird · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Unchecked global warming and financial irresponsibility are Kim Stanley Robinson's concerns in this book. It takes place some decades after two cataclysmic global flooding events, caused by unexpectedly severe melting of polar ice. Coastal cities such as New York are now partially flooded, but made liveable through the use of advanced materials and technology. Several characters from a single intertidal building, as well as a disembodied 'citizen' narrator (actually my favourite of the narrative voices) create the window to this future New York City. KSR wants to tell a global story. He uses his archetypal characters to represent the people of New York. He uses New York to represent the world (and Denver as the never-seen new HQ of liquid global capital). However, New York is an atypical global city. The United States is an atypical country. So I find the analogy unsatisfying, except that it conveys the self-absorption of the United States in general and the people of New York in particular. I also am unconvinced that global capital flows would not have been changed greatly by the flooding events and subsequent desparate generational decarbonisation efforts described in the book -- it seems that these events would re-shape global human society as much as World War Two. Yet not only is the United States still intact and with a political economy almost exactly as it was a century and a half earlier, but existing 21st century financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Bank of America continue to reign supreme in the financial world. It may be 2140 for climate change, but it seems like 2008 in the finance world, which sounds a wrong note.

[gwendydd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

New York 2140 takes place in New York City after sea levels have risen enough that downtown is under water. New Yorkers being New Yorkers, they adapt and continue to live there.

The world building is fantastic - Robinson goes into a lot of detail about how the flooding happened, buildings are fortified to withstand having their bottom stories under water, how people get around, how the economy responds.

The characters are reasonably engaging and varied, and their stories are reasonably engaging.

However, after hours and hours and hours of reading this very long book, it's like Robinson suddenly realized that some stuff actually needs to happen, so a bunch of really huge things happen, but they get glossed over really quickly. Then suddenly it feels like he got tired of writing the book and tacked on a sappy ending and stopped. There are major pacing problems - early in the book, we are treated to pages and pages and pages of a rich jerk whining that the girl he has a crush on thinks he's a jerk, and then a major worldwide financial revolution happens over the course of a few pages. Robinson goes into intense detail about how the lower stories of buildings are fortified, but doesn't bother to explain at all how two undocumented children can launder billions of dollars of found gold.

In other words, the book is a great thought experiment, but the story leaves a lot to be desired.

The book is also very much a commentary on 2017. By 2140, or even 2040, it will be very dated. The book dwells a lot on the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, on our current willful ignorance of the effects of climate change, and on our current rampant capitalism.

I listened to the audiobook (at 1.8x speed because otherwise it would have taken me months to finish). The cast of narrators is very good, and the book is engaging as an audiobook.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very enjoyable read this story goes lightly over heavy ground. Too many view point characters for my taste but each had significant contributions and no window on the baddies, so that's a plus.

[guide2_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Took way too long to really get started and more about economics than sci-fi. Almost did not finish it...

[lissabeth21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Prophetic! If you have any interest in the environment, in the resilence of the human species, this is for you.

[pierthinker · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kim Stanley Robinson's story of a future New York following the effects of climate change catastrophe has three threads intertwined into the lives of New Yorkers.

The first and main thread describes life in New York following a century of climate change. Two ice cap melting events have seen water levels rise with major impacts on coastal cities around the world. In New York most of Manhattan is either submerged or part of the intertidal zone where property becomes visible only at low tide. Many skyscrapers, their lower floors submerged, are owner-occupied co-operatives/communes with shared facilities, including dining halls. The flooded streets have become canals and most people have access to boats or public transport in the form of vaporetti (water taxis). Of course, technology has advanced, although most of this is described in terms of building technologies for strengthening and waterproofing semi-submerged buildings. The only other visible technology is a greatly increased use of blimps, airships and balloons for transportation and, in some cases, extended aerial living. The dry parts of Manhattan are covered in super-skyscrapers well over 2000 feet tall. Robinson is especially skilled at describing future and strange environments in terms that a resident would understand; describing this alien world in every day chores and actions and trials and tribulations.

The second thread of this book is to project todays neo-liberal capitalist politics and its worst excesses - greedy bankers and a focus on financial value as a measure of all things - onto this future world. Robinson posits how a popular and non-violent revolution of the people can thwart the bankers and entrenched money-men politics by nationalising all banks and making the economy work with the common good in mind. I agree with Robinson that the current model has gone awry and I support his view that capitalist market economics is the preferred solution, but with appropriate controls in place. Would this cronyism survive another 150 years and two catastrophic climate change events? Would the correction to market capitalism be achieved by peaceful men? I am not so sure in both cases.

