By the time Phil Chase is elected president, the world's climate is far
on its way to irreversible change. Food scarcity, housing shortages,
diminishing medical care, and vanishing species are just some of the
consequences. The erratic winter the Washington, D.C., area is
experiencing is another grim reminder of a global weather pattern gone
haywire: bone-chilling cold one day, balmy weather the next.
But the president-elect remains optimistic and doesn't intend to give up
without a fight. A maverick in every sense of the word, Chase starts
organizing the most ambitious plan to save the world from disaster since
FDR--and assembling a team of top scientists and advisers to implement
it.
For Charlie Quibler, this means re-entering the political fray full-time
and giving up full-time care of his young son, Joe. For Frank Vanderwal,
hampered by a brain injury, it means trying to protect the woman he
loves from a vengeful ex and a rogue "black ops" agency not even the
president can control--a task for which neither Frank's work at the
National Science Foundation nor his study of Tibetan Buddhism can
prepare him.
In a world where time is running out as quickly as its natural
resources, where surveillance is almost total and freedom nearly
nonexistent, the forecast for the Chase administration looks darker each
passing day. For as the last--and most terrible--of natural disasters
looms on the horizon, it will take a miracle to stop the clock ... the
kind of miracle that only dedicated men and women can bring about.
BONUS AUDIO: Includes an exclusive introduction by author Kim Stanley
Robinson.
