The front cover of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future boasts a quote attributed to novelist Jonathan Lethem reading "[this book] is the best science fiction nonfiction novel I've ever read." This alone is sure to raise the eyebrows of a few prospective readers. A novel that's at once fiction and nonfiction? Indeed, if Robinson chose to scrap each of his characters, fictional legislation, and the titular Ministry for the Future, he would be left with a hefty-sized essay on the effects of climate change as society falls deeper and deeper into a self-imposed apocalypse. On the other hand, if he chose to remove his nonfiction chapters on global development indexes, the Paris Agreement, the increasing globalization following WWII, and the rentier class among other topics, the novel would be a sizable work depicting the fictional branch of the UN designed to advocate for those without voices, including future generations, animals, and the environment. Each of these proposed shorter novels seem self-sufficient, but together they would be missing the most important feature of Robinson’s fiction nonfiction novel, namely the chapters told from unnamed global citizens as they describe rather candidly their lives as the climate worsens.
Both Robinson's nonfiction essays and his plotlines involving Frank, Mary, and the ministry are vital to the book; but what about that one chapter about the fishing boat that’s seized by pirates, or the chapters about the borers in Antarctica working to lower sea levels, or the vignette about the miners in Namibia? These sporadic and rather terse accounts from anonymous sources are by and far the most powerful inclusion to the book. They work to flesh out the fictional future that Robinson has created, but they also elucidate the eerie reality that The Ministry for the Future might be more nonfiction than thought, a prognosis of sorts. If humans don’t turn back the clock, then it won’t just be the Franks and Marys of the world that are affected - it will be the refugees, the citizens of LA, the patrons of Davos, the researchers in Antarctica. It will be both those above and below the tropics, both the people who did and did not play a sizable role in the Earth’s worsening climate, and both the main characters of the novel as well as those who remain nameless. A common theme across each of these accounts surprisingly is an optimism for the future. The miners in Namibia “cry for joy” as they are liberated by the AFRIPOL drones and nationalized (325). The glaciologists in Antarctica determine that their plan will slow the melting of the glaciers, “meaning a thousand years before it rises a meter” (264). Each person is dealing with the consequences of humanity’s previous negligence and yet they remain hopeful for the future. It seems as though each nameless character is individually experiencing the adverse effects of a dying world and yet they are interpreting it as a unique opportunity to band together globally and start anew. As the young woman caught in the LA flood says, “maybe we could do it right this time” (279).
I think you’re spot on in your analysis of just how revolutionary Ministry for the Future is, specifically the style in which Robinson wrote it. Through his writing, he reaches not only the well-informed climate scientist and enthusiast but also the less-informed average Joe looking for a good read. As individual literary elements, the fiction and nonfiction components of the story are useful enough on their own, but it’s the combination of both, that is truly impactful. It’s the fictional events framed by actual fact that scare the daylights out of people and awaken them to the dangers that await them if they fail to address climate change with the severity it deserves. The heat wave in India, the flooding of California, and the melting of the polar ice caps are excellent examples of a possible future intensified by climate change, as you put so well, a self-imposed apocalypse. Robinson takes real climate research and applies it to our current world to give readers a snapshot of what awaits them. His fictional characters forecast the future of humanity. 30 years from now, who will be walking the earth after it’s ravaged by natural disasters? Our children and grandchildren. The events of the novel and the characters who endure them, whether they’re anonymous or not, make The Ministry for the Future such an important example of progressive literature. How many other contemporary novels can satisfy those who lean towards science and the more liberal arts-inclined minds while simultaneously elucidating a single message about human agency? What is that message: Be afraid. Act now.
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