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Sixty Days and Counting | 
 enlarge | Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
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Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 208581
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 560
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0553585827
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780553585827
ASIN: 0553585827
Publication Date: October 30, 2007
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Product Description
By the time Phil Chase is elected president, the world’s climate is far on its way to irreversible change. Food scarcity, housing shortages, diminishing medical care, and vanishing species are just some of the consequences. The erratic winter the Washington, D.C., area is experiencing is another grim reminder of a global weather pattern gone haywire: bone-chilling cold one day, balmy weather the next.
But the president-elect remains optimistic and doesn’t intend to give up without a fight. A maverick in every sense of the word, Chase starts organizing the most ambitious plan to save the world from disaster since FDR–and assembling a team of top scientists and advisers to implement it.
For Charlie Quibler, this means reentering the political fray full-time and giving up full-time care of his young son, Joe. For Frank Vanderwal, hampered by a brain injury, it means trying to protect the woman he loves from a vengeful ex and a rogue “black ops” agency not even the president can control–a task for which neither Frank’s work at the National Science Foundation nor his study of Tibetan Buddhism can prepare him.
In a world where time is running out as quickly as its natural resources, where surveillance is almost total and freedom nearly nonexistent, the forecast for the Chase administration looks darker each passing day. For as the last–and most terrible–of natural disasters looms on the horizon, it will take a miracle to stop the clock . . . the kind of miracle that only dedicated men and women can bring about.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 A pleasing end to the cycle September 22, 2008
R. Cox (usa)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is going to going to rub some people the wrong way. More than the others in the series, it attacks current political dogma and demands a change. It does, in fact, ask why when the US government is doing so much to stabilize the economy, the world, and help people in general, why we still think that government help is bad. New Orleans needed more help, and Texas couldn't wait for the federal government. So this level of the book is going to be liked or disliked based on personal political beliefs. I think we have seen that from past reviews.
However, this book like the others is only tangentially about politics. Like mant works of science fiction it is a way for to think of how out technology will effect the world and how we might preemptively prevent negative consequences. When it thought we would have robots wandering around the street, the three laws of robotics were proposed. Star Trek proposed the Prime Directive for dealing with new cultures. The list goes on. This series presupposes a traumatized world that has not happened yet, and may not happen, and proposes some alternatives. It may not be the best idea to expend government funds to pump and mine every bit of fossil fuel and burn it for energy. It may be better to spend money on Solar. The same goes for accounting methods that do include ancillary costs of acquiring that oil, such as the $1 trillion for the war in iraq. Who knows if any of this will transpire, or if any of this work? This is science fiction.
Even this technological consequence thing is secondary to the real crux of the story, which is what Robinson, like so many other science fiction writers, excel in. That is people and relationships. Each character in the story is certain archtype, and each represents a specific manner of interacting with the world. Charlie is the domestic political, feeding ideas to those in charge in hopes of making a change, while at the same time knowing that family is what makes a country. Ann is the dedicated scientist, looking for a silver bullet to solve the problem. Diane is the scientist administrator who believes that world can be saved through science, a constant theme through most science fiction, and in the real world, politics is who one saves the world. Ergo, the thrust of all three books.
This is why I like this book the best. In the previous books it appeared that Robinson was going to take the traditional trajectory and claim that science would allow to live at our current standard of living, or even better, and still save the world. While it is a nice fantasy, I did not think it fit in with overall tone of the book, which was more reality based. However, in this last book with the increasing focus on the refugees from Khembalung and Frank, and the freegans, it is clear that he does realize, and is trying to promote, a change in relationship to our planet. This is another reason why some may find it to be their most hated book. Even Ann, the absolute scientist, has moments where she realizes that science alone cannot help us.
Which we see in the allegory of Frank dropping off the grid, people leading decent lives by eating what others waste, and an entire village raising Joe to become not what his father desperately wants, a son he can call his own, as Nick is definitely his Mother's son, but whatever Joe is. And this may be the lesson of book. We cannot, science cannot, religion cannot, make something that which it is not. The world happens. We can change it for a while, but at some point we just have to adapt.
 Terribly boring September 5, 2008
David G. Phillips (Jersey City, NJ USA)
Terribly boring, a sorry way to end such a promising series on environmental climate change. Again, Robinson focuses on the bureaucracy dealing with climate change which can be interesting, but the plot was tedious and drawn out. The lame side story of a secret government agency fixing the election via a Diebold like fixing is pointless. I have no doubt Diebold has done some nasty stuff, but I did not see the relevance of it in this book. This entire series dragged for me and this last book was such an utter disappointment, I really wanted to like it but it was not good.
