Because the story of the world’s climate is so sweeping, it requires every tool in the storyteller’s pick-up truck: character development, plotting, a beat-perfect story arc, and more. It takes a storyteller of consummate skill to wield those tools. Kim Stanley Robinson is not that storyteller. But that’s OK! “The Ministry for the Future“ is an enormously inventive, comprehensive and relevant book. Never mind that it’s poorly told and unevenly performed. Ignore the mispronunciations. Disregard the omissions and elisions. Be happy that it is absurdly optimistic, that it is utterly unrealistic, and dive into what we are certain to be living oh so soon.