Teaser

One day, the sea levels start to rise. They never stop. Faced with an ever rising tide, humanity embarks on a futile scramble for survival. For the boats, for the high ground, for the unknown . . .

Review

Before I start with this review, I want to make one thing perfectly clear. Climate change is real, and in the real world it is being driven by human industry. Sea levels are likely to rise, and that won’t be the worst we face in the decades to come. Climate change is a threat not just to our modern way of life, but to our very survival as a species.

I say this now because In don’t want to be misinterpreted as I talk about Flood. Because while it is a book about rising sea levels, it also has some of the shakiest scientific underpinnings I’ve seen a Baxter book. In Flood, sea levels don’t rise because of anything humans have done. Instead, it’s because of underground lakes bursting and adding more water to the oceans. As always, there is some evidence that such aquifers exist, but I find it unlikely that there’s enough water trapped down there to raise global sea levels over the top of Mount Everest, as the book claims. then again, maybe I’m wrong.

Why choose this route to sea level rise? Well, firstly it allows Baxter to chronicle the drowning of the world over the course of a single human lifespan. Secondly, because it avoids the inventible finger-pointing and moronic denialism that comes with any actual discussion of climate change. By skipping over all of that, Baxter can focus on how humanity reacts to the inevitable end of the world. Spoiler alert, we take it very badly.

One of the things that has always struck me about Baxter’s work is his sense of optimism. Even in his Xeelee novels, which chronicle the death of the universe and the end of all life, there’s a profound philosophy at work that this is okay. It’s okay for things to pass. It’s okay for things to die. Annihilation is not the death of meaning. You can still achieve significance when all the odds are stacked against you.

That optimism is totally absent in Flood. This is Baxter at his most pessimistic and bleak. Families are torn apart. Billions die. Culture is lost. Even the few survivors lose their humanity. Imagine a Britain turned to tribal warfare over resources, an America drowned as everyone flees south, a Tibet devolving into a cannibalistic dystopia, and you’ll have a taste of what horrors this book has in store.

It’s not just the unrelenting pessimism that I find fault with, however. This is also one of Baxter’s most character-driven novels. We follow one family and their friends through the events of the soggy apocalypse. There’s a lot of interpersonal drama. The problem is that the timespan covered by this book renders it all moot. What does it matter if mother and daughter have an argument when the next chapter takes place a decade later? Even if the inevitable deaths don’t really have much of an impact, set as they are against a backdrop of the whole human race slowly drowning. There are some good ideas here, but the focus is all off.

There are two sequels to Flood, and I can only imagine that they’re radically different books to this one. Maybe they’re even a little cheerier? If this had been my first Baxter novel, it could well have been my last, but one day I think I’ll get to those sequels. I’m just not in any rush to read them right now.

Book Stats

• Flood (#1)
• First Published 2008
• 536 Pages