Sixty Days And Counting is the third and final novel of the Science In The Capital trilogy, published in 2007. A new administration arrives in the White House, decided to tackle climate change in every way possible. Personal destinies and global strategies are forged.

It follows the efforts of the main characters to combat climate change as a new presidential administration is elected in the White House, and at the same time to find inner peace.

Structure

Like all three volumes in this trilogy, the novel is divided in ten parts. Each part begins with a short incipit (in italics), often unrelated to the main characters and told from a different or omniscient point of view. The part then contains short chapters, each focused on one of the main characters (essentially Frank and Charlie) and narrated in the third person. Each chapter thus follows a storyline that develops simultaneously with the rest of the part’s chapters and narrating the evolution of the relationships of the ensemble cast’s characters. Sixty Days And Counting continues the second volume’s increased focus on the character of Frank.

The novel opens with a quote, dating from 2005 (after the time Robinson had begun writing the trilogy):

“I believe the twenty-first century can become the most important century of human history. I think a new reality is emerging. Whether this view is realistic or not, there is no harm in making an effort.”
– The Dalai Lama, November 15, 2005, Washington, D.C.

Summary

Change is apace. Phil Chase has been elected President of the USA and promises to make good on his promise to take concrete action against man-made climate change.

The Chase administration

Chase convinces Charlie to join him in the White House for help in drafting environmental legislative packages.

In his inauguration, Chase speaks of “the government of the people, by the people and for the people”, global cooperation through the UN, women’s rights and population stabilization, environment and social justice. The new administration settles in and their Things To Do list in the first sixty days of term is huge.

A climate change task force is established, Diane Chang is named the President’s science advisor, and Frank, in the advisory team, is on the front line in the effort for a push to clean energy (notably via solar power). Anna declines the offer to join Diane’s team, she prefers science to policy, however the occasionally helps through FCCSET (Federal Coordinating Council on Science, Engineering & Technology) or OMB (Office of Management & Budget). It is evident that a Manhattan Project/New-Deal-like push is the way forward: what is necessary is actually not technology R&D, but time and money. In the Hobbesian struggle between agencies and against Big Oil lobbies that ensues, Diane is conciliatory and asserts her power, and Anna shines with her intelligence; Frank admires both women.

New photovoltaic panels are installed on the White House. Part of power generation is nationalized to remediate the power cuts and the Navy eagerly enlists her nuclear fleet to serve as emergency generators. The Air Force looks at partnerships with NASA to develop space-based solar power. Terraforming Earth becomes a matter of national security, and with the military and their subcontractors at disposal, a huge budget becomes available. Frank further works on funding proposals to take oil out of transport (biofuels) and power (carbon capture and storage), to have more farmers adopt sustainable agriculture, to materialize mitigation projects.

The Gulf Stream has been restarted, but the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has detached. Kenzo and the climatologists fear that seawater circulation has changed so much that climate has moved beyond their comprehension. With the re-insurance companies, Frank and Anna investigate pumping excess water to the Sahara or up Antarctica to stabilize sea level.

In a meeting between IPCC and the World Bank, Charlie despairs at the radically different worldviews and finally loses it, harshly criticizing the World Bank for the externalities unpaid for and their profiteering stance posing as false development.

Frank pays a visit to the NSF’s Regional Research Center in Climate and Earth Sciences (RRCCES, or ‘recess’) he helped set up in San Diego and hangs around with Yann and Marta, with whom the underlying sexual tension never ceased. However he is disgusted at the artificiality of modern merry-making when Marta feeds him an ecstasy/Viagra mix in a night club.

Frank and Caroline

Frank tells Edgardo about Caroline and her husband, agents in a secret unit of R&D Agency Prime, one of many in the net of secret intelligence agencies that have ceased giving accounts to the governmental bodies from which they sprang. Caroline, spooked by her husband Ed Cooper, has vanished. With the help of Edgardo’s friend from his DARPA days, Umberto, Frank tracks down Caroline’s location and drops for a visit in a lovely cottage in Mount Desert Island, Maine, where they learn more about each other. But despite their best efforts to de-bug their effects and stay off the grid, they are discovered and have to flee back to Washington.

Edgardo and Umberto work on their contacts to track down Cooper’s black ops team and coordinate with Caroline to trap them, while keeping Frank out of the loop.

