Ce roman raconte donc comment, en 2028, suite à une attaque des forces de l’ONU contre un dictateur sibérien, des quantités incroyables de méthane ont été relâchées dans l’atmosphère, provoquant la création de cyclones surpuissants à la pelle, ainsi que la destruction de nombreuses villes/nations/personnes, et tout un tas de situations dramatiques propres à réveiller la fibre héroïque qui someille en chacun de nous. Bon, j’ai un avis plutôt mitigé sur le bouquin. En effet, il y a de très bonnes choses, mais également un bon paquet de poncifs, et même parfois de fautes dans le récit qui me semblent franchement pénibles dans un roman qui se veut d’une certaine ampleur. Parmi les bonnes choses, je citerai Louie et Carla, qui un peu comme dans l’énigme de l’univers, se retrouvent incarnés dans un esprit plus grand, de leur volonté ou non, et qui en deviennent des plus qu’humains, mais moins que dieux, ce qui leur donne une situation de grands frère que personnellement, j’envie assez. Ce qui est tout à fait normal, puisqu’ils se retrouvent à la place de l’humain qui a atteint le rêve de l’immortalité, associé à une certaine forme d’omnipotence. Car c’est bien de cela qu’il s’agit, dans un monde dirigé par l’informatique, que peut faire un pur esprit vivant dans un réseau informatique ? Beaucoup plus qu’un être de chair et de sang. L’autre chose intéressante, c’est bien sûr le côté scientifique assez pointu, qui fait toujours pour moi une part assez importante du récit. Ca m’aide à pardonner beaucoup, et je suis ici servi, dans la vision futuriste, par de nombreux aspects assez intéressants. Qu’il s’agisse des voitures qui se conduisent elles-mêmes, et sont en fait de véritables mobile-homes, qu’il s’agisse également des ziplines, des avions automatiques, en bref de tous les moyens de transport, il y a une vraie vision (de laquelle, comme d’habitude, internet ne joue qu’un rôle très marginal). Cependant, ces quelques qualités ne suffisent pas à compenser une très piètre écriture qui gâche toute la vision. Je trouve ainsi déplorable cette habitude, probablement inspirée par Brunner (qui maitrise parfaitement ce style, lui), de couper le récit en nombreux fragments réputés parallèles, mais hélas fort peu connexes(1). Un autre défaut est cette tendance à vouloir que le futur soit forcément dirigé par une sexualité omniprésente, qui dirige toutes les activités et transforme les acteurs en porno-stars. Je trouve ça franchement déprimant, de se dire qu’avec une civilisation pouvant remonter assez loin, la seule chose qui puisse intéresser les gens est l’exposition grossière et franchement pénible de sexes érigés, tels les piliers de la renommée. En même temps, tout cela vient de la XV, un autre des poncifs du genre qu’est la réalité partagée, mais qui donne ici lieu à quelques initiatves intéressantes : les porno-trash clandestins, dignes des snuff movies, et les reporters ne transmettant aucune information, mais des tonnes de sensations brutes, qui divertissent pas mal. Enfin, j’en ai franchement plus qu’assez de voir ce que l’émergence de l’Europe peut amener comme fantasmes chez les arriérés d’outre-atlantique : on y retrouve systématiquement la même idée totalitaire d’une europe regroupant le stalinisme le plus pur avec des idées dignes d’un Hitler. Projettent-ils donc les idées véhiculées de manière toujours implicite par leur non-mélange ? (1) notamment dans le cas de ce que j’appelerais des témoins de la destruction, qui ne sont là que pour mourir
This book is crazy, disgusting society mixed together with incredibly well-researched meteorology. You wouldn't think that would make a good novel, but I couldn't put it down, and re-read it often.I've read quite a few of Barnes' novels, and he clearly is very serious about his research. Mother of Storms has (as far as I as a layperson can tell) an incredible level of detail and accuracy in the science. Every plot point is backed up with huge amounts of science info-dump that somehow manages to be both useful and fascinating. He makes the process of hurricane creation in the Pacific into something foreboding, frightening, and exciting.His people - especially in this particular society - are likeable, flawed, and deeply deranged on some level. These are people who have grown up in a society where random gang rapes are broadcast on a media system called XV, where the viewers can hear, see, and feel everything the person is feeling. This is only mildly creepy to them, but this is also clearly a case of unreliable narrator - you're supposed to see this and be horrified by it, even though the characters are numbed to it. One character, an XV star of a "news" program, has been modified to look more like a Barbie than Barbie, and even though the world loves what she looks like, it's hard to look past things like a surgically implanted mesh that keeps her tummy flat and ligaments added to keep her ridiculously large implants perky. Internally, she's one of the most sympathetic characters - an actress who just happened to make it big and loves to re-read The Hobbit to relax.This book always makes me think. It helps me reflect on the current state of the world, politically, socially, and especially as relates to climate change. Even how the humanist Singularity vision of uploading human consciousness to computers could happen. It manages to be a very hopeful book, regardless of the dark subject matter.
