Published 1 hour ago • loading... • Updated 5 hours ago
Kim Stanley Robinson won’t read aloud his climate disaster scene from ‘The Ministry for the Future’
Robinson said the scene is too harsh to read aloud after more than 600 speaking events since the novel’s 2020 publication.
On Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, author Kim Stanley Robinson discussed his novel, The Ministry for the Future, refusing to read the book's brutal opening scene aloud to The Associated Press.
The novel's opening depicts a prolonged heat wave in northern India causing electrical grid failure and killing 20 million people, a scenario Robinson said, "I intended it to be a kind of a brutal shock."
Robinson has completed more than 600 speaking events since the 2020 publication, incorporating terms like "The Dithering" to describe climate inaction in novels 2312 and New York 2140.
Critiquing the administration's environmental policies as a "death cult response," Robinson compared climate action to the American Revolution, invoking America's 250th anniversary despite Trump calling climate change a "con job."
At 74, Robinson plans a new Arctic-set novel and feels no pressure to continue writing. "Now I've got this idea," he said, "it'll be interesting to see what comes out.