In their next meeting, Caroline’s worries have increased and she activates her Plan C: she hides in the area and takes another identity entirely, and sets up a drop point in Rock Creek Park for exchanging messages with Frank. Frank has sleeping problems and starts really worrying too when he finds his old treehouse destroyed and his kayak sabotaged… He increases his attempts to drop off the grid as well, trying to be visible only when at work. He goes hiking in the park after work, befriends with the Bros, who are back after the rough winter. He joins the fregans — this mix of neo-hippie and post-punk, the most extreme set of habits Frank has adopted so far — in their restaurant dumpster diving teams, spends the night in fregan-occupied abandoned buildings and every few nights moves places. He gets an old VW van in which he sleeps, stops using credit cards and mobile phones, uses internet only in the office. Work is the only thing constant in his life.

Drepung, Frank and Charlie go on frequent kayaking trips in Rock Creek Park. Frank inquires Drepung on whether he really believes in reincarnation; Drepung comes to admit that it’s like a metaphor, that we can live many incarnations in a single lifespan.

The Quiblers

Inexorable change. With his Mr Dad days over, Charlie settles in in a new routine, with work in the White House and Joe at the White House Gymboree. Since the ceremony performed on him, Joe is calm; too calm and too accepting for Charlie’s liking, actually, perhaps a part of growing up, perhaps not. Anna is also worried about what seems to be a chronic fever Joe has, scientific worries unlike Charlie’s metaphysical ones.

Rising oil prices and multiple power failures urge the Quiblers to re-shape their daily lives; this means more gatherings in the living room before the lit fireplace, little adventures of their own that end up being enjoyable after all. Nuclear military submarines are coupled to the electricity network to provide power during failures. Fewer groceries in supermarket shelves. Anna looks into shortage economics and forced adjustment equilibrium. They get satellite phones to communicate during blackouts; they install garden beds and go at it despite their lack of experience in gardening; they ration their water and energy consumption.

Frank often takes Nick Quibler with him on treks throughout Rock Creek Park, spotting and darting tracking chips in the feral animals out there.

Anna has Charlie invite Frank to Charlie’s yearly backpacking week trip with his old UCSD friends, in Owens Valley, in eastern California. They set out at dawn, come across evidence of a glacier and a Native American summer shelter; they camp under the starry night; Frank hardly talks, is relaxed; each is in his own little world, observing the landscape, and occasionally they all sing together.

Charlie asks Drepung to do another ceremony to bring the ‘old Joe’, what he believes to be the Bön spirit they mistakenly dispelled earlier, back. After the ceremony, which involved candles and saffron, dancing and chanting, the old lively Joe seems to be back. In the daycare center, Joe makes trouble, hitting kids, cursing, and Charlie’s satisfied to see him as lively as before!

The Khembalis

In the spring, the Khembalis move to a more spacious farm, in Maryland: their new Shambala. Chase is actually helping them as promised! They build a large treehouse after Frank’s design and Frank and ageing Rudra move in one of the rooms.

Frank is still worried about his brain damage and what he perceives to be a lack of capacity to make decisions. He is diagnosed with a subdural hematoma; however he’s unsure whether he wants surgery to relief pressure on the brain or if he’s OK with the changes after all. He reads a lot of Emerson and Thoreau, has walks and talks with Rudra and still goes frisbeeing in the park. With Rudra they establish the two good correlations that would reduce mankind’s load on the planet: prehistoric life style with happiness and health; and social justice with population growth.

Then Rudra dies, and Frank decides to go ahead with his brain surgery. The Khembalis hold a ceremony to recognize the Maryland farm as the current manifestation of Khembalung.

The Chase administration also attempts to grow close ties to the Dalai Lama while simultaneously keeping negotiations with China alive. Dalai Lama visits Washington and in a ceremony involving passing scarfs to representatives of all Tibetan communities that recognize Dalai Lama as their spiritual leader, Drepung is among them. Later, in a kayaking trip with Frank and Charlie, Drepung confides them with his story: he is the true Panchen Lama, persecuted by the Chinese, and now with diplomatic immunity, taking part in the delicate US-China talks and with Phil in the know and sympathetic.

Projects develop

The Frank principle, “saving the world so science can proceed”, is basically adopted by NSF.

Thanks to Frank and Charlie, Diane and Phil organize a meeting; soon they partner together.

With China, Holland and England endorsing the program, the seawater relocation projects begin; pipes are taken from oil and gas pipelines; PV panes power up the pumps.

