Humanity's Test
by Thomas Imes
In Humanity's Test, Thomas Imes gives us
a glimpse into a future world with weather that is off-the-charts
and out-of-control.
The character development in this book is weak.
I would have enjoyed getting to know the characters better on a
personal level, and that would have made Humanity's Test a better
book for me. I did learn a lot of things about the weather and meteorologists,
and their study of the weather. I found that informative and interesting.
In the book, the weather has gotten extreme over
the past thirty-five years. We have now entered into an interglacial
period, otherwise known as a "desert age." The weather
continues to get worse with highs in the western U.S., reaching
above 125 degrees and expected to rise. Two-thirds of the U.S. has
become a desert wasteland with one-third of the earth a desert.
In these high temperatures crops will not grow,
forest fires run amok, buildings are burning down all over the cities
(buildings are not built to withstand this kind of heat), and the
high temps are boiling the oceans. If the weather continues to get
worse, civilization will cease functioning. Five million people
are losing their lives each year in the U.S. from heat and starvation.
Bad weather means shortages of water, food, electricity
and other resources. It causes high unemployment, and businesses
can not find customers to sell to, so they go out of business, driving
unemployment even higher. The future looks bad for everyone.
Katrina Ransel and Mark Spencer are meteorologists
working together, traveling the World, to make it rain. They are
in the business of controlling the weather. Soon rain-making becomes
out of control. Countries are using the weather as a weapon. This
has created an unstable environment for the World.
This
is war, man against nature, and man is losing. Creating rain has
been only a temporary fix. Now Katrina and Mark must deal with the
hole in the ozone. It must be corrected—and soon. Time is
running out for mankind.
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