Termination Shock

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 22 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

The number one New York Times best-selling author returns with a visionary technothriller about climate change.

Neal Stephenson’s sweeping, prescient new novel transports listeners to a near-future world where the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves and virulent, deadly pandemics.

One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as 'elemental'. But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?

As only Stephenson can, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

©2021 Neal Stephenson (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Neal Stephenson has never been afraid of engaging with big ideas within genre forms, and Termination Shock might be his most visionary, and timely, book yet." (Chicago Review of Books)

"Wonderfully human...ingenious and sometimes prophetic.... Stephenson has become a totemic figure for 21st century scientific writers." (Telegraph)

"Stephenson’s reputation as a sci-fi titan is deserved." (Sunday Times)

Pass the early chapters, worth it

The expository dumps of boring biographies almost made me give up. Glad I didn't.

Oddly unsatisfying

This is a very well written story, with good pacing and read by a great narrator. It just isn't that interesting though. The characters are all interesting and the backdrop has lots of potential yet by the end I couldn't really say that it delivered a wow moment. I'm normally a fan of Stephenson (I even quite liked Reamde) but this one fell a little flat. Maybe it's the start of a series and if so then I'll be happy to follow along.

Not Stephenson's best but interesting

Neal Stephenson is still a genius, and there are always so very many interesting factoids one can learn from reading a tome like Termination Point.

However, don't expect much of a plot in the conventional sense. This climate change speculative fiction has a lot of interesting things to say about the fall of America (although not as good as the first half of his previous book Fall), and of course the unique scientific take on how geo-engineering with a giant sulfur gun could be the answer to environmental disaster is a hell of a Big Idea premise. Then there's the global politics of it all, the somewhat coherent story of India going to war with Texas while China secretly manipulates, which happens to be from point of view of Netherlands royalty.

But besides whether or not one finds 700 pages of that a bit of a slug... Something feels off. Perhaps being too socially conscious these days prevents me from enjoying things, like I never minded the libertarian ethos of Cryptonomicon back in the day, but there's some awfully weird political subtext I currently can't seem to get over. It's a book about how fossil fuels have destroyed the planet, which is undeniable, and yet there are so many off lines about how it's the Greens who are the problem and won't let anyone make real progress. That the European far right going from climate denial to a pro-geoengineering stance overnight would be a good thing. And the moral of the story is basically to trust an oil billionaire to innovate out of this worldwide problem.

Don't get me wrong, it's fascinating. But it's been a long time since Stephenson wrote the excellent epic Anathem and the outstanding Americana satire Snow Crash. Perhaps he's best at tech thrillers now, not social critiques. I'm still ever curious to know any of his near-future predictions about the state of the country and the world, just can't say it quite works in this particular book.

Stephenson always a hero

but....this book is amazingly boring..
like truly boring, highly derivative with emphasis in all the wrong places.
and I survived sevenevess and reamde (I actually quite like that one ).

I tried for days... and when I see 8 hours left... in still not even understanding what's the issue !!
disappointing Neal....very