Anna looks at China: the environment is disregarded before the importance of economic growth and the Chinese Academy of Sciences does little more than observing and worrying of a ‘general system crash’. When massive droughts lead to an ecological chain reaction in the Yangtze and Yellow River headwaters, massive ecosystem collapses ensue and the Chinese call NSF for help and expertise.

Phil frequently blogs his thoughts. He sees uneven development in the world as a big opportunity to channel capitalist efforts, to use environmental projects on a regional level as a new driver for development; and eventually the process will mutate capitalism into something else.

Frank takes a trip around the world. In San Diego, Frank is satisfied with himself when he avoids Marta’s flirty entrapments. In Beijing, he visits a Carbon Expo, where China is perceived as a threat that tests US’s willingness to make deals. In Talka Makan, a wall is built around the archeological dig of ancient Shambala (and Frank releases the last of Rudra’s ashes) as the basin is flooded by the construction of a dam. In Siberia, the genetically modified carbon-capturing lichen has had an enormous success, it is in fact out of anybody’s control and who persuaded who between Russia and Small Delivery Systems to go ahead with the experiment is now irrelevant. In London, in a conference on the Thames River Barrier, Frank is frightened by the confidence of the younger generation on mankind’s terraforming capabilities.

Chase pushing it further

Frank gets those close to him to read Emerson, even Phil. Emerson and Thoreau really were 19th century American radicals.

And it could not be otherwise that Phil Chase, a bold president, would get shot. He survives the assassination attempt and when he recovers, Charlie finds him still with his everything-is-politics approach but more serious, intent, with a new contained anger, willing to test the limits of the system. Phil sends out a volley of new legislation to pass, he adopts an ‘either vote for or be an obstacle’ attitude: more radical, but these things had to get done: fuel mileage efficiency, gas tax, WHO population stabilization, gun control. He blogs that health care for everyone and full employment is well in their capabilities, that alternatives had become unthinkable so thoughts of change were dismissed, that faith to blind hand of the market was a collective illusion. He talks with Charlie about F.D. Roosevelt, the New Deals, the creation of the UN.

The crisis in China explodes and Phil and the UN go there. A deal is passed with the Chinese: the US will help with environmental and technological expertise and will provide power (with US nuclear submarines feeding to the Chinese network) while China switches to clean power, and China will agree to cap carbon emissions and draw the rest of Asia to a cap and reach a compromise with Tibet.

Phil blogs: social justice the best way to go forward. There is a need to stop the stupid imperialistic attitude of America, a need for a new vocabulary to call things, a more even distribution of capital. Permaculture: a job, a shelter, health care, education, rights for everyone. A crux in history.

Ending

Umberto, part of the General Accountability Office (GAO), gathers evidence in his persecution of Ed Cooper’s group, which has gone underground since Chase’s assassination attempt. Phil and the GAO come to Frank to talk about their seriousness in cleaning up the intelligence agencies (Phil being unaware of Frank’s role in getting him and Diane together!). Frank and Caroline are the bait: they stage an exchange of information on the election voting machines tampering, knowing that Cooper’s team were monitoring them; Cooper and his team resurface and the GAO arrests them.

After the debriefing, Frank and Caroline consider their options: they choose the witness protection program, new names, new identities, in San Diego. They visit San Diego, Frank looks at job opportunities in biotech firms, Marta and Caroline appear to like each other, Frank and Caroline consider buying a house in Leo’s neighborhood. Caroline announces she’s pregnant.

Charlie believes he should concentrate more on Joe’s upbringing and asks Phil to let him work from home again. Phil accepts reluctantly; Charlie says he may be back in the White House for Phil’s next term.

Everybody gathers for a Khembali party, celebrating the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet — and even the Dalai Lama himself drops by! Drepung leads the three couples through their marriage vows: Frank & Caroline; Phil & Diane; Roy & Andrea (Phil’s staffers). Frank makes partings with the Quiblers and promises to keep in touch.

The Khembali treehouse is growing and Sucandra offers the Quiblers to move in with them (also considering that the energy consumption would be much smaller than in suburban house). Cutter, from the Bros, comes to the Quiblers’ and installs PV panels on their roof; Anna wants to cut their carbon burn even more and they consider Sucandra’s offer. Charlie considers his frantic life since the birth of Nick, a series of thens that for each he thought would last forever, but none do.

