| In his first 16 novels, the iconic science fiction writer Neal Stephenson tackled everything from math to the metaverse. (In fact, he coined that term.) His intricately built worlds let him pursue the genre's true purpose: grappling with today's biggest problems in imaginary futures and parallel universes. But until now he has sidestepped climate change, the globe's most glaring challenge.
As Adam Rogers writes in his profile of Stephenson on Backchannel, the novelist's 17th book, Termination Shock, goes all in on how humanity might confront a climate apocalypse. No spoilers, but let's just say it involves a rogue billionaire, a feral-pig-hunting weapons expert, Chinese spies, and an Indian-Canadian stick-fighting cyborg.
Could Stephenson's latest work of fiction inspire some Silicon Valley titan to MacGyver our way out of disaster? As Rogers writes, "After a few years of unrelenting wildfires, hurricanes, disease outbreaks, and other natural disasters linked directly or indirectly to climate change, the idea that the world's preeminent technologists might take up the cause where policymakers seem to have failed is almost hopeful." Mark Robinson | Features Editor, WIRED |
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