Title :               Flood

Author :           Stephen Baxter

Publisher:        Gollancz

                        Orion Publishing Group

                        Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin’s Lane

                        London, UK WC2H 9EA

ISBN:              978-0-575-08056

Flood, like many of Stephen Baxter’s starts to his trilogies is a little bit tough to get into but ends with a promise of going into the universe which most his reader’s love, thereby making the next in the series, Ark, a must read. In the middle you have a premise that the Earth’s mantle will spring leaks that flood the planet with tons of water. There’s enough science behind the one meter rise provided by global warming and the example of watery planets in the universe that readers fall into the tale. In essence, Mr. Baxter is raising the question of how planets evolve while touching on similar questions about the human species.

The story starts out compellingly told by hostage Lily and stays with her most the time, although there are forays into the minds of her fellow hostages and their journeys. The young mother of the Saudi princess, Helen, dies quickly but the others make a journey along with Lily into what happens around the planet as the waters rise. The reader cares most about Lily, although her relationship with Piers seems unexplainable and detached.  She often acts to help many of the other characters in the story even though most are defeated by society except for the gifts of the magnanimous Lathan Lammockson, head of Axyscorp and the prime architect of the future survival of Lily and her friends.

Flood also tells the step by step breakdown of society when the population has to contend with increasingly short supplies of resources. The reader has to wonder “is this our future” even though some of the lecturing about global warming gets tedious.

The story Flood slowly travels inland from where the waters breakdown and destroy cities up to the mountain tops where the last elite get to make their homes. The sad tale of those that don’t fit into the “must be saved” scenarios is rather sad. The good news is Mr. Baxter believes that governments will continue to do their jobs in some places. In the end, the reader begins to get a sense that humans are changing to meet the altered planet, showing the one way leg up that humans have over other species, ie. our ability to adapt.