Forty Signs of Rain

Science in the Capital, Book 1

By: Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrated by: Peter Ganim, Kim Stanley Robinson

Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

The best-selling author of the classic Mars trilogy and The Years of Rice and Salt returns with a riveting new trilogy of cutting-edge science, international politics, and the real-life ramifications of global warming as they are played out in our nation's capital-and in the daily lives of those at the center of the action. Hauntingly realistic, here is a novel of the near future that is inspired by scientific facts already making headlines.

When the Arctic ice pack was first measured in the 1950s, it averaged 30 feet thick in midwinter. By the end of the century it was down to 15. One August the ice broke. The next year the breakup started in July. The third year it began in May. That was last year.

It's an increasingly steamy summer in the nation's capital as Senate environmental staffer Charlie Quibler cares for his young son and deals with the frustrating politics of global warming. Charlie must find a way to get a skeptical administration to act before it's too late-and his progeny find themselves living in Swamp World. But the political climate poses almost as great a challenge as the environmental crisis when it comes to putting the public good ahead of private gain.

While Charlie struggles to play politics, his wife, Anna, takes a more rational approach to the looming crisis in her work at the National Science Foundation. There a proposal has come in for a revolutionary process that could solve the problem of global warming-if it can be recognized in time. But when a race to control the budding technology begins, the stakes only get higher. As these everyday heroes fight to align the awesome forces of nature with the extraordinary march of modern science, they are unaware that fate is about to put an unusual twist on their work-one that will place them at the heart of an unavoidable storm.

BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Kim Stanley Robinson.

Listen to all of our Capital Trilogy titles.

©2005 Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One of the most accomplished and popular writers working in science fiction today." ( Time)

Great book, terrible narrator

Once you get used to the narrator's awful cadence it is a really enjoyable, thought-provoking book.

narrator might as well be robot AI voice.

good story but seriously terrible narration. consider 1.25x? I will try this to finish it.

It Just Goes On

I always enjoy this author’s version of everything. He’s much smarter than anyone I know. This delved into many aspects of everyday life to culminate into a climatic event. “He’ll see what he can do.” I was paying attention. Everything will remain the same.

I love Kim Stanley Robinson

So many “popular” scifi and other writers get lazy with character development once they become top selling authors. But not this guy. And this work is so thoughtful and full of chuckles. The perfect writer for me.

Performance at 1.25x

Like many others, the performance wasn't to my liking. Peter Ganim's dialog performance was just fine, but the narration was very choppy. I read other reviews by Peter Ganim, and they all seemed to like him.

Here it my word of wisdom: Listen to it at 1.25x speed, and the narration flows better and you won't think you are listening to a bot.

What I expected

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. Easy story to get into. Very typical Kim Stanley Robinson. If you are expecting a thrill a minute story you don't know the author.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

I liked the science. It seems very factual and this again is typical of the author. It is a bit hard to follow as an audiobook but not vital to the story.Least interesting was the USA focus. America saves the world. (yawn)

Would you listen to another book narrated by Peter Ganim and Kim Stanley Robinson ?

Yes. Part 2 is downloading now.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, but I would lose my job if I tried so it suits me perfectly.

Any additional comments?

The narrator did a fine job.

Good story, horrible narration.

Hopefully the following 2 books in the series are narrated by someone other than the monotone robot that did this one.

Good story but to robotic voice actor.

I tried to listen to this book several years ago but I couldn't get past the readers voice. I recently made myself listen to the entire book. I eventually got over the voice and could attend to a good story.

Concept awesome, but slow like ice melting.

I suspect upu could save yourself the time and go to be second book. This one is a lot of, lot lot lot of character development and back story. It's a very good portrait of life inside a quasi governmental organization.

Scientists in D.C. - slow going until ...

Academia is an interesting bunch of people, and Kim Stanley Robinson does a great job putting us into the minds of several scientists - all one way or other connected with the NSF (National Science Foundation). For much of the novel, the topic of climate change is underlying - at the forefront are the lives of scientists, how they operate, how they're funded, how they interact, how they work with politicians, etc. We meet them and experience the way they look at their world.

Interestingly - Robinson reveals, bit by bit, the theme that science, all left-brained and objective, absolutely needs to be brought together with the right brain, with passion, with heart, with emotion. While much of the novel is slow going, it really kicks in when a very rational-minded scientist, following circumstances that get his heart pumping, actually scales a building and breaks in to retrieve a letter.

Where Robinson's novel begins to really shine, however, is toward the end of this book (the first of a series of three) - when the flood hits, when the climate crisis becomes very real very quickly, when D.C. gets completely flooded. What happens then, and how Robinson describes it, gives a strong sense of what may well be in our future because of several climate tipping points coming ever closer.

PS: The narrator was terrible.