Books for late summer: from genius genes to tyrannosaur musings

Science News,  August 5, 2006  by J.A. Miller

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In a shabby nightclub in Uzbekistan, Kaplan asks his translator what the army officers in uniform at the next table are saying. "They are discussing which is the best country from which to hijack a plane," the man says. The coming anarchy indeed.--N. SEPPA

Ice Age: From Heroic Scientists to Black-Op Spies FIFTY DEGREES BELOW

KIM STANLEY ROBINSON Bantam Dell Books, 2005

"I am no longer skeptical ... have no doubt at all. Climate change is the major challenge facing the world." This quote from the naturalist and film producer David Attenborough, which I spotted on May 24 in a British newspaper, especially resonated with me because I was finishing Kim Stanley Robinson's Fifty Degrees Below. Attenborough's declaration addressed issues at the core of Robinson's science fiction book.

The novel takes place in the aftermath of a flood that has devastated Washington, D.C. Think Hurricane Katrina-type wrath wrought on lawmakers and monuments. While the mostly abandoned city is drying out, orangutans, jaguars, and other animals that escaped the National Zoo run wild. Disenfranchised people of various strata forge nontraditional living arrangements to cope with a suddenly destabilized climate.

Among the refugees is Frank Vanderwal, a sociobiologist who returns to work at the National Science Foundation after the storm. He constructs a tree house in the city's Rock Creek Park, a forested strip that also houses the escaped animals. Eventually, coping with the beasts--as well as with thugs and spies--becomes a badge of honor for Vanderwal. His new lifestyle lures him into an evolving postflood counterculture to which even his closest colleagues never catch on.

By day, Vanderwal and his coworkers track continuing climatic catastrophes, such as quick melting of Arctic ice into the North Atlantic, stalling of the Gulf Stream, and a feedback loop that produces melting at the poles. Along the way, Washington experiences a prolonged winter deep freeze, portending worse weather to come.

Vanderwal's agency responds with uncharacteristic activism that would surely warm Attenborough's heart. The agency sponsors unusual studies and a global collaboration to restart the Gulf Stream and recool the poles.

Being set in Washington, the story has political subplots. A major one includes Tibetans who migrated from a home destroyed by climate change. They eventually settle in the capital's Virginia suburbs, and their wizened spiritual leaders imbue the story with a hint of mysticism.

Vanderwal also develops love interests, one of whom reveals that the sociobiologist and his nonconformist friends are under surveillance by the military.

Despite a chaotic plot, the book hangs together as a page-turner. And despite its conceit and partisan outlook, it doesn't seem geeky or preachy on the topic of global warming.

Although this book can stand alone, it is the second in a trilogy, so the fate of Earth and Vanderwal's mental health remains uncertain. Overall, Robinson's engaging book is a fast-moving, upbeat romp driven by science.--J. RALOFF

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