orty Signs of Rain, the first book in a new trilogy, is a near-future novel set principally in Washington, D.C. It follows the interconnected lives of several scientists in a time when climate, science and politics add up to a tense ménage à trois.
We are first introduced to Anna and Charlie Quibler. Charlie is the environmental science advisor for a well-meaning, charismatic but ineffectual U.S. senator. Charlie works mostly from home, taking care of his and Anna's young sons. Charlie is a firm believer that we must act now to stop climate change and does all he can to champion legislation to that effect. Anna, for whom science is a religion, works for the National Science Foundation. One day she meets the members of the Embassy of Khembalung, an island nation whose inhabitants are descended from Tibetan exiles. She immediately strikes up a friendship with them.
The Khembalis also have an interest in climate change: Their island is in danger of disappearing under the rising waters, and they're in Washington to lobby for their cause. Anna puts them in contact with Charlie, who is delighted to help them but becomes anxious when the Khembalis show perhaps too much interest in the Quibler's youngest son, Joe.
Frank Vanderwal, another NSF scientist, attends a lecture given by the Khembalis, triggering a fundamental change in his worldview. Frank has ties to a biotech firm called Torrey Pines Generique, where researcher Leo Mulhouse's team is on the verge of a major breakthrough in the fight against several major ailments and diseases, but their efforts are blocked by their failure to find a viable delivery system.
A catastrophic rainfall besets the U.S. capital, with important consequences for many characters.
Unfortunately fragmented
Forty Signs of Rain is liberally peppered with scientific exposition, but as in Robinson's epic Mars trilogy, such exposition is filtered through focus characters who are passionate experts about the various subjects at hand. In this new book, the four focus characters—Anne, Charlie, Frank and Leo—are experts in fields that will, presumably, feed into the grand scheme of the trilogy.
Unlike Red Mars, the first book in the Mars trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain does not read like a complete and satisfying novel. It's a fragment, and there's very little throughout to propel the story and almost no sense of resolution or suspense at the book's end. At this point, Leo is still extraneous and by far the least interesting focus character. Frank is the most compellingly complex protagonist, charmingly brash and possessing a quirky intelligence and a dry wit; alas, his scenes, often the most interesting moments in the novel, also don't feed into what little plot the book manages to develop. Really, this book is about the Quiblers, and they're somewhat weak characters compared to the charismatic Frank.
Anne's personality never gels. She's presented as a cold analytical thinker with no room in her mind for anything but science, and her outbursts of warmth and friendliness always ring false. The book goes on at interminable length about Charlie's life as a "Mr. Mom," filling page after page with overly detailed descriptions of child care that, in this episode of the trilogy, offer no narrative payoff. Charlie's passion for the environment is his most interesting trait—and it's quite deftly conveyed—but everything else about him is grating.
Forty Signs of Rain is much shorter than most Robinson novels, and perhaps the story he wants to tell would have been better served by releasing the whole thing as one novel instead of offering readers this fragmentary episode.
Much of Forty Signs of Rain is about science; at times it almost engages that topic head on, but it always stops short of truly exploring the consequences and ramifications of the scientific worldview. It broaches the subject, and the text suggests that Robinson would have interesting things to say about science and its place in the world, but the book always pulls away just as it appears to prepare to delve more deeply into such questions.
