Termination Shock

Stephenson, Neal. Termination Shock. London: The Borough Press, and NYC: HarperCollins, 2021. See Internet Speculative Fiction Database for further bibliographic data, and award; as of July 2023, here.[1] There is an audiobook, which we have used.

Thriller/climate science fiction, fairly near future (after 2030) global warming and its effects. See for casual use of airborne people-carriers and other drones that can operate as an AI-assisted, or directed, swarm; cf. and contrast the works cited here in the wiki.[2] Climax of the book involves a more military use of drones.

The novum, as central technological innovation in this book is "The biggest gun in the world," a device using basically 20th-c. hardware plus some 21st-century robotics and other tech to shoot into the a variety of pulse rocket using primarily liquified sulfur to create (ultimately) droplets of dilute sulfuric acid that, on balance, reflect solar radiation away from the Earth for a cooling effect. (Bigger guns, or at least additional ones, are being built as the plot proceeds.)

The first paragraph of the Wikipedia plot summary sums up:

The book is about a solar geoengineering project conceived by a Texas oil-industry billionaire named T.R. Schmidt. Schmidt builds a launcher on the Texas-Mexico border to fire sulfur into the air, a form of stratospheric aerosol injection intended to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight into space. This technique replicates the effects of volcanic eruptions that inject sulfates into the atmosphere and produce global cooling, such as the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption. Schmidt's plan has uneven effects, helping low-lying areas such as the Netherlands, Venice, and the Maldives, but threatening the Punjab with drought.[3]

Note aptness of allusion to Theodore Roosevelt in the initials T.R.: Teddy Roosevelt did much good for environmental conservation,[4] but was into imperialism and racist racial hierarchies.[5] With that huge gun, cf. and contrast Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon and what we'll call the joyously implausible cannon as a device for a moon shot in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon (1865).

Also:

• AR — casual use of Augmented Reality in glasses allowing users to see what is in front of them, augmented by digital data.
• Golden eagles trained to attack in-flight drones.
• The Maeslantkering "storm surge barrier on the Nieuwe Waterweg, in South Holland, Netherlands"[6] described in Termination Shock as robot-like in form and to some extent function and, elsewhere, a kind of bailey, protecting the figurative castle of Rotterdam.[7] 
• Sophisticated use of deep-fakes for political propaganda and manipulation.
• "Deep 'Laks' Singh, a Punjab-Canadian Sikh" who is "felled by Chinese directed-energy weapons," or a directed-energy weapon,"[8] and has parts of his brains, and other body parts, literally fried or, in any event, rendered inoperative or at least reduced in function. As part of his healing, he's given replacement parts and implants that make him a low-key cyborg (cf. and contrast, e.g., The Six Million Dollar Man and "Masks," Pohl's Man Plus); he also has some computer interfacing of interest and exoskeleton aids[9] early on in his recovery: realistic touches for a thriller published in 2021. The implants + interface give him extra senses, including something like GPS and something that makes him like a salmon, moving in directions — including literally swimming in a direction — that will get him to do what the Indian army wants done. As with T.R. Schmidt, the "Laks" in the character's name is significant, especially in audio versions of the novel where it will be heard as "lox," smoked salmon, and, as noted in the novel, a very old word in the English language (however recently it might have entered American English from Yiddish).[10] 

RDE, finishing, 24Jul23, 2Aug23, 7Aug23