New York 2140

By: Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, Robin Miles, Peter Ganim, Jay Snyder, Caitlin Kelly, Michael Crouch, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Christopher Ryan Grant, Robert Blumenfeld

Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Kim Stanley Robinson returns with a bold and brilliant vision of New York City in the next century.

As the sea levels rose, every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city. There is the market trader, who finds opportunities where others find trouble. There is the detective, whose work will never disappear—along with the lawyers, of course.

There is the internet star, beloved by millions for her airship adventures, and the building's manager, quietly respected for his attention to detail. Then there are two boys who don't live there, but have no other home—and who are more important to its future than anyone might imagine.

Lastly there are the coders, temporary residents on the roof, whose disappearance triggers a sequence of events that threatens the existence of all—and even the long-hidden foundations on which the city rests.

©2017 Kim Stanley Robinson (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"New York may be underwater, but it's better than ever."—The New Yorker

"Relevant and essential."—Bloomberg Businessweek

"Science fiction is threaded everywhere through culture nowadays, and it would take an act of critical myopia to miss the fact that Robinson is one of the world's finest working novelists, in any genre. New York 2140 is a towering novel about a genuinely grave threat to civilisation."—Guardian

great product horrible political overtones

Readers did a fantastic job however the political overtones in the authors uncanny faith in the government To control financial markets and other facets of daily life provida unrealistic and horribly leftist view of and utopian futuristic Society

An important message from the future

Kim Stanley Robinson is, in my opinion, the best author of adult science fiction writing today. His books are consistently well written, logically structured and exciting. They are not action books, per se, although they take place in response to major events. They are not about a heroic individual, yet unexpected characters do commit heroic acts.

Robinson's books, especially New York 2140, tell us of better ways to live our lives and relate to our fellow humans. This is not a dystopian novel. He does present horrific and/or challenging events we may already be facing, and then shows us how we can overcome them together. Is there a higher calling for science fiction than giving us faith in the future?

New York 2140 has just the right mixture of futurism and current social issues. In the book, many people a hundred years hence have reordered their lives to socialize more and to be less isolated. The many major characters that we meet all have important contributions to make which are needed to solve serious problems confronting everyone.

Good science fiction shines a light on our current day lives. That is exactly what New York 2140 does. If you only read one scifi book this year, make it this one. And, think about organizing a reading group to discuss, and spread the word, about all the food-for-thought served up in this delicious book.

Always Interesting

So far ahead of all the thinkers I hear. I’m an admirer of all his books. I’ve read many. It difficult to think of listening to anyone else. This one had multiple readers. I liked that, also. I’m off to the next adventure!

Really Provocative

Ever had a dinner plate brought to you that had so much food it could feed the whole table? I sort of felt this way about the book. The really meaty parts of the story were really amazing and thought provoking in a way I didn't expect! I loved it, but it was way longer than it needed to be to tell that story, in my opinion. I felt my mind wandering in and out of the less engaging parts, only to get tugged hard back in when the afterburner kicked in again. It's very worth your time though and almost feels like it has a revolutionary manifesto potential!!

Terrific book

Loved this book. Long and intricate but interesting throughout. I thought it would be dystopian but it ended up as a really positive view of our possible future.

Food for the soul

A dream of the future. A love letter to a city. A love letter to humanity, a love letter to the non-human... and proper love with all the complexities, nuance and willingness to see flaws and love anyway that gives love its texture.

Under-imagined future

This book has many things to recommend it, so I do. But, it sadly stumbles and falls down when it comes to creating a fully fleshed out future. The infrastructure is all there--a flooded lower Manhattan, super tall buildings, weird subcultures adapting to intertidal life in globally warmed world. Robinson has failed, however, to populate this world with individuals and a society which has undergone 123 years of the kind of cultural changes that have made our society so different from that of our great, great grandparents, not to mention our grandparents. In other words all off the characters, in their worldview, frames of reference, colloquial idioms, are simply our contemporaries parachuted into the half drowned NY of 2040. Except for the mostly catastrophic changes wrought by climate change, it's as if nothing has happened since 2017.

This is a serious shortcoming in a work of speculative fiction about the future.

5 Stars for Effort!

What did you like best about New York 2140? What did you like least?

Kim Stanley Robinson is a writer who is very (and justifiably) concerned about climate change, and who is trying to figure out how to communicate that concern through his books (several of them at last count). I think the book is an interesting (and even plausible) look at the future. I just wonder how it plays with people not already convinced about climate change. Does it leave them thinking more about climate change, or do they get tired of the "teaching" in the book and set it aside?

An interesting read.

I really enjoyed this book. I think this is how the future will be. Yes we will have to deal with global warming, but we're a resistant species, we will adapt. It's not going to be some dystopian 'Mad Max' future, just our normal way of life, with adjustments.

Another great Robinson book!

Robinson isn't for everyone, but I enjoy the way he meanders. The narrators were great, but having so many different narrators was weird, especially since they had to voice the same characters in their respective sections.