The Ministry for the Future

I didn't enjoy "Ministry For the Future" nearly as much as some of KSR's other works like Red, Green, and Blue Mars. The book felt underdeveloped with ideas that I felt ridiculous. Using cryptocurrency as some sort of cure-all monetary solution - the idea that anonymity in currency would be such a useful asset or make money a better investment seems foolish.

The engineering projects, the sci-fi part of the book, also didn't convince me. Red Mars had the decency of being overtly fantastical; "Ministry For the Future" fell into a sort of uncanny valley where hearing about the projects, they just don't seem feasible.

I was also disappointed with the characters. I thought that this, like Red Mars, would be more of a story of many different perspectives, and I felt the focus on Frank and Mary, and in particular their relationship, dominated a lot more of the story than I would have liked. While it did make sense to focus on Mary as she was the minister for the Ministry For the Future, I just didn't find it that interesting.

I thought dialogue was boring at times. In particular, there was a section of the book that was just listing countries and their different climate solution projects which was extremely boring, and I wish I could have skipped it, but I was listening to an audiobook. The sections about the children of Kali and news articles about things like the drones were quite interesting. But most of the divergent non-narrative sections that added to the world were just kind of unengaging.

In short, it’s not something I’d reread.