The Ministry for the Future
A Novel
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About this listen
From legendary science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a remarkable vision of climate change over the coming decades.
The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, using fictional eyewitness accounts to tell the story of how climate change will affect us all. 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.
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2020
"If I could get policymakers, and citizens, everywhere to read just one book this year, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future." (Ezra Klein)
"The best science fiction-nonfiction novel I’ve ever read." (Jonathan Lethem, Vanity Fair)
"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)
Also by Kim Stanley Robinson:
- Red Moon
- New York 2140
- 2312
- Aurora
- Shaman
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Critic reviews
"Science-fiction visionary Kim Stanley Robinson makes the case for quantitative easing our way out of planetary doom." (Bloomberg Green)
"[A] gutsy, humane view of a near-future Earth.... Robinson masterfully integrates the practical details of environmental crises and geoengineering projects into a sweeping, optimistic portrait of humanity's ability to cooperate in the face of disaster. This heartfelt work of hard science-fiction is a must-read for anyone worried about the future of the planet." (Publishers Weekly, starred)
"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)
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The Almost Nearly Perfect People
- Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia
- By: Michael Booth
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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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
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The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen....
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Good story, HORRENDOUS narration.
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It is 30 years from now, and we have colonized the moon. American Fred Fredericks is making his first trip, his purpose to install a communications system for China's Lunar Science Foundation. But hours after his arrival, he witnesses a murder and is forced into hiding. It is also the first visit for celebrity travel reporter Ta Shu. He has contacts and influence, but he, too, will find the moon can be a perilous place for any traveler.
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16 hours of nothing much happening
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Narrator ruins an otherwise interesting book.
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Needs 6 stars
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On the North Pole of Pluto there stands an enigma: a huge circle of standing blocks of ice, built on the pattern of Earth's Stonehenge - but 10 times the size, standing alone at the farthest reaches of the Solar System. What is it? Who came there to build it? The secret lies, perhaps, in the chaotic decades of the Martian Revolution, in the lost memories of those who have lived for centuries.
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An unusually realistic (& depressing) dystopia.
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Quit listening about a third of the way in.
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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.
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Couldn’t get into it.
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Termination Shock
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The Men Who Shoot at Feral Hogs
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The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson
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Adventurers, scientists, artists, workers, and visionaries - these are the men and women you will encounter in the short fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson. In settings ranging from the sunken ruins of Venice to the upper reaches of the Himalayas to the terraformed surface of Mars itself, and through themes of environmental sustainability, social justice, personal responsibility, sports, adventure, and fun, Robinson's protagonists explore a world which stands in sharp contrast to many of the traditional locales and mores of science fiction, presenting instead a world in which Utopia rests within our grasp.
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A nice treat for Kim Stanley Robinson fans
- By Anonymous User on 06-13-14
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The Very Nice Box
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Ava Simon designs storage boxes for STÄDA, a slick Brooklyn-based furniture company. She’s hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It’s been years since she’s let anyone in. But when Ava’s new boss—the young and magnetic Mat Putnam—offers Ava a ride home one afternoon, an unlikely relationship blossoms. Ava remembers how rewarding it can be to open up—and, despite her instincts, she becomes enamored. But Mat isn’t who he claims to be, and the romance takes a sharp turn.
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a fun, quirky story
- By Barbara S on 09-02-21
By: Eve Gleichman, and others
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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- Eberstein
- 09-17-21
This Book Birthed Me as a Staunch Gaia Advocate
Relished most every page, every well-turned phrase supporting a new idea or alternative perspective. Great audio rendition using multiple, well-honed, well acted voices. I'll probably read this at least one more time. strongly
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3 people found this helpful
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- M. J. Cooper
- 09-09-21
Preaching to the Choir
The Good: Robinson doesn't shirk from the horror at the beginning, and ends on a hopeful note. I enjoy a dystopian future that we can recover from, and he's delivered that here. Lots of neat geoengineering stuff too.