 Fascinating August 17, 2008
M. Moyano (Salt Lake City, UT)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In Sixty Days and Counting, Robinson closes his stupendous climate trilogy. In this series, Robinson gives us a fascinating look into very realistic scenarios of politics and science in a not too-far-away future. But what gives these books an added depth, I believe, is his wonder on human nature, on who we are, and why we are the way we are. One of the aspects that I most enjoyed in these books was his delving into evolutionary biology and sociobiology. That is, how to explain in a scientific way the way we are, based on the understanding that we are apes that evolved in the African savannas. We're apes with very special abilities, for sure, but apes in the end. Robinson goes further and connects ideas that have come from an evolutionary point of view with Tibetan Buddhism. I was surprised to see how close they are, how they've come to similar conclusions by way of very different methods. I believe that he was able to set out these two sets of complex ideas in an understandable format, and I'm very glad that he included these topics in the books. This is the reason that I give 40 Signs of Rain (and this trilogy) 4 points.
I could also add other high points of these books. First is Robinson's ability to create fascinating characters and go deep into their thinking and acting. By the end of this book, we know the characters as if they had been our friends all our lives. In his first book, Forty Signs of Rain, Robinson starts with several characters whose lives at first appear disconnected, but later on become more intertwined in a complex and interesting drama. On the second book, the author focuses more on Frank, a professor from UCSD who is at leave from the university and working at NSF. This character is rich, complex and realistic. The second book is the strongest of the three for me, with the most entertaining plot, and where he covers these philosophical ideas more deeply. In the third book my understanding is that he focuses more on change, and how what we believe to be permanent things turn out to be ephemeral.
I do have some criticisms! I think that the first book starts out too slow, and the third book looses steam at one point, and, for a while, it is hard to see where the author wants to go. But it is on this seemingly non-changing plot in 40 Days and Counting that suddenly everything is different by the end of the book.
In this climate trilogy you will find a realistic story of climate change, not a Hollywood story The Day After Tomorrow-like, where in a single day a cold front buries all North America in 1000 feet of ice. But in that realism relies, for me, the strength of this book. Robinson was able to create such a good story out of ordinary people in extraordinary times. And although this trilogy might have its slower parts, I highly recommend it.
Too tidy of a finish for the human factors March 16, 2008
Frank Catalano
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Neatly wraps up the three-book series, but perhaps a bit too neatly. While the major issue -- the effects of global warming and efforts to mitigate it -- continues to be the most fascinating "what if" of the third book, and is convincingly dealt with (saying more would be a spoiler), the resolution of the human relationships in the book is a bit pat in some cases and some plot twists are of the "I wonder when he was going to throw that in" variety. Still, Kim Stanley Robinson is a fine writer with an eye for realistic detail, and the odd turn on that detail, and this book is worth reading for the thought-provoking aspects alone.
 What a waste of Trees!! February 6, 2008
GrrlScientist (New York, NY, USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Those of you who read the previous two books in this series will remember that, at the end of the previous book, Fifty Degrees Below, Senator Phil Chase was elected President of the United States. Chase was elected, thanks to the combined efforts of NSF scientist, Frank Vanderwal, his spook girlfriend, Caroline Barr, and a number of Frank's clandestine colleagues around the country -- all of whom joined forces to prevent the right-wingers, including Caroline's (ex?) husband, from yet again stealing the presidency for their own personal gain and evil ends (but the author never clarifies what exactly are the goals of these evil people, I guess he assumes we all are privy to this information, although I certainly am not).
By the time Chase is elected president, it is clear that the planet's climate is going to hell in a handbasket. Not only is the weather in Washington DC wildly unpredictable -- warm one day, freezing the next -- but there are other daily indications that things are not going well, such as widespread housing and food shortages, flooding, drought, loss of biodiversity and numerous other problems. However, there is some reason for optimism: scientists have at least managed to restart the Gulf Stream, for example.
Because Chase was elected President, his principle advisor, Charlie Quibler, must go to work full-time at the White House instead of spending his days yelling advice into his cell phone while running through the city's parks, chasing after his toddler son, Joe -- a proposition that Charlie hates. But he finally does give up his mister mom role by entrusting his precious younger child to the White House daycare staff, and works down the hall from the President himself, helping Chase make key appointments to his cabinet.
One of those choices was appointing NSF head, Diane, to the role of Presidential Science Advisor. Diane, of course, asks Frank and Anna Quibler to join her, but Anna refuses, wisely preferring to stay at the NSF. Frank is suffering from a brain injury that renders him indecisive, and further, he is also in love with Diane, so he accepts her invitation, although he'd rather return to his previous job in California.
