The Ministry for the Future
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About this listen
Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favourite reads of 2020
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organisation was simple: to advocate for the world's future generations and to protect all living creatures, present and future. It soon became known as the Ministry for the Future, and this is its story.
From legendary science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined.
Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come.
Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.
It is a novel both immediate and impactful, desperate and hopeful in equal measure, and it is one of the most powerful and original books on climate change ever written.
©2020 Kim Stanley Robinson (P)2020 Hachette Audio UKListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"The Ministry for the Future ranks among Robinson's best recent works, a collection of actions and observations that adds up to more than the sum of its eclectic and urgent parts." (Sierra)
"A breathtaking look at the challenges that face our planet in all their sprawling magnitude and also in their intimate, individual moments of humanity." (Booklist - starred review)
"Gutsy, humane... This heartfelt work of hard science-fiction is a must-read for anyone worried about the future of the planet." (Publishers Weekly - starred review)
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Journalist Michael Booth has lived among the Scandinavians for more than 10 years, and he has grown increasingly frustrated with the rose-tinted view of this part of the world offered up by the Western media. In this timely audiobook, he leaves his adopted home of Denmark and embarks on a journey through all five of the Nordic countries to discover who these curious tribes are, the secrets of their success, and, most intriguing of all, what they think of one another.
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Obsessed with bad politics
- By Erik on 09-07-20
By: Michael Booth
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The Eden Express
- A Memoir of Insanity
- By: Mark Vonnegut
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Mark Vonnegut set out in search of Eden with his VW bug, his girlfriend, his dog, and his ideals, but genetic predisposition and a whole lot of shit going down made him crazy in a culture that told him mental illness is a myth and schizophrenia is a sane response to an insane society. Describing his experiences during the late '60s and early '70s, Eden Express reveals how Mark went from being a recent college grad who was in love and living communally on a farm to having nervous breakdowns.
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Touches the challenges of human condition
- By Glenn Ainsworth on 06-23-23
By: Mark Vonnegut
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China Road
- A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power
- By: Rob Gifford
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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National Public Radio's Beijing correspondent Rob Gifford recounts his travels along Route 312, the Chinese Mother Road, the longest route in the world's most populous nation. Based on his successful NPR radio series, China Road draws on Gifford's 20 years of observing first-hand this rapidly transforming country, as he travels east to west, from Shanghai to China's border with Kazakhstan. As he takes listeners on this journey, he also takes them through China's past and present while he tries to make sense of this complex nation's potential future.
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An Outstanding Book on China
- By Sarda on 08-13-07
By: Rob Gifford
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Living in the Long Emergency
- Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward
- By: James Howard Kunstler
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century - the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now - surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.
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Please Read Before Buying
- By K. Skoog on 05-12-20
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Beyond
- Founding of Valdemar Series, Book 1
- By: Mercedes Lackey
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Within the Eastern Empire, Duke Kordas Valdemar rules a tiny, bucolic Duchy that focuses mostly on horse breeding. Anticipating the day when the Empire's exploitative and militant leaders would not be content to leave them alone, Korda's father set out to gather magicians in the hopes of one day finding a way to escape and protect the people of the Duchy from tyranny.
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Exceptional Listen
- By Amazon Customer on 09-27-21
By: Mercedes Lackey
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The Road to Wigan Pier
- By: George Orwell
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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When Orwell went to England in the 30's to find out how industrial workers lived, he not only observed but shared in their experiences. He stayed in cramped, dreary lodgings and subsisted on the scant, cheerless diet of the poor. He went down into the coal mines and walked crouching, as the miners did, through a one- to three-mile passage too low to stand up in. He watched the back-breaking, dangerous labor of men whose net pay then averaged $575 a year.
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Frederick Davidson's a Great Reader
- By Debali on 01-11-09
By: George Orwell
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The Very First Damned Thing
- An Author-Read Audio Exclusive
- By: Jodi Taylor
- Narrated by: Jodi Taylor
- Length: 2 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Jodi Taylor reads the long-awaited prequel in her Chronicles of St Mary’s series, as Dr Bairstow struggles to set up St Mary’s as we know it in a world still scarred by the ravages of civil war. Ever wondered how it all began? It’s two years since the final victory at the Battersea Barricades. The fighting might be finished, but for Dr Bairstow, just now setting up St Mary's, the struggle is only beginning. How will he assemble his team? From where will his funding come?
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Wait for it on Kindle. Not the best on audio
- By Sheryl on 11-05-15
By: Jodi Taylor
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The Great Wall of China and the Salton Sea
- Monuments, Missteps, and the Audacity of Ambition
- By: Russell Rathbun
- Narrated by: Larry Herron
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We've been building and making things ever since we stumbled out of paradise. Some of those things are incredible continuations of God's creation, while others are nothing but ambitious catastrophes. We continue making, says Russell Rathbun, but we've lost ourselves in the process.