The Bad: You'll really have to be on the far left economically to enjoy many of his tirades. If your utopian vision of the future relies on everyone having a quasi-religious or explicitly-religious conversion experience to join your side, you're writing a fairy tale. If he spends any more time on dubious political speeches and then showing how it's all great if you just follow his advice, he'll be the exact political mirror image to Ayn Rand. He doesn't even consider the idea that environmentalist terrorism would cause blowback. People who get attacked that way in his novel just roll over and show their bellies, like no powerful person ever. He's about as thoroughly wrong about the response to terrorism as Osama bin Laden, who seemed to think that terrorism would make Americans be *less* in the Middle East.
The best bit intellectually is when he discusses the concept of ideology. If you ask me, though, he's read too many Hegelians who think they're prophets and not enough pragmatists. If ideology is like a religion, he has not adequately appreciated the agnostic option. He needs a healthy dose of humility with his ideology if he wants to speak to audiences that aren't already far-left.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Abbie
- 01-30-23
An Optimistic Future
a fictional account of a potential future based in equity and sustainable living for everyone on the planet, and the way we might get there. The characters feel real, each one is unique and engaging in their own way. A long book, but definitely worth the time, it left me feeling warm and fuzzy and motivated and optimistic.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Shannon Belmont
- 06-22-21
Inventive! Now, let's go!
Tbis is our future.. Some chapters were absolutely terrifying. Some were so hopeful they left me giddy.
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- Kenneth Dusek
- 12-22-20
omg wow what a book!!!!
in this day and age everyone should read this book. it should be required learning in school. because everything faced in this book is going to be the things faced by the human race in the years to come I only hope we tackle the challenges as they do
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- Kathy
- 03-15-21
Difficult but important story
We are already living parts of this story and the author paints a potential future with a message of hope if we can all join together and do the right things to protect our planet.
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- Michael G Kurilla
- 12-21-20
What it will take
Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future is tale about addressing climate change. While the main plot revolves around the head of a UN agency charged with addressing global warming and an individual suffering from PTSD due to a catastrophic heat wave, various discussions concerning the economic, legal, political, sociological, financial, and philosophical aspects of climate change are interspersed. Also mixed in are various scientific and technological approaches including atmospheric seeding, polar painting, improving ocean carbon capture, and slowing glaciers from raising sea levels.
Robinson keeps the science fiction well ground but pushes the limits. At the same time, all the other ruminations and impediments along the way demonstrate that the issues are bigger than merely a scientific fix. While the suggestion of fomenting destruction and murder of carbon producers may be a bit too far, he is certainly suggesting that aggressive approaches will be needed to ensure timely implementation.
The narration is handled by an ensemble cast that is well suited to rapidly shifting perspectives and points of view. Pacing is brisk but be prepared to back up and listen again to some of the dense and meaty topics under discussion.
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- Michael R. Thelen
- 07-12-21
Brilliant Fantasy. Would that it were that easy.
Terrific performances. Sorry we finished it.
Good for a second or third listen. Prolific ideas described generously.
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- groovykismet
- 03-04-21
This book is the very definition of science fiction...
Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite science fiction writers and this book is a perfect example of the genre. True science fiction takes the science of today and imagines continuing and changed into the future based on whatever story the writer chooses to use as a lens; this story was ‘climate change’ and what happens when we don’t and when we do account for it in our human lives.
It was told in 106 chapters, most of them vignettes, but a handful of them followed a continuous story line. It was read by a lot of narrators with very authentic accents that lent to the authentic representation of the dozens of different countries that were represented.
Not only did I thoroughly enjoy the story but I think it should become part of regular reading for high school students!
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- Matthew Rollins
- 08-26-21
Listen as if it was a pod cast.
This isn't a story, its a series of short stories and podcasts. I'm not complaining I enjoyed it very much for what it is. I would suggest that you listen to it with that in mind.
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