The novel mostly focuses on Frank, once again, although why it does, I do not know -- so would it be trite of me to mention at this point that even though he is working at the White House, Frank is still officially homeless? Hello?? Has the author ever heard of Homeland Security? Okay, it's true that Frank often stays with the expat Khembalese on their estate in Maryland instead of in his van or in his treehouse in a downtown park in Washington DC, and that he rarely hangs out with his homeless friends anymore and only tracks escaped zoo animals when he has spare time, instead of every evening as he did in the second book when he was working at NSF. I should also point out that when Frank stays with the Khembalese, he is properly nourished too, instead of living on refuse retrieved from dumpsters throughout the greater Metro area.
Anyway, after this idiosyncratic beginning, the novel rapidly devolves into a silly 500-plus page cat-and-mouse political spy thriller where poor, indecisive Frank is stuck in the middle of two women (neither of them knows about the other, of course), unable to decide who he is really in love with; the powerful, articulate and intelligent Diane, or the nearly invisible and flighty, but occasionally sexually available Caroline? Of course, there is Caroline's (ex?) husband to consider, too. He's the man who gave Frank his little brain injury in the second book by smashing him in the face with a tire iron.
The book occasionally comes up for air from the contrived Frank-Diane-Caroline emotional menage a trois to examine other topics that were introduced in the two previous books, such as the effect that the Khembalese ah, "exorcism" had on Joe's personality. Basically, in the second book, the Khembalese perform a so-called "exorcism" ritual that transforms the toddler from a complete brat into a more affable kid. But his parents, Charlie and Anna, are troubled by this sudden docility, realizing that they prefer their little Joe to be banging innocent playmates on the head with steel dump trucks that are the size of footballs. So by the end of this book, poof, the Quiblers get their wish: the Khembalese undo their hocus-pocus and little Joe is once again happily terrorizing his parents, their friends and all the children within city blocks of where he is located.
Additionally, this book includes a brief but nonetheless unsatisfying glimpse at the so-called "ferals" and homeless people (mostly men, mostly mentally ill) whom Frank spent so much time with in book two, giving me the impression that these people were not very important to Frank (nor to the story, and definitely not to the author). Further, I was especially disappointed with the thoughtlessly casual way that the author dealt "the problem" of the homeless teenager, Chessman: the author hinted that Chessman might have an important role in the development of the story as early as the middle of the second book, since Frank repeatedly wondered about Chessman's mysterious disappearance from that point onwards. But Chessman's disappearance had nothing whatsoever to do with the story's development or resolution, making it appear that the author didn't know what to do with this particular character, which makes me wonder why Chessman was introduced into the story in the first place.
In addition to all those little quibbles, I have a few other things I'd like to mention: I thought that Frank's brain injury, which made him unable to think clearly and to make decisions, was an absolutely ridiculous plot device. Ditto for Frank's entire lifestyle as a homeless, tree-dwelling, dumpster-diving, frisbee-flicking, animal-tracking primate who happened to be employed as a scientist at NSF. I mean, really, this was such an overt insult to all those truly hard-working scientists out there who actually do work at NSF or elsewhere!
I also thought the "exorcism" (and its subsequent reversal) of Joe Quibler by the Khembalese was beyond stupid: It was an overt insult to the author's main characters, most of whom were scientists -- people who are steeped in rationality and logic, who are not about to believe in that sort of mumbo-jumbo. He thoughtlessly betrayed so many of his characters, beginning with the cooly rational Anna Quibler, with this truly ridiculous and dead-end story line.
Further, I was astonished at the audacity and lack of ethics displayed by the scientists who released an untested, genetically-engineered lichen that would supposedly reverse global warming by absorbing carbon [yes, there was a wee bit of science in this book, although you did have to look hard to find it]. And finally, I admit that I laughed out loud when the author suggested that nearly all (or was it all?) of the US military's funds be shifted to ecological programs -- puhleeze. I thought the author was writing a "hyper-realistic science-fiction novel" not a comic fantasy.
Okay, this is my last complaint: I didn't like ANY of the characters. After spending 1500 pages with all of the characters in this story, I ended up wanting to slap every one of them for various reasons, starting with Frank, because they were so annoying, so stupid, so out-of-character! Well, except for Diane and Phil Chase, but we, the readers, never get to know either of them because the author is too busy regaling us with yawn-inspiring anecdotes about how women look sexy when throwing softballs or rock-climbing or kayaking up dangerous waterfalls.
Oddly, after taking more than one thousand pages to develop the story, the author casually wraps up most of his plotline's wacky loose ends in only a few pages (three or four, to be exact), none of which are even remotely interesting or logical. In short, Sixty Days doesn't end with a bang, as I had expected, instead, it ends with a barely audible whimper, accompanied by a stinky sulfurous cloud as it quietly slides past the author's sphincter muscles and out of his bowels and onto thousands of dead trees that these stupid books were printed on.
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