Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Thriller
Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words
Availability
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on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or
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Author:
“Mark A.
York is a journalist, biologist and novelist. He has worked as a carpenter,
actor, and fisheries biologist all over the West and Alaska, and was a
full-time reporter at The Livingston Enterprise in Livingston, Montana. He has
written a blog that focuses on environmental issues since 2003 and wrote
special projects in 2011 for the Idaho Mountain Express in Ketchum, Idaho where
he resides.”
York has a
few other books available, although non-fiction and this is the only one
currently available for the Kindle.
For more,
visit York’s blog.
Description:
“A
scientist warns of an imminent, catastrophic climate change.
An
eccentric reporter exposes the truth about man-made global warming.
A billionaire
philanthropist has the money to make the solution happen, and the three join
forces.
But a
powerful Senator and his lobbyist friends stop at nothing to oppose them.
The planet
doesn’t wait.”
Appraisal:
Taking a
subject that most of us should probably understand better than we do,
especially a controversial one like climate change, and teaching the reader
about it while entertaining them in a novel is a great idea. Warm Front integrates the science of
climate change at a level understandable by a layperson, as well as addressing
some of the common objections raised by climate change deniers.
In the
acknowledgements section, York says the science in the book is accurate, and
for those with doubts, he’s footnoted some of those things that might be questioned
as well as included a bibliography for those who want to dig deeper into the
subject. The characters are likeable and realistic, most of the time. At a high
level, this is a good story, beyond educating the reader.
However,
things start to fall apart in the devilish details. I spotted enough typos and
proofreading issues to consider the book marginal in this area, although far
from the worst I’ve seen. There were events that stretched my ability to
suspend disbelief. Specifically, each of the two main characters was almost run
off the road, one of their planes vandalized more than once, both were shot at,
each was threatened in other ways multiple times, and both a car and plane
crash happened under suspicious circumstances, yet there was never any sign
that law enforcement was notified more than once, possibly twice. Last, there
was a tendency toward extended narratives, giving the reader too much unneeded
detail, which caused the story to bog down. I’d still recommend Warm Front for the overall story and as
a relatively painless introduction to the science of climate change, but only
for a non-critical and forgiving reader.
FYI:
A couple
instances of adult language.
Format/Typo Issues:
A moderate
number of typos and other proofreading misses.
Rating: ** Two stars
2 comments:
Global warming is not a science, it's a political opinion. It's presented as science to stifle debate. You're carbon tax is coming soon.
And a carbon tax should come. Global warming is science but it's politics for people too ignorant to understand basic high school science.
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