“Fifty Degrees Below,” by Kim Stanley Robinson (Bantam, 405 pages, $25)
As the second part of Kim Stanley Robinson’s dramatic climate change trilogy opens, Washington D.C. is recovering from a massive flood. Frank Vanderval has decided to spend another year at the National Science Foundation and needs to find a new place to live. At first he lives out of his car, then builds a treehouse in Rock Creek Park. He joins the Feral Observation Group which is tracking the zoo animals that escaped captivity during the flood.
Frank spends a lot of time hanging with some homeless guys in the park and plays Frisbee golf with an intense group that never stops running. There’s “an irrepressible sociobiologist that was always theorizing inside Frank” and he sees the Frisbee game as a modern manifestation of ancient hunting behavior. He buys a prehistoric Acheulian hand axe (also known as a killer Frisbee) on the Internet to carry around with him as a talisman.
The initial response of action after the flood has died from politics as usual. The need is revived after Washington experiences the Antarctic-like winter indicated by the title “Fifty Degrees Below.” Frank tries to stay in the park despite the lethal conditions. When he can get to his job, he is working on large-scale solutions to the global climate problem, including returning 500 million tons of salt to the sea.
Despite the floods and the ice age, Robinson is an optimist. He shows we can adapt by using science and government.
Frank isn’t the only part of the story. There’s also Buddhism, parenting, a presidential campaign and a drowned Shangri-La. Robinson writes brilliantly of spectacle and adventure along with developing his characters, including the homeless who won’t give their names.
“Kitty and the Midnight Hour,” by Carrie Vaughn (Warner Aspect, 259 pages, $6.99)
There’s a small line of first-class werewolf novels set in Denver. Boulder author Carrie Vaughn’s first novel joins Melanie Tem’s “Wilding” and P. D. Cacek’s “Canyons” in showing a hidden side to the city.
Kitty Norville has a midnight radio talk show about the paranormal. Beyond her interest in Bat-Boy and willingness to listen, Kitty has knowledge she doesn’t share with her audience. She has been a werewolf for the past two years. After she was attacked in the mountains, Kitty was taken in by a Denver pack. The pack leader, Carl, isn’t happy with her public life or the independence Kitty shows in defying him.
When a lone wolf starts killing on the streets of Denver, Kitty is drawn into an awkward role working with the police and a werewolf hunter. A vampire hired to kill her and a pack member who wants to take her down add to the stress. Kitty is an engaging character. She is often funny, but she learns to use her claws. “Kitty and the Midnight Hour” is the first book in what promises to be a very entertaining series.
“Night Train to Rigel,” by Timothy Zahn (Tor, 349 pages, $24.95)
Timothy Zahn takes a boldly anachronistic approach to space travel. A dying man leaves Frank Compton a train ticket and since he has nowhere better to go, Frank takes the train. It’s a Quadrail ticket on the trains that run between stars. Earth and its colonies have only recently paid the trillion dollars to a race called the Spiders who control the unknown technology that propels the trains between stars at a light-year per minute.
Frank is the right man at the wrong place as the one man who can save the galaxy. His traveling companion, Bayta, knows more than she is willing to tell him. But Frank keeps meeting people who know more than he does. He follows their hints to go to the ice-covered resort world of Modhra, which is famous for the expensive coral it exports.
On Modra everyone seems to be in on the conspiracy except Frank. He leaves Modra with more species chasing him. Luckily he can call on some secret resources of his own.
There are some explicit references to Alfred Hitchcock as the adventure unfolds, and it’s a leap of faith to go along with an old European spy story transported to an interstellar stage. Once you accept the trains and go along for the ride, “Night Train to Rigel” is a fun trip to the end of the line.
Fred Cleaver is a freelancer who writes a monthly column on new science-fiction releases.
