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New York 2140

Kim Stanley Robinson

Start date: September 1, 2025

Finish date: September 30, 2025

Discussion: New York 2140

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New York 2140

New York 2140 (9/25): Roll Call *No Spoilers*
By Kathi , Moderator & Book Lover · 7 posts · 14 views

last updated Sep 03, 2025 08:49AM

New York 2140 (9/25): Finished Reading *Spoilers OK*
By Kathi , Moderator & Book Lover · 1 post · 6 views

last updated Sep 01, 2025 08:34AM

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What Members Thought

Mar 22, 2017 Bradley rated it really liked it

Shelves: economics, sci-fi, 2017-shelf, worldbuilding-sf

This is a novel of great and towering ideas, indeed!

SF idea novels have a long and fantastic tradition in SF and I'll be honest: I love them all. It's a very specific and niche SF, but thank the heavens, Robinson made it big enough in people's estimations to be able to keep writing the fantastically deep stuff and let the world-building go wild.

Remember 2312? Remember the Mars trilogy? He dives deep into location and gives us a very broad view of a whole world or a whole time, drilling deep into This is a novel of great and towering ideas, indeed!

SF idea novels have a long and fantastic tradition in SF and I'll be honest: I love them all. It's a very specific and niche SF, but thank the heavens, Robinson made it big enough in people's estimations to be able to keep writing the fantastically deep stuff and let the world-building go wild.

Remember 2312? Remember the Mars trilogy? He dives deep into location and gives us a very broad view of a whole world or a whole time, drilling deep into how the society works while simultaneously having TON to say about ours.

Not only that, but in this novel, he manages to pull off something that I kinda feel like he always seems to have a bit of trouble with: the characters. There's even a solid economic plot here, threaded pretty expertly among really fascinating sub-plots all directly tied to this New York City of the future after all the waterlines have risen across the world.

The only time that this DOESN'T feel like a long love-letter to this NYC of the future that's not only breathing but fighting for it's life and culture like a character of its own, is with the extinction of subspecies subplot that takes us all over the place in a dirigible. With nuclear blasts that take out polar bears, floating balloon cities in Canada, or a naked butt over a treeline for an eager online audience. :)

Truly, this may not be a novel for everyone, but it *IS* a novel for all you lovers of the Idea Novel sub-genre, the kind of read that takes you to the heights and depths of an economic mystery and an engineered economic collapse.

Honestly, it actually feels like an updated and rather more comprehensive The Dervish House with the focus being on NYC rather than Hungary. But it it goes full-hog Economics-Punk and I laughed deliriously because I LOVE this kind of thing. It's about as far away as you can get from the regular old SF, treating you not only as someone smart, but someone willing to think for yourself and LIVE in this complicated world of Co-Op skyscrapers, derivatives experts, boat pilots, divers, and champions of law. :)

Above all, it's smart and dense and fascinating across the board.

Don't expect too much in the way of BIG plots other than the one, and settle in for a world-building ride with cool characters and one really, really big character that supercedes them all: NYC.

...more

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Jul 01, 2017 Ric rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Environmental SF (also, climate fiction) as good as what people are asking for that claim this topic is missing from SF today. (There, I got that out of my system.)

So, the great Warm-up has come and gone, and 50 years later we are introduced to the new New York. Water levels have risen by 50 feet, submerging much of the metropolis, turning it into a Venice-like maze of canals and waterways, where city blocks are demarcated by the upper floors of aging skyscrapers. Bridge walkways connect the bui Environmental SF (also, climate fiction) as good as what people are asking for that claim this topic is missing from SF today. (There, I got that out of my system.)

So, the great Warm-up has come and gone, and 50 years later we are introduced to the new New York. Water levels have risen by 50 feet, submerging much of the metropolis, turning it into a Venice-like maze of canals and waterways, where city blocks are demarcated by the upper floors of aging skyscrapers. Bridge walkways connect the buildings, forming an aerial maze by which its denizens traverse the city as an alternative to taking boats and barges to move about. The characters that are to carry this sprawling narrative forward are all residents (of a sort) one building, the old Met Life Tower, which has been turned into a residence cooperative. Thus we meet, its board member (Joanna??), its super (Vlade), squatters (Mutt and Jeff), two water rats (homeless boys, Roberto and ???), policewoman (Jessica), a hedge fund trader (Franklin, not Frank) and an environmental blogger (Amelia) who travels the world in a blimp. Each of these have their own stories, and in telling their stories, we get to know more about this future as imagined by the author. Among the story threads - an apparent attempt to sabotage the Met to influence a buyout offer, the search for gold treasure claimed to be in the depths of the city, the effect of a strong hurricane on an already reeling populace, an attempt to relocate polar bears from the melting Arctic to the still viable southern polar region, and so on. As with the author's books of recent vintage, the characters tend to be imbued with unassuming kindness and mildness, altruism, all similarly modeled humans lacking abiding darkness, evil or abuse.

The backdrop of a familiar New York City transformed by climate change is quite compelling. The author immerses one in this future so deeply that it feels almost real, as if one would expect gondolas the next time he/she visits old Gotham. The infodumps at the start of chapters tend to be tolerable, sometimes whimsical and at others bookish, but they do help build the tone of the book since all invariably deal with some aspect of the history, the people, the city, drawing one into closer examination of what makes the "City That Doesn't Sleep" tick.

I've also gotten used to the Robinson novels which take on a pattern totally opposite potboilers. Just buy your ticket, take a seat and enjoy the ride, it's cool and invigorating.
...more

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Jan 30, 2020 Cheryl rated it liked it

: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 s ...more

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Jul 22, 2017 Soo rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish, reviewed, audiobook

I got the audiobook because I like to try out the stories that are backed by a cast of narrators. I didn't get very far into the book. I listened to about fifteen minutes before I gave it up. I didn't want to listen to a debate on the end of the world based on economics. Those are the kind of conversations that are fun to have when you are a part of the conversation. It's not necessarily a great way to open a story that's suppose to be at the end of the world, etc. ...more

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