or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
42 used & new from £0.12

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Fifty Degrees Below
 
 

Fifty Degrees Below (Paperback)

by Kim Stanley Robinson (Author)
2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £6.99
Price: £5.47 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £1.52 (22%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 3 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Thursday, February 11? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
21 new from £2.22 20 used from £0.12 1 collectible from £15.99

Frequently Bought Together

Fifty Degrees Below + Sixty Days and Counting + Forty Signs of Rain
Total RRP: £20.97
Price For All Three: £16.34

Show availability and delivery details

  • This item: Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Sixty Days and Counting

Sixty Days and Counting

by Kim Stanley Robinson
3.2 out of 5 stars (6)  £5.41
Forty Signs of Rain

Forty Signs of Rain

by Kim Stanley Robinson
3.0 out of 5 stars (7)  £5.46
Galileo's Dream

Galileo's Dream

by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Years of Rice and Salt

The Years of Rice and Salt

by Kim Stanley Robinson
3.3 out of 5 stars (18)  £6.99
Icehenge

Icehenge

by Kim Stanley Robinson
4.2 out of 5 stars (4)  £10.36
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (5 Jun 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007148917
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007148912
  • Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 196,007 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #15 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > R > Robinson, Kim Stanley

Product Description

Review

Praise for FORTY SIGNS OF RAIN: 'The BRAVE NEW WORLD of global warming ! A narrative that is rich in closely observed characters and a wonderfully vivid sense of place ! depicts a society sleep-walking towards the abyss ! His great achievement here is to bring the practice of science alive and to place this in an all-too familiar world of greedy capitalists and unprincipled politicians. Robinson's critique of science is heartfelt ! humans have gone from being the smartest animal on the savannah to being "experts at denial".' P.D. Smith GUARDIAN 'A funny, convincing, intelligent book' Kim Newman, INDEPENDENT 'Kim Stanley Robinson is freed by his medium -- fiction -- to deliver [a] message with passion and restraint ! A great book' NEW SCIENTIST Praise for the MARS trilogy: 'The ultimate in future history' DAILY MAIL More on the Mars books: 'To make Mars real and make it interesting. That's the double challenge which Kim Robinson has here so squarely and successfully faced! scientific reality leads straight into a conflict plot! a running commentary on human desire, frustration and fulfilment.' Tom Shippey GURADIAN 'A beautiful book -- to be lived in.' Ian Watson DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A complex combination of science fiction and fact, political and social commentary which, together with strong characterisation and a brilliantly conceived plot, blend into a book that reads like a heavily dramatised version of past events, flowing smoothly from start to finish and building up to a climactic conclusion. Probably the most outstanding aspect of Robinson's novel, however, is his stunning visualisation of the beauty of this hostile planet. By the end you can't help feeling you understand the place, that it has some meaning beyond that of just another location for a story ! I'm looking forward to reading the next two volumes almost as eagerly as I'm anticipating the reality of such an outrageous venture.' Alex Hardy TIME OUT On ANTARCTICA 'A tour de force of adventure writing, memorably told ! He describes Antarctica like a great travel writer, but he does so in the aid of the story ! It is hard to put the book down. It is important, it is relevant, it gives us a huge new continent to imagine; and it is fun.' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'The most momentous science fiction novel of the year! Robinson has turned his gaze on a landscape almost as hostile and unspoiled as Mars and describes it gloriously well.' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A fascinating richness ! with the unobtrusive lightness that allowed him to finesse so many of the difficult grandeurs of epic in the Mars books, he steals in Antarctica towards the tricky inward experiences of those archaic Brits, "conquering the world with bad boy scout equipment".' INDEPENDENT

