Termination Shock

 Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock.

It made me look up facts, and geographic locations, and events, and technologies. Stephenson is amazing at taking what we have today and extending it a step or two further.

I don't always agree with his protagonists. But that only makes reading more interesting.

This was something that rang true:

"..he had arrived at the conclusion that political stability anywhere was an illusion that only a simpleton would believe in. That (invoking, here, a version of the anthropic principle) such simpletons only believed they were right when and if they just happened to live in places that were temporarily stable. And that it was better to live somewhere obviously dangerous, because it kept you on your toes."

Except I don't particularly want to be kept on my toes, so I'd rather live in a place that is temporarily stable, even if it is only an illusion.

Stephenson was very, very convincing in describing the reactions of China and India to the weather-changing technologies in the book. 

Russia was completely missing from the picture. I suspect he did it on purpose but I am not sure why. United States was described as a mess and a laughingstock of the world - but there were no details (but we can fill in the blanks, so to speak).

Verdict: liked it a lot.