The Great Transition (2023) by Nick Fuller Googins Review

The WNBA saves the world. No word on The Jets.

The Great Transition (2023) by Nick Fuller Googins: 6 out of 10: follows Emi Vargas, a teenager living in a post-crisis world where humanity has triumphed over the climate catastrophe that once threatened the planet. However, Emi is increasingly frustrated by the constant reminders of how fortunate she is to have been born after the climate crisis, in a world that her parents helped save.

Emi’s sense of security is shattered when a shocking public assassination of a dozen notorious climate criminals makes headlines, and her mother, Kristina, disappears as a potential suspect. As Emi and her father, Larch, begin to fear the worst, they embark on a desperate journey from their home in Nuuk, Greenland, to the storm-ravaged ruins of New York City, which has been partially reclaimed and turned into a lightly populated outpost. Their mission: to find Kristina before it’s too late. But they aren’t the only ones searching for her, and the pursuit becomes increasingly perilous.

The Great Transition alternates between Emi’s present-day search and flashbacks to her parents’ earlier lives. Thirty years prior, Larch was part of a team of volunteers who came to New York City to combat the rising waters and fierce storms that were devastating the metropolis. Meanwhile, Kristina was on the front lines battling massive wildfires in the western United States.

As Emi uncovers more about her parents’ past and the sacrifices they made, she questions the true nature of the world she grew up in and the cost of the utopia she has taken for granted. She also prattles endlessly about the eighties

The Good

The Good: The Great Transition is a well-written book. I have some serious bones to pick with it regarding plot and characters and story structure. But on a sentence by sentence basis Nick Fuller Googins shows himself an artisan that does not need to call attention to himself.

The detailed flashbacks of how the couple met, fell in love, battled storms and became minor reality TV stars are extremely well done and never fail to be entertaining.

The Bad

The Bad: Alas, the flashbacks are at best about a third of the novel. I cannot emphasize enough how much more I am enjoying the flashbacks than whatever is going on now.

The main plot is simply awful. If the wife had just returned her husband’s texts, none of this would have happened. Something he sheepishly points out. I mean, this entire crisis is at the level of a Three’s Company misunderstanding. We have a low stakes relationship crisis between a long married company and a daughter who gets more irritating every page read.

The daughter is all over the place. She morphs into a delicate girl who cannot hold down food and yet wanders off in the middle of a hurricane in a strange and dangerous area while her father sleeps, I suppose, with the sole purpose of getting captured. She is like Ashley Graham from Resident Evil 4 suddenly. It is jarring and a bit of lazy writing.

To make matters worse, she is kidnaped by the nicest of people. Which means they don’t kill her, which means we have to listen to her prattle on about her favorite music, her love of skateboarding and Dungeons and Dragons.

Eve’s love of old music from the eighties is driving me nuts. Maybe it is because I recently suffered through Ready Player One but nothing bores me faster than characters from the future discussing Michael Jackson or My Sharona. (In fact, all her interests are from the eighties even though her mother (whom she is supposed to get these interests from) was born decades after that overused decade in a foreign country during an environmental crisis.

This is the Star Trek conundrum where the writers have the crew go to the past, but it is always the past of the current viewers. While Star Trek does sometimes try to work around this in little one offs, the reality is Kirk and Spock and Picard will be visiting Earth from the twentieth century or earlier. Even though they are in the twenty-third century, pop culture or other history from the 21st and 22nd century are simply unmentioned.

I understand the reasons and mechanics behind these choices, but they are so artificial I wish the author would take a leap and mention some unknown music from 2030 to mix it up a bit and have some fun.

The Ugly

The Ugly: Oh boy… we have the modern story of the “terrorists” whom the mother seems clearly a part of (If not the secret leader of) hunting down the billionaires who caused the crisis to begin. Our “Good Guys” are using assassination drones, presumably powered with clean energy.

The billionaires are described as being in thier nineties (Think elderly Nazis being hunted or put on trial.) and some wonder if thier entire families should be killed. (Pulling the tree of evil from its roots.)