Frank makes a last kayaking trip in the Park; he sees the woman kayaker he’s been trying to reach to for ages, but once again she’s too strong and Frank is unable to catch up with her. Frank comes back to picnic with Caroline, his love.

Characters

Main page: List of Science In The Capital trilogy characters

• Frank Vanderwal: In the team of the science advisor’s to the President. Lives with Rudra Cakrin in the Khembalis’ house in Arlington.
• Anna Quibler: Director of Bioinformatics Division at NSF.
• Charlie Quibler: Environmental policy advisor to the President.
• Phil Chase: Newly elected President of the USA.
• Diane Chang: Newly appointed science advisor to the President.
• Caroline Churchland: Ex-surveillance agent of an agency gone rogue, now on the run.
• Drepung: One of the Khembalis that has moved to Washington; in fact the true spiritual and political leader of the Khemablis.

Quotes

• [Rudra:] “Compassion! So what! Does it matter why, if we do good things?” (p.3)
• [Charlie’s thoughts:] “And so: change. The inexorable emergence of difference in time. Becoming. One of the fundamental mysteries.” (p.45)
• [Frank:] “in America, when it came to health care, the most important product of them all, they always operated in a shortage society.” (p.106)
• [Robin or Robert:] “The VW engine is the last piece of technology humans could actually understand. You look under the hood of a new car, it’s like whoah.” (p.312)
• [Phil on the Tibet/China issue:] “No one person or institution or nation is more than semi-autonomous anyway.” (p.491)
• All the repetitions in the pattern were superficial; the moment was always new. It had to be lived, and then the next moment embraced as it arrived.

Reviews

Including reviews of the whole trilogy:

• Timmi Duchamp – Ambling Along the Aqueduct
• Andrew Leonard – Salon.com: “The anti-Crichton”
• Book addiction

Resources

• Sixty Days and Counting at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Sixty Days and Counting at Google Books

Fifty Degrees Below is the second novel of the Science In The Capital trilogy. It explores the main characters in Washington, D.C. throughout a very cold winter following the halting of the Gulf Stream due to abdrupt climate change. Compared to the previous novel, it is mostly focused on the character of Frank Vanderwal.

As Washington, DC, recovers from a flood, climate change becomes more of a cntral issue in the intricate interaction between science and politics. Frank Wanderwal now homeless, he decides to live in a tree house — just as the Northern hemisphere experiences the coldest winter in recorded history.

It was published in 2005, a few months after the passage of hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans: real-life images that were echoed greatly ex ante by the flood of Washington described in these novels.

Structure

Like all three volumes in this trilogy, the novel is divided in ten parts. Each part begins with a short incipit (in italics), often unrelated to the main characters and told from a different or omniscient point of view. The part then contains short chapters, each focused on one of the main characters (essentially Frank and Charlie) and narrated in the third person. Each chapter thus follows a storyline that develops simultaneously with the rest of the part’s chapters. Fifty Degrees Below focuses much more on the character of Frank compared to the first volume.

Summary

After the massive flood on Washington in May, life has taken its course again in the nation’s capital, just as before. Or so it would seem.

Frank Vanderwal is now homeless. He leases a van, in which he sleeps; he subscribes to a fitness club, where he showers; he spends more hours in the office and outdoors: his new house is spread all over the city! He takes frequent walks at Rock Creek Park where he befriends a group of homeless (“the Bros”), with whom he hangs around and plays chess, and a group of fregans, with whom he plays running Frisbee golf; he joins the Feral Observation Group which monitors the animals of the zoo that were freed during the storm. Following his precepts on repaleolithization, he builds a treehouse in the Park where he spends his nights.

Work at NSF

The “Vanderwal committee” of NSF begins work on climate change mitigation and adaptation, with meetings (NSF teams, diplomats, UN, EU Emissions Trading Scheme, IPCC…), grants decisions, policies evaluations, proposals examinations, reading abstracts, To Do lists, discussions of renewable energy, carbon capture methods, biodiversity… Cascade theory: what is the best funding decision that will have the most impact? Diane’s bold leadership causes warring between agencies and regulatory capture reveals itself. By exercising at the gym, working and travelling together, Frank and NSF boss Diane Chang grow very close together but keep their distances because of the difference in hierarchy. At noons Frank goes running with colleagues market analyst Edgardo and climatologist Kenzo.