Product Description

Kim Stanley Robinson is at his visionary best in this gripping cautionary tale of progress and its price as our world faces catastrophic climate change. Frank Vanderwal of the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC has been living a paleolithic lifestyle in a tree house in Rock Creek Park ever since a big flood of the Potomac destroyed his apartment block. The flood was just the beginning. It heralded a lot of bad-weather news. Now the Gulf Stream has shut down and the Antarctic ice sheet is melting. The good news is that Frank is part of an international effort by the National Science Foundation to restabilize Earth's climate. He understands the necessity for out-of-the-box thinking and he refuses to feel helpless before the indifference of the politicians and capitalists who run America. The bad news is that Frank has fallen in love - with a woman who is not who she seems. He discovers that their first meeting was no accident: he was on a list all along! Her ulterior motive is political and she expects Frank to spy for her. And thus Frank is drawn into the world of Homeland Security, and other, blacker Washington security agencies as the presidential election year heats up. Then suddenly it's winter! It's winter like the ice age, fifty degrees below. As hellish conditions disrupt the lives of even the most important people, there is a convergence of meteorological and human events with Frank at the centre - catastrophe is in the air. This unforgettable story from the master of alternate and future history brings tomorrow into new focus with startling effect.

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Fifty Degrees Below
69% buy the item featured on this page:
Fifty Degrees Below 2.9 out of 5 stars (8)
£5.47
Green Mars: Mars Trilogy Bk. 2
9% buy
Green Mars: Mars Trilogy Bk. 2 3.4 out of 5 stars (8)
£6.59
Galileo's Dream
8% buy
Galileo's Dream 3.2 out of 5 stars (40)
Antarctica
7% buy
Antarctica 4.1 out of 5 stars (12)
£12.74

 

Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
2.9 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Politics in the New Ice Age, 28 April 2006

One of the good things about Kim Stanely Robinson is that he is unafraid to tackle the real issues facing humanity in the twenty first century unlike most modern scif-fi which appears to be stuck in fantasy. Fifty Degrees below is an interesting book, detailing how the American government attempts to cope with the shutting down of the North Atlantic Drift. However I found the whole read slightly unreal. It is mostly focussed on the characters in Washington DC who appear to carry on with their lives while the world falls apart around them. Major climate disaster is dealt with in a few very short paragraphes and the human sufferring brought about by these disasters is not discussed or dealt with, it is merely edited down to cold science. Also this rather like the Day After Tomorrow, with a new ice age threataning to descend on America - something climate scientists have taken great pains to point out won't happen, even if the NAD does shut down. The books real strength lies in the characters, particularly Frank who decides to live out in the Washington parks and regain his palaeolithic consciousness. The Buddhists were also very good. Alas if Robinson had focussed on warming rather than cooling this may have been a better book. A pity, a great idea missed out upon.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended, 31 Aug 2005
By Garry Wright "garry16" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
It's nice to see a more objective book about climate change by an American writer. Kim Stanley Robinson is the Anti-Crichton!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
6 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Astonishingly dull, 29 Jan 2006
Dull to the point of being unreadable. The first 150 pages are filled with meandering drivel that takes the plot exactly nowhere. By about this time the reader begins to loose the will to live. Does anything actually happen? Who cares.. the characters are unappealing, the protaganist ineffective, the plot so slow to develop that it actually feels glacial.

I've struggled with this book for a long time, hoping that it will come to form, but to be honest it's a waste of time. Kim Stanley Robinson has written much better books than this. Don't waste your time with it.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Frank goes paleolithic
Frank Vanderwal goes Paleolithic in Washington DC, living in a tree-house in Rock Creek Park, a tranche of recently flooded and devastated wild land in the middle of the city... Read more
Published 3 months ago by E. Shaw

3.0 out of 5 stars Drifting like snow...
There are several interesting sub-plots in the book, the author writes with skill and the issues are important - climate change and the future of the world. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Frederic J. Pont

3.0 out of 5 stars Grand ideas, imperfectly executed - an uneven read
"Fifty Degrees Below" is the second instalment in Kim Stanley Robinson's 'Science in the Capital' series, set in the near future and exploring the potential impact of climate... Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. Aitcheson

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative but lacking in direction
Fifty degrees below focuses on one mans life as he decides to revert to a neolithic lifestyle amid the aftermath of huge flood in Washington D.C. Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2007 by Alexander Haynes

1.0 out of 5 stars NOTHING HAPPENS!
If you liked the mars trilogy don't be fooled into thinking this will be as good. Nothing of interest happens to characters you don't care about. Read more
Published on 21 Aug 2007 by David Bishop

Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject







i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.