And while I was looking forward to elderly Kardashians being hunted for sport or the mass execution of the Saudi Royals, alas, author Nick Fuller Googins has not thought this though like I just did. After all, who really is responsible for climate change? Is it individuals like Taylor Swift with her fleet of planes flying everywhere giving concerts? Is it people who work for oil companies? Is it California teachers whose pension plan owns many of the oil companies? Is it the Climate deniers? The shoppers of fast fashion? The influencers? Is it the Chinese burning coal? The people buying thier products?

Unlike say, the Nazis (and even that one was problematic where a camp secretary gets sentenced to life while one of the architects of the holocaust got ten years and others went on to great wealth after the war. Looking your way Ferdinand Porsche.) Climate Change has many, many, many parents.

The idea that there are a couple of hundred Arabs, Chinese and rich Canadians you can kill and call it a day is seventh grade thinking. Also, the fact they are not hunting influencers for sport is a real, missed opportunity.

In Conclusion

In Conclusion: I enjoyed reading the book, and I am glad I did. I wished it had been more about the parents and thier adventures when they met rather than the tepid and morally gray battle against elderly Canadians, however.

The author also seems to have a need to check proper the boxes. The Native American tribes have a very outsized part of the story, as do the WNBA of all things.

The problem is not that I am not buying what Nick Fuller Googins is selling. The problem is that I am getting the feeling I am being sold in the first place.

Random Notes from reading

Well, so far, so good. Global Warming hit the breaking point. We talk with a refugee family well established in a new city in the fjords. The wife seems off and the book hints she could be a political terrorist. The daughter likes pre-transition music and is anorexic and a little antisocial. The father seems a touch put upon, but a nice guy putting up with the ladies in his life.

We get a good bit of a slice of life and some intelligent and well-written info dumps about what happened. Chapters so far vary from the father’s and daughter’s POVs. I am enjoying the book so far. It is telling an interesting story, and it is clearly written with skill. More importantly, we have a skillful story composition with a genuine sense of surprise at what happens next. (The big celebration is interrupted with assassination drones killing leaders and the wife who was supposed to be in Old New York doing volunteer reclamation work had warned against her family going to the party so strongly one cannot help but think she was involved. She is one of those the new society is too weak and taking things for granted attitudes.

The author has a few flashbacks about what happened when flooding and wildfires took over the world. And bluntly, they are effective. Emaciated baby moose covered in fleas begging for death will haunt me. Looking forward to reading more.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Really nice chapter where the main male character tells his story in full what happened during the transition (We are at the cusp of it) and how he found these people. So far a pleasant book, if not earth shattering. Very well written. The wife is a secret terrorist plot is a bit on the nose and the author is kinda playing cute with it right now, but we will see how it pays off. Nice fable about how people working together survive better than those who are always out for themselves.

____________________________________________________________________________________

I am loving the descriptions of New York. The descriptions of the past, both from the mother and the father. The daughter’s wild eyed view of what she is experiencing.

But… and this is a but… we are under the impression that the mother is a secret revolutionary. (Making her a south American latina is a bit on the nose as well) so far in the last few chapters since the incident, it is as if the book is giving us even more reason to think this. Why? Is there a twist coming? Because if the mother is a revolutionary, the drama is being drained slowly by this road trip to go see her.

The book is so well written and the characters so well crafted that I have faith in the author to pull it off. I like the little touches. (the mother complaining about kids today and how they do not know how tough it was is particularly well done.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The writing is still excellent, as is the narrative. We get a lot more background of both parents (Through the daughter’s school report interviews). Throughout this time, the main characters (Father daughter) have been in a tram terminal during a hurricane in NYC. )

The reports are detailed and interesting. It is a technique and a general complaint I have sometimes, but one wonders why the author did not just set his book when the parents were young and did all these exciting things before they even met. Rather than this relatively tranquil time. This is hardly a sin and I think the way the book is structured works very well. It’s something I have noticed, however, in other novels and other media where there is a dramatic or exciting moment that is told in flashback and one wonders why the story just didn’t take place then.

Still, the daughter’s interviews with her parents are an excellent and well-written example of doing this right.