The last and most subtle thread of this book is to look at what a city is, what gives it its particular character and how its citizens think about both it and themselves. New York has a character built over 500 years of shared living, so how does this change with the massive impacts described here? I think Robinson's answer here is both a lot and not very much. The mechanics of how the city works (transport, food, shelter, jobs) are heavily impacted and affect how people see and interact with each other. It is clear that communal living and the shared inconveniences of a recovering disaster zone chip away at perceived differences - everyone is almost literally in the same boat. New York as a magnet for people wanting to change their lives or to get on in their own ways has not changed; New York in 2140 is still one of the centres of the modern world.

I think this is Robinson's best book for some time.

[antao-3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“Did you ever read Waiting for Godot?
“No.”
“Did you ever read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead?”
“No.”
“Did you ever read Kiss of the Spider Woman?”
“No.”
“Did you ever read---“
“Jeff, stop it. I’ve never read anything.”
“Some coders read.”
“Yeah that’s right. I’ve read The R Cookbook. Also, Everything you Always Wanted to Know about R. Also, R for Dummies.”
“I don’t like R.”


In “New York 2140” by Kim Stanley Robinson


After having read the latest Stanley Robinson, a scene in Kurosawa's 'One Wonderful Sunday' from 1947 popped up in my mind, where at the very beginning two young lovers plead with the cinema audience to support young lovers everywhere and clap and cheer as they imagine themselves performing Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.
The background to the scene is that the too poverty stricken young lovers spend a rare day off wandering the ruins of post war Tokyo trying to have some fun and imagine some sort of future. They try to see a performance of Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, but are tricked out of the tickets by scalpers. So, they go instead to the empty auditorium. The young man threatens to fall into despair but his girlfriend instead turns to the audience and pleads for 'all young lovers' to give them their support by clapping.
Kurosawa was disappointed that the scene was greeted with mute puzzlement by Japanese audiences (although the film was a success). However, on its rare showings in Europe, this scene got an enthusiastic response, especially in Paris.
Do you think modern SF readers will notice what Robinson did we this novel? Robinson is not exactly a Neal Stephenson, but comes close in his mastery of the dying art of the info dump and breaking the 4th wall. The latter is a theatre term that dates to the 19th century. It’s the imaginary wall between the audience and the stage. Breaking the 4th wall is when the characters deliberately address the audience, like the way Robinson did here with the chapters titled “Citizen”, wherein the omniscient narrator talked directly to the reader. Did he succeed? Regardless of its sometimes-non-mastery, I tend to get immersed all the same because essentially when I'm reading these novels of ideas-SF, I'm reading about some unexamined aspect of myself. And everyone's interested in discovering something about themselves. That’s why I usually enjoy both Stephenson and Robinson, even when they’re not successful. I think that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't; I’d imagine that it's very difficult to do well unless it's connected to some sort of mental state in the characters. Stephenson does this beautifully. I also belong to the sect which believes the info dump, when done right, is what makes SF unique.


SF = Speculative Fiction

[stellarexplorer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

New York 2140 is a wild romp through Venice-cum-New York City in the aftermath of two massive ice melts that have significantly submerged large parts of Manhattan. People live in the skyscrapers of the city even as the lower floors are underwater. The rivers and canals are now traversed by all manner of watercraft, where before the subway and automobile reigned. KSR captures the indomitable energy of the city, which persists and thrives despite the drowning. The book is vivid, wild, untamed with colorful characters.

It is also chock full of ideas and chaos and survival. Readers familiar with Stan’s work will recognize impeccable research – in this case especially into New York City history, global financial shenanigans, and the science of sea level rise – and the courageous risk-taking that characterizes much of his work. Prominent in the cake mix are the author’s utopian leanings, with a healthy icing of critique of capitalism. I use that odd expression in part to try to imitate his fearless persistence at new verbal constructions, puns and neologisms, seemingly unconcerned about the inevitable failure of some portion of these. And most elicit at least a wry smile.

Under all this energy is a carefully constructed structure, with repeating sequences of orderly chapters each one following a particular character. The structure appears to mimic in abstraction something of the grid-like face of the city itself. The homage to Dos Passos’ cinematic, panoramic experimentalism is hard to miss. In the end, one may wonder about the payoff; after all, this is a long and imperfect novel requiring the time and persistence of the reader. But against that is balanced dynamic world-building, an entertaining romp without let-up, and a serious consideration of a future that seems ever more possible. Maybe the most fun one can have with global warming!