Frank has to deal awkwardly with his ex Marta when discussing with her and Yann’s work at Small Deliveries Systems (SDS) in engineering tree lichen that capture carbon into the host tree; using NSF funding, Frank starts an institute paired with UCSD to make use of this bio-engineering expertise. SDS then gets a contract from Russia to do a field trial of the genetically modified lichen in Siberia: the carbon drawdown is much larger than expected.

The North Atlantic project to restart the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (the Gulf Stream) by dispersing salt in the ocean finds financing through major European re-insurance companies. While the West Antarctic Ice Sheet completely comes off and increases sea level, the vast fleet of the world’s first planetary engineering project is launched.

Charlie and Joe

Charlie Quibler convinces Senator Phil Chase to run for President, which he announces at the ice-less North Pole, on Midsummer Day. The Quiblers and Frank visit the original Khembalung, an island off Bangladesh; Joe is very excited and is the focus of much interest from the Khembalis, and Joe’s general change of temper worries Charlie a lot. A monsoon flood ends up breaking the dikes surrounding the island and the entire population has to be evacuated: the Khembalung population moves to Washington.

Rudra’s assistant Drepung reveals to Charlie that he is, in fact, the real Khembali in charge, not Rudra. Charlie becomes convinced that some stronger spirit has come to occupy Joe’s body and he pleads for some kind of exorcism in order to have the old Joe back. Anna complies despite her all-scientific disbelief, and the ceremony is performed with what appears to be success.

Frank and Caroline

Frank meets his mystery woman, Caroline: she is in fact part of a Homeland Security-related team that does surveillance on anyone related to Yann Pierzinski, as his work is valued in people/ideas futures markets, markets born in Defense department R&D but that now have drawn the interest of various investors and shadow surveillance groups; she had been following him, not the other way round! They agree on a system to communicate discreetly and share moments in Frank’s treehouse. Caroline advises Frank how to get even more under the radar and provides him with a wand that detects bugged and chipped items in his belongings. Caroline is concerned of her estranged husband, who is also in the surveillance business.

Caroline reveals that the technology exists to tweak voting machines; she provides Frank with the algorithm and he shares it with Edgardo. She later calls in emergency: she quarreled with her husband and has to leave and assume a new identity. Frank allows Caroline to escape by metro and draws those following her (her husband among them) to a chase through the park; with the help of the Bros and a bit of uncharacteristic boldness, he scares them off.

The cold snap

As the weather grows colder, Frank wears his mountaineering gear, “high-tech paleolithic” style, and provides tarps and clothing for the Bros. Frank gets hit on the head when he tries to defend the Bros from outside attackers; this leaves him a permanent taste of blood, and worries that he’s had permanent brain damage because of what he perceives to be a decreased ability to take decisions.

The cold snap: the USA and Europe experience their coldest winter. Frank actually finds rapture in the cold and enjoys applying altrusim, by rescuing people, helping clearing damaged areas, surveying the feral animals next to the heat boxes that were installed. However, cold has the best of him and he has to move in with the Khembali’s new embassy house in Arlington, sharing his room with Rudra; as Frank helps the Khembali with gardening and cooking, he and Rudra teach each other their respective languages and discuss Buddhism and game theory. Spring arrives.

SSEEP and the presidential elections

With the Presidential campaign gearing up, Anna pushes the idea of bringing science back to policy: the SSEEP (Social Science Experiment in Elective Politics) project is created in which a virtual candidate expresses scientifically sound viewpoints; Chase embraces SSEEP’s proposals.

NSF’s age of innocence ends as the SSEEP experiments declares Chase as the “best real current choice” as a presidential candidate. Phil Chase is elected President of the USA and the Quiblers celebrate. But Frank is not satisfied; he talks with Rudra about the schizophrenic optimodal life he’s been leading. It is difficult to be a whole person.

Characters

Main page: List of Science In The Capital trilogy characters

• Frank Vanderwal: Head of the so-called “Vanderwal Committee” of NSF, created to examine climate change mitigation and adaptation. Homeless, settles in a treehouse in Rock Creek Park that he built.
• Anna Quibler: Director of the Bioinformatics Division at NSF.
• Charlie Quibler: Environmental policy advisor to Senator Phil Chase.
• Phil Chase: US Senator, nicknamed the World’s Senator because of his globe-trotting past. Presidential candidate for the Democratic party.
• Diane Chang: Head of NSF.
• Caroline: Did surveillance on behalf of Research and Development Agency Prime, an agency associated with Homeland Security. Wife of Edward Cooper.