One storm cloud on the horizon is there is a lot of politics bleeding in and some of it makes little sense. The mother is a refugee from South America, so we get her separation from her parents and grandparents at the border and put in cages. Her sister molested by guards and then dying on the fire line when they are put out to fight fires. The people in charge sell their equipment illegally and put them out with limited gear.

Her husband’s story (Including some reality TV fame of all things) is equally excellently realised. In both cases, the parents eventually rebel to protecting billionaire’s row and instead work against the prevailing plans and independently start a collective to help the common people.

And of course we have the modern story of the “terrorists” whom the mother seems clearly a part of (If not the secret leader of) hunting down the billionaires who caused the crisis to begin with using assassination drones.

The billionaires are described as being in thier nineties (Think elderly Nazis being hunted or put on trial.) and some wonder if thier entire families should be killed (Pulling the tree of evil from its roots)

And while I am looking forward to elderly Kardashians being hunted for sport or the mass execution of the Saudi Royals, I am thinking the author has not thought this though like I just did. After all, who really is responsible for climate change? Is it individuals like Taylor Swift with her fleet of planes flying everywhere giving concerts? Is it people who work for oil companies? Is it California teachers whose pension plan owns many of the oil companies? Is it the Climate deniers? The shoppers of fast fashion? The influencers? Is it the Chinese burning coal? The people buying thier products?

Unlike say Nazis (and even that one was problematic where a camp secretary gets sentenced to life while one of the architects of the holocaust got ten years and others went on to great wealth after the war after and a stint in jail. Looking your way, Ferdinand Porsche) Climate Change has many, many, many parents.

The idea that there are a couple of hundred Arabs, Chinese and rich white people you can kill and call it a day is seventh grade thinking. Now this may be the characters’ thinking, of course, not the authors. We shall see. But if they don’t start assassinating influencers, I am calling shenanigans.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

So I think the mother shows up at the end of this reading. Honestly, it was a touch unclear if the father was dreaming or not. We have more background, including a decent story about firefighters saving sequoias (or at least attempting to) and how father and mother met when he rescued her.

Elle, the daughter, is giving me some trouble. As is the dad. First, the dad seems to have serious anger management issues. I understand the author is trying to shade it with some sleep deprivation and pain from sleeping on hard surfaces, but he is supposed to be the level-headed parent. Why is he attacking bureaucrats? Smashing his own phone and breaking thier phones in two (And smashing drones) I cannot imagine in the post apocalyptic future such devices are a quick trip down to the Verizon store. Seriously though, he is supposed to be a levelheaded adult, worried on many levels about his wife who perhaps unwisely took his daughter along to find her.

Then we have the daughter as far as I can tell she has morphed into a delicate girl who cannot hold down food and yet wanders off in the middle of a hurricane in a very strange and dangerous area while her father sleeps I suppose with the sole purpose of getting captures. She is like Ashley Graham from Resident Evil 4 suddenly. It is jarring and a bit of lazy writing.

Meanwhile, the steady drumbeat of Marxism continues. You know the story actually has a nice parallel to World War II when everyone sacrificed and everyone came together but some people got rich (Cough Daddy Warbucks Cough) and others made the ultimate sacrifice and the tension in post-war times when the new reality set in.

Heroes coming home from the war were expected to take up their station in life and some refused. Motorcycle gangs were one offshoot of this experience. In addition, we have thier spoiled children the so-called baby boomers who did not respect thier sacrifice.

There is also a little of those lunkhead lunatics in Northern Ireland who want to overturn peace and go back to the Troubles. Those born well after that last car bomb went off but who rationalize a long-lost cause (See also the American Civil war)

Somehow, this theme that has some decent concrete steps has turned into a bit of a diatribe in parts. I am half expecting more talk about inclusiveness and colonialism any minute now. I am not against alternative viewpoints. I mean; the book claims that individualism is responsible for the issues, but I am not really buying what they are selling a hundred percent.

The problem is not that I am not buying what they are selling. The problem is that I am getting the feeling I am being sold.

———————————————————————————————————

Okay, pleasant read. The couple are back together (somehow… She just shows up a minute after the daughter leaves.) The daughter is apparently kidnapped by the nicest people on earth (who might be evil because they like good carpets and hot baths) And the kids the mom had to follow the husband are found dead.

