New York 2140
Kim Stanley Robinson

 

In the New York City one hundred and thirty years in the future, much has changed. Most of coastal Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island is gone. What’s left of downtown Manhattan floods with the tides. The power of the city has moved far uptown to the bedrock and relative heights of Washington Heights.

But some things haven’t changed. The City is still filled with hustlers, artists, and finance bros and the driving force, as ever, is real estate.

When the waters came, people abandoned downtown Manhattan. But then, some enterprising artists and weirdos found a way to make the tidewaters areas around of Downtown liveable again, and they turned it into a bustling area art galleries and experimental bars — a Bushwick in the water as it were. And now, of course, big real estate is interested again.

This is science fiction page turner, but one grounded in the city it is about and the science that will effect us all if we don’t make some very serious changes. I blew through this at record speed, you will too if a propulsive plot and some light climate science is to you liking.

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