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Termination Shock

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Termination Shock

By: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
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About this listen

The #1 New York Times bestselling author returns with a visionary technothriller about climate change

‘Stephenson’s reputation as a sci-fi titan is deserved’ Sunday Times

‘His most visionary, and timely, book yet’ Chicago Review of Books

‘Absorbing speculative fiction’ Guardian

‘Brilliantly entertaining… at science fiction’s cutting edge’ SFX

‘Ingenious and sometimes prophetic’ Telegraph

Neal Stephenson’s sweeping, prescient new novel transports readers to a near-future world where the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.

One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?

As only Stephenson can, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.

©2021 Neal Stephenson (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Disaster Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction Technothrillers Thriller Thriller & Suspense Witty

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Critic reviews

‘Absorbing speculative fiction’ Guardian

‘Neal Stephenson has never been afraid of engaging with big ideas within genre forms, and Termination Shock might be his most visionary, and timely, book yet’ Chicago Review of Books

‘Brilliantly entertaining… at science fiction’s cutting edge’ SFX

‘Wonderfully human… ingenious and sometimes prophetic… Stephenson has become a totemic figure for 21st century scientific writers’ Daily Telegraph

‘Stephenson’s reputation as a sci-fi titan is deserved’ Sunday Times
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The premise was a great one, addressing ideas on climate change, how it could be managed and what the impact across the globe might be.
However, the plot plodded along, with some sections overly long and tedious. The final sections were better paced and more enjoyable.
The narration was adequate, with general delivery quite good but accents poor.
I'm a big fan of Neil Stephenson, but this is not one of his better books.

Good subject matter but plodding plot.

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Human climate change is possibly the most important issue facing us. But what if we could do something about it?
That's the premise of the book, which weaves together an incredibly diverse set of characters into a compelling narrative.
It's an important topic but it's told in a witty and engaging way. It has two of the funniest sex scenes since The First Law.

The narration on the audio book has a problem. While the narrator can deliver convincing American characters, the book is filled with Indian, Dutch, English and Scottish character. And this narrator just can't do them.
The Netherlands accent got mangled into Swedish.
The Scottish accent was worse than Christope Lambert in Highlander.
And while British South Asian accents are certainly hard, Van Dyke cockney doesn't cut it. Sorry Edoardo, I think a British narrator would have had an easier time with this material.

Despite that, I enjoyed it a great deal. It's more grounded and less whacky than a lot of other Stephenson books. The thesis is an important one. I'd can imagine this treated as an HBO style TV show.

Timely. Want to see this made into a TV show

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I enjoyed the near future sci-fi setting of this story, and think the author did a pretty good job of trying to come up with believable changes and developments in the near future.

The story itself was fun, although seemed to get a bit unfocused after the first third of the book. The ending didn't really resolve that much either beyond some character plots. The characters are decent and I enjoyed following each of their stories though.

Overall a good listen, with a fun story in an interesting setting. The story felt a little bit muddled at times to me and has the feeling of being a first book in a trilogy rather than the stand-alone story that it is (at least I think it is...), but it has enough redeeming qualities that I didn't mind too much.

Fun story with some good concepts

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Up there with REAMDE, Cryptonomicon, interface and cobweb in terms of accessible thriller writing. It’s smart, we’ll paced and you get your by-the-hour moneysworth on the audio version. Just a shame about the otherwise great narrator’s awful foreign accents.

Great story -shame about the accents

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Neal has the incredible ability to setup a situation and then write the actual moment so tightly, with such an elan, that you read right past it. It is one of the great pleasures in life to have to reread a Neal Stephenson passage. You just can’t believe what you’ve read and the sharp edge of people’s lives. In this novel, he manages a good ending, that got to me. Well done sir. Well done indeed.

Nailed it.

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bang up to date with some fabulous subtle and not so subtle digs at contemporary politics, especially in the US. Typical Stephenson though with the ending feeling like it's tacked on the end of a brilliant road journey of a book. none the worse for it though

Very much on point

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The voice actor can't do accents at all and the story requires a lot of different accents.

interesting story some flaws, bad voice actor

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As always with Stephenson an excellent story but, dear God, the narration. Possibly the worst Scottish accent in the history of the universe. While the narrator has difficulty with all accents his horrible mangling of a major character’s Scottish accent can only be explained by a deep and abiding trauma caused by a Scottish person in his dim and murky past. Let’s not even mention the Lord Mayor of London’s weird combination of Dick Van Dyke/Kray Twins Mockney or that the Dutch Queen sounds like a Pakistani immigrant to Germany. A virtuoso display of atrocious accents which destroy any immersion in the story. Is the narrator actually from planet Earth?

Ye cannae dae a Scootish aeccent, Keptin

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the story threads start off great, interesting, but the end, even though a long book, seems rushed and just a smidge average...
no his best work, but still worth a read.

no bad, but a little plain.

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set in the near future there isnt much scifi about this, but great storytelling and food for thought.

for a book with many international accents needed, it was a particularly poor choice of narrator. who couldn't so dutch, Scottish, or several others.

speculative fiction thriller more than wifi

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