So three things. We have a very pleasant and effective flashback showing the romance between the couple. I cannot emphasize enough how much more I am enjoying the flashbacks than whatever is going on now. It is a bit of a problem as I really think the book would have worked better as a somewhat straightforward store of the transition with the romance at the center. I understand the appeal of having it as a flashback, but it overwhelms the story that is currently at the center.

Second, the low stakes of the current story is really coming to a head? Will the daughter be rescued? Does she need to be? Will the long-married couple re-spark thier romance? And will the WNBA make it?

Okay, that last one is a bit of a gag. There is a paragraph or two out of nowhere and apropos of nothing about how the WNBA came together as a collective and saved themselves during the translation. WTF. It is very weird (The book has current real life companies surviving such as McDonald’s, but that is never remarked upon or explained). I mean I would be surprised if the WNBA survives to 2100 and it has nothing to do with climate change. (Despite thier very recent upsurge in popularity)

It is a bizarre and specific callout that kinda took me out of the book with a headshake and a chuckle as if the author was checking an imaginary box somewhere. No word on how the Jets are doing BTW.

Oh, and a last thing. If the wife had just returned her husband’s texts, none of this would have happened. Something he sheepishly points out. I mean, this entire crisis is at the level of a Three’s Company misunderstanding. We have a lower stakes relation crisis between a long married company. Part of the reason it is low stakes is that we only knew that as a couple that could barely stand each other until the last chapter.

The whole terrorists and kill the elderly with drones plot seems front and center but could not possibly mean less having been lost to the much more interesting stories of the past and even the family drama.

Amazing that a book called The Great Transition in 2024 is not about gender reassignment surgery. The entire book reminds me of that old story. Where a rich man wanted to give his protégé son a chance to play piano at Carnegie Hall. His teacher, a famous piano player at the hall, agreed to set up a solo during a concert and conduct the orchestra for that piece. The regular conductor pitched in during the solo to turn the pages for the child.

A New York Times reporter was in the audience for the surprise solo performance and reported the strangest sight. The man who is so brilliant at piano this season took upon himself the conductor’s baton. The conductor went over to the Steinway grand and proceeded to turn the pages. A young lad who certainly should have been turning the pages was plunking away at the Steinway.

In “The Great Transition”, the flashbacks are the conducting pianist. The relationship drama of the couple is the page turning conductor and the modern thriller aspects are the pimply kid playing piano poorly in the halls of Carnegie.

—————————————————————————————————————

So the plot comes a little more into focus. (Finally) Elle has been kidnapped by a private consortium representing the old money folks worried about being assassinated. They figure if they kidnap a child of The Furies leader and hold her, thier guy or gal will be safe from assassination. It is mentioned a friend of the mothers in the furies had his son captured last year and when the assassination went forward anyway, his son is killed. The stakes are now in place.

We also have the much lesser stakes of the relationship and marriage of the parents. We have seen in flashback to how they were in love and how they have drifted apart. Since they barely had a relationship before this crisis, I am not sure outside of bringing them closer together or having them drift apart. This will affect them. It seems like a coin toss at this point and neither is interesting enough for me to care all that much.

Not interesting enough for me to care at this point is a problem with the book as a whole.

Speaking of pet peeves. Eve’s love of old music from the eighties is driving me nuts. Maybe it is because I recently suffered through Ready Player One but nothing bores me faster than characters from the future discussing Michael Jackson or My Sharona. This is the Star Trek conundrum where the writers have them go to the past, but it is always the past of the current viewers, not the characters. While Star Trek does sometimes try to work around this in little one offs, the reality is Kirk and Spock and Picard will visit Earth from the twentieth century or earlier. Even though they are in the twenty-third century, pop culture or other history from the 21st and 22nd century are simply unmentioned.

This seems to immediately date a work in my mind. Plus, I find it unlikely a woman with a sixteen-year-old girl this far into the future would be into Michael Jackson. Maybe Nu metal or Britney Spears, perhaps?

I understand the reasons and mechanics behind these choices, but they are so artificial I wish the author would take a leap and mention some unknown music from 2030 to mix it up a bit and have some fun.

