David Rubenstein's Reviews> Termination Shock

This is a fun book about a plan to combat global warming in the near future. All sorts of climate catastrophes are happening, so a small group of people (vigilantes?) have decided to take it upon themselves to fix the problem. Their approach? Climate engineering.

This is a rambling, happy-go-lucky sort of story. Like many of Neal Stephenson's fiction, the best part isnotnecessarily the overall plot, or even the characters. The best part is the arrangement of a few scenes. In these remarkable scenes, crazy things happen that border on the absurd, practically surreal. It's almost like a long, drawn-out joke that is calculated to have an amazing punch line. Stephenson takes his time to build up the background behind these scenes, and then unleashes them into a spectacular trajectory. I love it!

And, what is "Termination Shock"? That is a potential downside of climate engineering. What happens if people perform climate engineering for a while, successfully counteract the greenhouse effect -- and then pull the plug? That is called "Termination Shock".