I really enjoyed this one, only just misses out of the 5* treatment.
My first work by the author so I went in blind, the title and cover telling me we are clearly going to a very wet New York in 120 years. Awesome.
I was not disappointed. Everything below is contained within a world dominated by climate change, and much of it is actually about the 2008 crash and the current (and interlinked) political, financial, and climatic systems.
We have a spiders web of narratives centered around the Met building and the people who reside there; a political strand, a police procedural, a financial angle, a treasure hunt, a mostly comic relief story of fame, you get the idea. The stories and characters coalesce well, and we also have a polemical narrator who periodically vents against the evils of finance capatlisim. That comment is unjust, most of the critiques in the book are well thought out and argued.
Early on the book seems poised to very much be about finance, though this shifts to wider themes later on, I'm sure it's enough to put many people off, the jargon is dense, real, and spot on - Mr Robinson clearly did his homework. Utterly believable and educational. Funny too! "Finance, or even just life: It had to mean something. And meaning had no price. It could not be priced. It was some kind of alternative form of value." Muses our yuppie trader.
The 'cloud star' (read today's youtubers) Amelia provides both comic relief, yet also some real moments of passion and tenderness. The episode with the polar bears is one of the most unexpected, funniest, and wild moments of any book. Yet it ends with a furious and pertinent argument against purity - much needed today.
The writing is excellent, the story zips along through 600 pages like one of the futuristic speed boats - never a dull moment. Hits on many of today's major global issues, and hits hard.
Outstanding use of epigraphs.
Why not 5* then?
This is a homage to New York, and as such would clearly mean more primarily to residents, less so visitors (like me), less so again people who have never been - a passage from 'the Citizen' narrator claiming otherwise not withstanding.
The story benefits from a couple of Deus Ex (literally) machina, leaving the ending not quite hitting with the punch the heavyweight world building and story built up too.
Clearly on the side of the people not capital, more left than right, traders and yuppie millionaires? Not so much :) they won't be giving it 5* either.
Hope abounds in the wreckage we leave future generations!