I have read a lot of books by Neal Stephenson. They tend to be quite geeky and that suits my tastes. This one came out a couple of years ago and it's very topical. It is set a few years in the future where the effects of climate change have become more extreme and are making normal life difficult for most of the world.
The story goes all over the world with a fairly large cast that includes some fictional royals. The number of people can make it a little hard to keep track of who they all are. It deals with different cultures and that helps to make it more interesting.
I do not want to reveal too much of the plot to avoid spoilers, but it does deal with geo-engineering. That is a controversial technology as the effects may be hard to predict and it may not benefit everyone. I literally just read this news story about how cleaning up the fuels used by shipping may have led to temperatures going up. That was not intended, but then mucy of what we are doing is a form of geo-enginerring. Putting various substances into the air, water and soil is likely to have effects.
The book includes a lot of current technology such as drones. Previously he has changed names of things like operating systems, but this time he mentions some actual products. This could make it seem dated in a few years, but then it feels so current now.
If you enjoy books like The Martian (I did) then you may like this too. He may not paint the best characters, but he tells a good story. The action rolls along nicely over 700 pages. It has taken me av while to get through, but it was satisfying.
Happy reading.
