Review: Flood, by Stephen Baxter

In Stephen Baxter's Flood, a group of four scientists and military members from around the world emerges from a years-long hostage situation to find the world around them rapidly changing. Waters around the world are rising, not because of anything humankind has done but rather because of natural circumstances; the earth's plates have been hiding subterranean oceans that are finally bursting free, flooding London even as the hostages are being freed. Billionaire entrepreneur Nathan Lammockson, who had a hand in the hostage's discovery and release, entreats the former hostages to help him in his quest to conquer the new challenges humanity faces. Fraught with socio-political strife and greed, Flood tells the tale of humanity's last stand on Earth, of our final forty years on dry land.

Unfortunately, while the premise, and potential, of this concept is fascinating, Baxter's execution is not up to the task. The characters are flat, predictable caricatures of what they could be. The story alternates between dragging and flashing forward, skipping years and important character developments. The entire undertaking begins to feel like a made-for-TV movie, where there are snippets of interesting events, but really nothing to keep you from heading for the kitchen for a snack or answering the phone.

I wanted to like this book. I really did. The concept was so interesting! I stuck with it to the end, hoping for more, but the whole thing just unraveled more as time passed. I know there's a sequel, which I have to admit piques my interest just enough that I might check it out, because again, the idea had so much potential, that even if the end result wasn't what I hoped for, I at least had fodder for my own imaginings of what the world would be like and how I could have done it differently than the author, and that's worth something. Besides, even with the worst of the Lifetime movies, the action scenes can still be worth tuning in to gawk at.

Rating: two stars. Cool idea, interesting action scenes, but little more than TV-movie quality.