Quotes

• Now he [Frank] was considering acting in accordance with his beliefs. (p.17)
• [Drepung:] “If you don’t act on it, it wasn’t a true feeling.” (p.17)
• [Frank’s thoughts] Now I have two bedrooms, in a modular home distributed throughout the city. One bedroom was mobile, the other in a tree. How cool was that? How perfectly rational and sane? (p.62)
• [Diane:] “Let’s proceed on the assumption that it is never too late. I mean, here we are.” (p.69)
• [Edgardo:] “Economics is incorrigible. They call it the dismal science but actually it’s the happy religion.” (p.114)
• [Frank’s thoughts] Sociobiology was a bad habit you could never get rid of. (p.114)
• Still it was hard to imagine it would ever happen to you. (p.163)
• [Frank’s thoughts] God bless abstracts, if only everything were written as an abstract, what would be lost after all. (p.163)
• [Anna:] “Christianity versus science, now equating to Republican versus Democrat.” (p.211)
• [Spencer:] “Live off the excess, so you don’t add to the waste. You reduce the waste, you pour energy back to the grid.” (p.246)
• “It’s not the cold, it’s the wind!” (p.348)
• [Frank’s thoughts] Leap before you look, stop trying to decide, just act on the spur of the moment. (p.248)
• [Caroline:] “Do you think elections matter?” (p.440)
• [Caroline:] “The technical capacity has expanded so fast, no one’s really grasped the full potential of it yet.” (p.444)
• [Anna’s thoughts:] It would all be better by the year 2500. (p.458)
• [Great Britain’s Prime Minister to Diane on the North Atlantic salt dispersion effort:] “So this is the face that launched a thousand ships.” (p.483)
• [Rudra:] “It is easy to live multiple lives! What is hard is to be a whole person!” (p.520)

Reviews

• Book addiction

Resources

• Fifty Degrees Below at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Fifty Degrees Below at Google Books

Forty Signs Of Rain is the first novel of the Science In The Capital trilogy, published in 2004. It introduces the main characters, scientists in the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.

In Washington, DC, the National Science Foundation guides science on its usual procedures of peer-reviewed boards and budget allocations. Politics are little concerned of climate change. The arrival of the Khembali, a buddhist sect whose native island is in danger of being flooded, heralds some important changes.

Structure

Like all three volumes in this trilogy, the novel is divided in ten parts. Each part begins with a short incipit (in italics), often unrelated to the main characters and told from a different or omniscient point of view. The part then contains short chapters, each focused on one of the main characters (Frank, Anna or Charlie) and narrated in the third person. Each chapter thus follows a storyline that develops simultaneously with the rest of the part’s chapters.

Summary

It’s another day in the life of Washington, District Capital. Scientists, lobbyists and politics strive through the legal and institutional apparatus to advance their projects.

Anna Quibler, scientist at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) bioinformatics division, meets the Khembali, a displaced people of a drowned island of the Indian Ocean who just set up their embassy next to NSF’s headquarters. They hope to make the most powerful country in the world, partly responsible for the sea rise via carbon emissions and the resulting global warming, to take notice of the plight of the victims.

Charlie Quibler, Anna’s husband, is a stay at home dad who takes care of their son Nick and their toddler Joe and, via phone and e-mail, works as an environmental policy advisor to Senator Phil Chase. Juggling his important job as Mr. Mom and trying to draft a bill in favor of a stronger climate policy is a tricky task. Charlie is disgusted at the un-scientific climate change skepticism of the President and his science advisor. Via Anna, Charlie meets the Khembalis and wires them with DC lobbyists to make their cause heard. Despite Senator Chase’s attempts at gathering support in Congress and the White House, Charlie’s draft climate bill for Chase is torn apart in Congress committees; hoping for more public attention to the matter, Chase decides to leak the bill to the press and effectively abandons it, which upsets Charlie.

Frank Vanderwal is a bio-maths expert visiting NSF for one year from the University of California – San Diego and working under Anna. Frank lives alone in a temporary flat which became his permanent dwelling. He enjoys observing people around him and explaining their behavior through sociobiology, making evident the activities we feel most fulfilled at as primates; he ponders about the prisoner’s dilemma and altruism as a life strategy; he climbs at the Rock Creek Park. He takes interest in the work of a promising researcher, Yann Pierzinski, working in his ex-employer, biotechnologies start-up Twin Pines Generique (TPG). He moderates an NSF committee for funding research projects — in which neutrality of the members is paramount and double-checked – and he attempts to shift the committee’s opinion in Yann’s favor, thinking that this will be beneficial for his future job back at TPG; however he’s out-witted by another NSF committee member who has vested interests in a bigger competing biotech firm, Small Delivery Systems.