What do You think about Mother Of Storms (1995)?
Barnes is not one of those authors who finds a particular niche within the genre and fills it with novels of a similar style and content. His work includes the Galactic Human Society of ‘A Million Open Doors’ and ‘Earth Made of Glass’, the parallel universes of ‘Finity’ and here, a near-future disaster novel in which a small nuclear explosion in the Arctic releases a huge amount of methane trapped in the polar ice.The consequence of this is that Hurricanes, of a size and ferocity never before seen, begin to form and head off to terrorise the world.The background to Barnes’ novel is just as fascinating as he has created a near-future world in which the US is no longer a superpower, the dominant force being the UN. Europe appears to have devolved into some kind of Nazi Federation which has exiled ‘Afropeans’ – European black people – to the rest of the world, but mainly America. The popular form of entertainment which has supplanted ‘flat’ TV is XV, a form of direct sensory experience recorded on wedges.The action follows various groups of people who are all connected in some way. Di Callare is a meteorological specialist who becomes a government advisor when the crisis erupts. His young brother Jesse gets caught up in the turmoil in Mexico where he meets a vacationing XV porn star, Synthi Venture. Berlina Jamieson, an exiled Afropean, suddenly finds a market for her retro ‘flat’ style of news reporting.Out in space, Louie Tynan, an American astronaut, is commandeered to report on the hurricanes from his unique vantage point and finds himself infected with a nanovirus which begins to ‘improve’ him, following which he starts to evolve in unexpected and intriguing ways.The unfortunately named Randy Householder is the distraught father of a teenage girl who was raped and murdered in order to make a snuff XV recording. Randy is determined to find the man who commissioned the recording and discovers that his investigations are taking him rather high up the political ladder.This is then, no mere disaster novel. In fact, the sequences where the monster hurricanes destroy cities and countries are not that frequent, but are brilliantly, thrillingly written and conceived. Barnes employs the disaster to bring the various story threads together quite convincingly and one never thinks, as is the case with lesser authors, that the coincidences and connections between the characters are too improbable.Like the hurricane itself, ‘Mother of Storms’ begins slowly and gathers pace to finally rattle along breathlessly to its conclusion.Arguably Barnes' best novel.
—Roddy Williams
I've had the paperback version since it was released in 1995, and I've re-read it and passed it back and forth to friends so many times in the intervening years, that my copy is quite tattered. This is an excellent read. Well-written characters that you find yourself really rooting for and a fast paced plot that keeps you up til all hours because you just have to find out what happens next. If you like well thought out near-future disaster books with characters you actually care what happens to, and prefer yours to have a satisfying ending that isn't depressing, then pick this one up. You won't be disappointed.
—Melissa
A great novel. When I picked up this book, little was I expecting a man-made disaster novel. However, as always, I was stunned silent by the plot of this masterpiece. Most good books I go through in about 2-3 days. It took me almost all of the summer of 2012 to read it, because I didn't want to rush it.
—Cameron Shea
