The Aviator is a new book that gives you a world of post-global warming climate and interesting developments in transportation technology and artificial intelligence. It is written by New Zealand based writer Gareth Renowden. The Aviator explores a post-apocalypse world where the apocalypse is not nuclear war or a large object hitting the earth, or even an outbreak of zombi-ism, but rather, unfettered human-caused climate change. The story itself is an excellent read and even qualifies as a page turner. But there is another element that readers don’t need to now, but would enjoy knowing: The author has the science on climate change right.

The truth is, a future Earth with continued climate change could end up in a number of different states, but the planet ala The Aviator is a reasonable approximation of a switched-over climate, brought to us by someone who knows the science well. I’m less sure about the interaction between Artificial and Regular “Intelligence” depicted here, but Renowden does give us an interesting interaction between fictional tropes. Climate change is real and unfettered could easily look like it does in this book. Renowden’s artificial Intelligence is, in contrast, heavily and boldy imagined, and the use of the concept in Renowden’s book is highly speculative. So, we have an interesting mix of higher and lower probabilities joined together with what is an otherwise well imagined and very well told story regardless of the science fiction itself.

I have truly enjoyed it.

The book’s web site is here.