Leo Mulhouse is chief researcher in TPG, pressured by the company’s management to produce results that are conclusive, patentable and profitable. TPG’s future is at play as start-ups are bought and sold by prospecting venture capitalists. Leo leads his team, which includes Yann and Marta, Frank’s ex, through months of trial-and-error research in new delivery methods of gene-based cures in cells, for which Yann’s theoretical math finds practical applications. The team ends up developing solutions not for human illnesses, as originally intended, but for lichen-aided tree growth, through which carbon dioxide sequestration is accelerated. TPG ends up bought by Small Delivery Systems; Leo finds himself without a job and sees his house on the San Diego cliffs threatened by landslides brought about by land overexploitation.

Frank writes a vehement letter about NSF’s ineffectiveness against environmental change to Diane Chang, head of NSF. He then attends a speech by Rudra Cakrin, a Khembali sage, on the relationship between science and Buddhism and how they both aim at similar things — reducing suffering and increasing compassion — though through different means — technical versus humanistic — and thus positing altruism as the best adaptive strategy for the survival of the human race: “an excess of reason is itself a form of madness.” Frank has an epiphany moment, and his excitement grows after sharing a passionate kiss with a mysterious girl he was following around in the metro. Frank breaks into Diane’s office to retrieve his letter but it is too late. Diane invites Frank in an NSF Board of Directors meeting and Frank fully participates in the debate: Frank suggests that NSF should commission work rather than accepting proposals and that the power of science in policy decisions should be increased. Diane assigns Frank to lead an NSF committee to tackle the climate change problem, to stay at NSF for another year.

As Charlie begins suspecting that the Khembali’s interest in his son Joe might be related to their beliefs in reincarnation, a big storm hits Washington. Flooding ensues; the animals of the zoo are released. Frank helps in the relief effort and has a fleeting glimpse of his mysterious woman. Ferried by boat over the Mall, Charlie teases Senator Chase over doing something about global warming.

Characters

Main page: List of Science In The Capital trilogy characters

• Frank Vanderwal: Bio-mathematics expert, originally from UCSD, ending a one-year visit to NSF in Washington DC. Has an interest in sociobiology and the remnants of primate behavior underpinning modern behavior. Likes climbing and kayaking.
• Anna Quibler: Director of the Bioinformatics Division at NSF. A passionate and hard scientist, wary of anything that is not science. Wife of Charlie, mother of Nick and Joe.
• Charlie Quibler: Environmental policy advisor to Senator Phil Chase. Works from home and is Mr. Mom to toddler Joe.
• Leo Mulhouse: Chief researcher at Torrey Pines Generique, in San Diego, California. Lives in Leucadia.

Quotes

• [Quote on wall of the “Department of Unfortunate Statistics”:] 72.8% of all statistics are made up on the spot (p.67)
• Easier to destroy the world than to change capitalism even one little bit. (p.140)
• [Rudra Cakrin:] “An excess of reason is itself a form of madness.” (p.238)
• [Drepung:] “Nothing alive is ever quite in balance.” (p.263)
• “If it was really true that an excess of reason was a form of madness, he [Frank] seemed to be cured. Unless of course this truly was the most reasonable thing to do -– as he felt it was.” (p.272)
• [Old man, reformulating Frank:] “We need a paradigm shift in how science interacts with society.” (p.290)
• [Frank:] “They can’t give half a trillion dollars a year to the military and leave the rescue and rebuilding of the world to chance and some kind of free market religion.” (p.290)
• [“The Frank Principle”] Saving the world so science can proceed. (p.292)
• [Charlie:] “So Phil! Are you going to do something about global warming now?” Phil grinned his beautiful grin. “I’ll see what I can do!” (p.356)

Reviews

• Book addiction

Resources

• Forty Signs of Rain at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Forty Signs of Rain at Google Books

The Years of Rice and Salt is an alternative history novel published in 2002. Its working title was A World Without Europe. In the 14th century Anno Domini, the Black Plague decimates Europe. The Muslim, Indian and Chinese civilizations are the ones that will drive world history, through hardships and wars, discoveries and revolutions.