——————————————————————————————————————

You know now I think about it. The kidnapping plot as of right now makes no sense. The father and daughter only made this trip because the mother would not answer her calls and texts. They made the trip on the sly. How did the mother know they were coming and why did she have people guarding the daughter instead of, I don’t know, telling them to stay put and she would be home soon and explain everything?

Plus, how did the kidnappers even know to kidnap this particular kid traveling on the subway? Was it because she had protection from the Furies???

Seriously, the entire plot at this moment hinges on a couple of shadowy groups acting in a particular way and the father and daughter also acting in a particular way and a well-timed hurricane to pull any of this plot off.

____________________________________________________________________________________

The Story is growing on me. A lot more background about the parents and the great transition. Also, their motivation for the rich to kidnap thier child comes into view. Perhaps it was a crime of opportunity. The kidnappers were simply in place waiting for one of the furies to have a family visit. That makes some sense. They will hold Emi indefinitely and if any more rich or killed, they will execute her.

But Emi has different plans. It is not the most believable escape ever, but it works and it is action, so that works. The modern story is so slow. It almost feels like a description of commuting rather than an adventure or drama. The stories of the past are so much more vibrant and filled with emotion and passion. That passion has disappeared for the couple over the last 16 years as thier daughter has grown. They have drifted apart with the wife having a secret life. A betrayal in all but name.

There is still one more section to go. It is not a long one, but too long for a simple epilogue. Will it be the dissolution of the marriage? More stories from the past? I am curious and that is a good thing I have taken my sweet time reading this book. It does not really draw one in as the current crisis is so low key as to be almost non-existent and as that crisis is past we are back to the relationship crisis between two people we don’t know as well as the author would like us to and don’t like as much as I think we are supposed to.

The characters (particularly the mom) lay it on pretty thick. I am not sure if the author is of the same mind. But there are little bits that keep me coming back. The parents wondering why they ever denied thier daughter a cat. The description of working a lithium mine in a desert with a hundred other volunteers.

____________________________________________________________________________________

I have finished the book. This was a section? chapter? / whatever the author called it six. First a pet peeve. Perhaps it is because I have been reading Ernest Cline Books recently such as Ready Player One and Armada, but the musical references from the eighties and nineties really bother me. All the kids in post apocalypse 2044 love REM and the Fugees??? Kids today barely listen to that music.

Same with the skateboarding and the D and D. Look I know D and D has had a resurgence and I am not saying people will not be playing D and D in the future but again it seems like a weird distracting time bubble it is almost as if the author had nothing to say about the future and to create a full-fledged world shaped by tragedy with its own music and activities.

Another thing I noted is the author is leaning heavily on North American native tribes. This, of course, is a global crisis with global players, yet the book seems very American centric. The Native tribes being so much in the forefront seems pollyannaish.

Of course, much of the book is pollyannaish and you don’t have to agree with the terrorists or the opinions of the same to enjoy the story of three people. While we hear from only the father and daughter, but the mother comes through in the oral histories in the school reports and the interaction with the other two characters.

This is a well written, well thought out debut novel./ Even though it took me five months to finish it. It never grabbed me enough to read it except as an occasional chore. The book honestly never grabbed me. At its center is a dead romance, and a broken family and a boring commute.

I enjoyed reading the book, and I am glad I did. I wished it had been more about the parents and thier adventures when they met rather than the tepid and morally gray battle against elderly Canadians.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

OTHER NOTES AND THOUGHTS

One thing that is offputting about the book is the idea of “Global Warming villain” I mean some things have easily traceable villains such as Thomas Midgley Jr. for leaded gas or Hitler for Nazi Germany. Global Warming does not really have such villains in real life. I mean, the executive at the oil company was not operating in a vacuum. They would not be extracting oil from tar sands if people were not consuming the same.

Seriously,I mean, are we going to send an assassination drone after Annie Lennox because she supported coal miners and was anti nuke in the 80s? Other progressive English labor party members in the 80s? Are we going to take out Taylor Swift? Seriously this not well thought out. I mean mine is not really well thought out either I confess.