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Excellent narrator
- By Tammy on 03-17-18
By: Russell Rathbun
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Amazon Woman
- Facing Fears, Chasing Dreams, and My Quest to Kayak the Largest River from Source to Sea
- By: Darcy Gaechter
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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This 148-day journey began on Darcy Gaechter’s 35th birthday. She sold her successful outdoor adventure business, upsetting her partner and boyfriend of 12 years and getting them both fired in the process. The emotional waters that would fester and erupt on the ensuing journey were often more challenging to navigate than the mighty river itself. With blistering lips and irradiated fingernails, Darcy would tackle raging Class Five whitewater for 25 days straight, barely surviving a dynamite-filled canyon being prepared for a new hydroelectric plant.
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More than just an adventure book...
- By Scott Shepherd on 04-19-20
By: Darcy Gaechter
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Scythe
- By: Neal Shusterman
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: Humanity has conquered all those things and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life - and they are commanded to do so in order to keep the size of the population under control. Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe - a role that neither wants. These teens must master the "art" of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
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Teenage Thumbs up
- By Lila R on 04-01-17
By: Neal Shusterman
What listeners say about The Ministry for the Future
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Darren
- 09-17-21
A stunning vision of the future
This is a bit like World War Z, climate change edition, written by Bishop Tutu. Compelling and exciting, human and revolutionary. This is how humanity could actually overcome systemic greed with clever policy and disruption, to avert global disaster.
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- Emma Hooper
- 11-11-20
eco-utopian politics and economics
Fantastic book, almost a manifesto. Lays out a map for transitioning from late capitalist ecocide to... something better. Like the best SF it takes us from our current world into something new in an entirely plausible way, backed by solid research and considered speculation. The story centres on Mary, head of the Ministry and we have just enough engagement with her inner life to humanize and personalise the global events.
At times a couple of the narrators are perhaps a little too eager to "act" the role they are reading, and some of the attempts at accents are questionable, but this is a mere quibble and those passages are short. The bulk of the book as superbly narrated.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Courtiol Alexandre
- 11-24-21
Probably better as audiobook than as a book
The book contains many important ideas but its experimental nature seems to betray many unsuccessful attempts at creating a good storyline. I would recommend the audio version which is read by a cast of readers with lovely voices. This helped me to recognize the various threads that run in parallel from the get go. It also helped me to go through this very long book that starts brilliantly and slowly goes down from there till the end.
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- S. Hancox
- 09-12-21
Appalling reading makes this unlistenable
I really, really wanted to listen to this book but after several hours I gave up. The readings are just dreadful. The attempts at accents are simply embarrassing and at time become offensive, as if they are telling a racist joke. It just made me cringe. Whoever made the decision to record it this way should be fired. This was, without doubt, the worst I’ve ever listened to and I just couldn’t continue. A pity because the CONTENT seemed interesting and thought provoking. The woman who read accents from Ireland and the Indian sub continent was absolutely the worst. :-(
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- Diane Reynolds
- 07-03-21
Boring
This book is just boring. There are pockets of adventure, but in between are huge sections of weird quasi scientific ranting. It jumps around. I gave up about 5 hours in. I suspect it is better is you read it so you can see the breaks and skim some of the pieces when they get annoying. It just didn’t work for me as an audiobook.
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- Zard
- 09-05-22
Good material, but underwhelming implementation
I absolutely devoured Robinson's Mars Trilogy and like his style of meticulous developing story arcs and characters. And since I'm both worried and interested about climate change and the real danger it poses to the planet, our societies and all other species, I was looking forward to KSR's take on the matter. BUT this audiobook is best described as annoying and tedious:
- NO PLOT: It feels like an enumeration of ideas and worthwhile efforts KSR has researched and wants to showcase. These are worth reading, of course - especially the ministry itself and and a carbon-based fiat currency. But the story bits he creates around them are uninpired and only losely connected.
- KSR KNOWS AND LOVES ZURICH. It's tiresome to get Swiss street names and Swiss features thrown at you by the dozens and by narrators who cannot pronounce German names to save their life. Too much time is spent in the details of Zurich without adding to the story or being necessary to develop characters. KSR is just showing off: He knows the city.
- NOT FRANK AGAIN! An absurd amount of time is given to the PTSD-driven "life story" of Frank the American. He doesn't contribute anything to the plot except his deparation. The heatwave story is valid, but after that you'll likely thing time after time: Not Frank again!!
- VOICE ACTING with "ACCENTS": The regional accents are cringeworthy, sometimes close to carricatures. If you've been around internationally, you'll laugh a lot. But this book would probably have profited from ONE single narrator (female of course) and leaving accents to the imagination. Especially since they're not important for the story. All these somtimes silly voices do is add to the impression of disjointed plot pieces being slapped together.
- ABRUPT END: The story simply falls off a cliff in the end. It seems that KSR was running out of ideas or that the publisher was running out of patience and told him to finish it. Summary: Things start getting better, revolution ongoing, let's leave here.
If this is indeed one of Obama's favourite books, it's pobably for the ideas and the sense of urgency - not much else holds up.
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