The Deluge

De: Stephen Markley

Narrado por: Corey Brill, Danny Campbell, Gibson Frazier, Stephen Graybill, Soneela Nankani, Joy Osmanski, Melissa Redmond, Aida Reluzco, André Santana, Neil Shah, Aven Shore, Shakira Shute, Pete Simonelli, Shaun Taylor-Corbett

A New York Times Notable Book
“This book is, simply put, a modern classic. If you read it, you'll never forget it. Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.” —Stephen King

From the bestselling author of Ohio, a masterful American epic charting a near future approaching collapse and a nascent but strengthening solidarity.

In the first decades of the 21st century, the world is convulsing, its governments mired in gridlock while a patient but unrelenting ecological crisis looms. America is in upheaval, battered by violent weather and extreme politics. In California in 2013, Tony Pietrus, a scientist studying deposits of undersea methane, receives a death threat. His fate will become bound to a stunning cast of characters—a broken drug addict, a star advertising strategist, a neurodivergent mathematician, a cunning eco-terrorist, an actor turned religious zealot, and a brazen young activist named Kate Morris, who, in the mountains of Wyoming, begins a project that will alter the course of the decades to come.

From the Gulf Coast to Los Angeles, the Midwest to Washington, DC, their intertwined odysseys unfold against a stark backdrop of accelerating chaos as they summon courage, galvanize a nation, fall to their own fear, and find wild hope in the face of staggering odds. As their stories hurtle toward a spectacular climax, each faces a reckoning: what will they sacrifice to salvage humanity’s last chance at a future? A singular achievement, The Deluge is a once-in-a-generation novel that meets the moment as few works of art ever have.

©2022 Stephen Markley. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved

S King said it best - prophetic and terrifying

4.35 stars
I sometimes get scared off by books over 40 hours in length and I don’t often take heed on the quote on the cover from another author/newspaper/etc. But this book was different. Stephen King’s quote on the book cover was very spot on:
This book is, simply put, a modern classic. If you read it, you'll never forget it. Prophetic, terrifying, uplifting.

I would partially agree on the uplifting part of it and fully agree on the prophetic and terrifying aspects to go a little further of downright disturbing. This book is so realistic that I feel like it’s happening, and these people are real people. And I keep thinking about it… unfortunately…

To put it simply, this author built a backstory of a collection of characters that started 10 years ago from current day. He then took all the current nature-based crises and all the predicted crises and amplified those by tenfold or so and then told the story as if we were all living it in real time. Global warming is out of control (planes can’t even operate in Phoenix because it’s too hot), forest fires happen so quick and burn so hot that they melt everything in their path like lava, hurricanes are so huge that they span from island country to island country, wiping out and displacing millions of people, and American politics is out of control (not a far cry from today).

There are some very interesting ideas brought up in this book to where I wonder where we blur the lines of science fiction to going-to-become-reality. Just wait until you get to the actual Deluge. That was an intense sequence of events that raised my heartrate significantly.

One of my complaints about the book is that when we go from chapter to chapter, changing points-of-view, it is not always clear on who the next POV is. I think this was the intention but for reading comprehension, it would have been better if this was announced at the beginning of the chapter (or at least early on). This book does great at staying linear (for the most part) in the timeline and makes sure the reader knows where we are in time. There are a ton of characters but there is enough ‘review’ to know who is who (and some characters can be forgotten – I think).

Audiobook narrator [Full Cast] rating: 4.3 stars
I thought the narration was great and it was fun having a mostly full cast audio production. I am not sure what the complaint was from other reviews on Audible about this (saying it sounded like it was recorded on a headset). The speaking was clear to me. The Audible phone app still really sucks. I wish they would improve it to make it useful, or at least somewhat compatible with other audiobook apps. It’s too bad we can’t listen to these Audible books on a different app that works appropriately.

If you read one book this year, read or listen to this

Yes, this is a very long book and worth every sentence. For the first 20 hours I actually made myself notes to keep track of the characters. During the time that I was listening to this book, I was stunned, and a bit frightened by how often scenarios that were being presented as near future fiction in the book were actually playing out in our present. The author and the very capable readers did an extraordinary job of demonstrating the intricate complications of climate, change, politics, economic, disparity, migration, and disease. Get this book, read it, or listen to it, and talk to others!

if you read only one book, make it this.

Everyone on the planet should read/listen to, this. Especially Americans. My son recommended it and it was well worth the time invested.

Incredible work!!

Narration was spot on for this incredible work of literature! This is a must read!

Meh

Decent enough thriller in the vein of The Stand but scattershot narrative and anticlimactic ending makes it hard to recommend. Some genuine emotion at times but overlong and lacks any kind of cohesive through line

Captivating, sobering and hopeful all at once

I couldn’t stop reading - well, listening to this. Clearly we’ll researched on the science and tech side. And a very interesting approach with multiple narrators of the unfolding nightmare of climate and social chaos. The readers were all well above average- brought the different characters to life.

Bad editing - could cut 50%

Listen - I am on board with the general message about addressing climate change but this too way way too long to get going. Was hard to really care about any one character and was a bit too preachy.

Probably hits too close to home to receive its proper due credit

A cautionary tale about the brink our world is approaching as we disregard reality and continue accelerating into extinction.

Climate Change Disaster Novel

A valiant attempt to write a projection of the world 17 years in the future. it mostly succeeds.

Remarkable

It’s not often someone can balance such a sweeping narrative with such beautiful and evocative prose. It’s an incredible achievement and deserves to become a modern classic.