It explores the shape the world would have taken if 99% of the European population had been wiped out by the 14th Century Black Plague. It follows 700 years of human toil and development unto a time where world civilization is one step ahead of our own. The Buddhist and Islamic religions take a prominent role; the civilizations that shape the world are the Chinese, Arab, Indian and Hodenosaunee (Native American). Through monologues, discussions between characters and parallels with our world, the novel explores the way history is made and discusses ideas on the evolution of history and the purpose of civilization (if any).

Structure

More than a collection of short stories, the narrative follows a group of souls that are reincarnated into people that keep certain similar character traits and temperaments. The novel is divided into ten Books, each focusing on one (or sometimes more) incarnation of the main characters. It is written in the third person, with each Book roughly seen from a particular character’s perspective. Through the ages, a character’s name keeps the same initial letter so that the reader can identify him/her. Small chapters in the bardo, the Buddhist afterlife where souls meet between incarnations, occasionally serve as links between stories. Each Book has its own style, roughly following the style of the historical period or culture it depicts (most prominent in Books I, VI, VIII).

Synopsis: Ten Books

Follow individual Books’ pages for additional content

Book 1 : Awake To Emptiness

From a Europe deserted by plague to Africa to China, the journeys of a Mongol warrior who meets an African boy who plans to kill the Chinese Emperor.

Book 2 : The Haj In The Heart

One incarnation in rural Mughal India; then the journeys of a Sufi scholar from Mughal India to Akbar’s court to Mecca to Europe being repopulated by Muslims.

Book 3 : Ocean Continents

Circumstances bring a Chinese war fleet to land in America; Indian Americans end up contracting illnesses, and Incas end up getting shot at by the gold-thirsty Chinese.

Book 4 : The Alchemist

Between the Khan’s demands and their own inclinations, Samarqandi scientists make a series of discoveries and inventions that amount to an Islamic Renaissance.

Book 5 : Warp And Weft

A ronin that escaped chinese invasion of Nippon rises the more democratically-inclined Native Americans (Hodenosaunee league) against the Chinese and Muslim colonists.

Book 6 : Widow Kang

Against the backdrop of civil unrest and war between Muslims and Chinese at the Chinese border, two souls’ discussions spawn a multitude of books on history, comparative religion, poetry and philosophy.

Book 7 : The Age Of Great Progress

Industrialization leads the South Indian League to large conquests, wealth and knowledge; against the great forces of Islam and China, Travancore seeks allies: the Hodenosaunee or the Japanese Americans.

Book 8 : War Of The Asuras

During the Long World War and the military campaigns in China and India, three chinese officers wonder whether this is the real world or the bardo.

Book 9 : Nsara

In a Firanja still recovering from the Long War and in great social crisis, especially in women’s rights, two women fight for the formation of an impartial scientific council that could save the world.

Book 10 : The First Years

Following the Chinese revolution towards more equity, a Chinese wanders across continents, wonders at history and grows old in a world where Justice starts becoming a reality.

Characters

• B the believer (faith)
• K the rebel (action)
• I the scientist (thought)
• S the corrupt leader (laziness)
• P the wanderer (humility)
• Z the warrior (strength)

Timeline

See main article: Timeline of The Years Of Rice And Salt.

The diverging moment in the novel’s timeline seems to be the latter 14th century AD. The Black Death, which killed 30 to 60% of Europe’s population, peaked around 1348-1350. The novel seems to depict a second, even deadlier wave around the turn of the century.

The novel then covers around 700 years of history, ending in the future compared to our timeline, around the year 2088 AD.

Since the Christian population is only minor, the Christian calendars (Julian or Gregorian) are not used in the novel. Instead, the Chinese imperial calendar, the lunar Hegira calendar and the solar Buddhist calendar are used throughout the novel.

Analysis and Criticism

• World ends up quasi-the same
• Bardo suggests Buddhism is true
• History as teleological process
• Form not adapted for novel (thematically linked short stories)

(to develop)

Reviews

• Jo Walton – Tor.com
• adamosf – Visions of Paradise
• Shannon, Legends Undying
• Consumed media
• Brendan – Balancing Frogs
• Morgan Crooks – Ancient Logic

Resources

• The Years of Rice and Salt at The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• The Years of Rice and Salt at Google Books

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