Onyx reviews: The Deluge by Stephen Markley

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 01/28/2023

It should come as no surprise that a book about global warming and catastrophic climate change would be called The Deluge. Indeed, over the course of the many years covered by Markley's novel, there are several instances of weather-related inundation. However, the title actually refers to something else, a flood of a different kind, that won't be revealed until late in the novel.

And it is a novel, although at times it reads like a future history, as if Markley is reporting on what happens, step by step, year after year, as the world's climate barrels out of control toward a life-extinguishing event.

This is a big book, full of big ideas, necessitating a large cast of characters. Markley begins the novel in a structure that seems parallel to what Stephen King does in The Stand, a book that has clearly had an influence on him and which appears a number of times in a literary cameo. He introduces readers to the major players with whom they will be spending the next 900 pages and, for quite a while, it's not clear how any of them will connect.

First, there's geologist Tony Pietrus's treatise on Monte Carlo simulations of clathrate hydrates, special molecules that can encapsulate other molecules (in this case, methane) under certain conditions (at the bottom of the ocean, for example). Previous species-destroying events occurred when the oceans warmed enough for these clathrates to regurgitate their guest molecules into the atmosphere, accelerating the increase in temperature. It's gripping stuff...if you're a geologist.

Next come a couple of characters who talk in detail about military bomb disposal techniques. Out of this conversation will come one of the more radical approaches to forcing authorities to sit up and take notice of the oncoming catastrophe. Then Markley introduces an actor who has a random encounter with a woman, both of whom will become important players in the events that follow. Then there's Ashir "Ash" al-Hasan, the neurodivergent gay statistician who shifts from computing gambling odds to compiling probabilities about NBA games and ends up becoming a consultant and advisor to high-ranking officials; and Keeper, the impoverished, drug-addicted and disenfranchised man who becomes a patsy for a variety of forces. A Greg Stillson-like zealot emerges, attracting an enormous following due to his charisma and persuasiveness, polarizing the populace.

And, finally, there's Kate Morris, known as Kate Chaos, who meets a young man named Matt who is working in a fishing camp in Wyoming after graduation while trying to find his footing as a writer. Kate is all in on anything that attracts her interest. She becomes a political/social activist through her organization A Fierce Blue Fire, which eventually becomes powerful enough to influence elections and coerce politicians into taking unpopular stands, with Matt and small inner circle at her side. Rounding out the impressive cast are passing references to such climate-related real-world personalities as Al Gore, Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The COVID-19 pandemic and the January 6 insurrection play a part in proceedings as well.

Dealing with such a large cast can be complicated, but Markley has devised some narrative tricks to help orient readers. Chapters featuring Keeper, for example, are told in second person, and those featuring Ash are epistles. Other chapters are in first person (Matt) or feature injected paragraphs that provide third-party insight into what is happening (Shane, the leader of a terrorist cell called 6Degrees, a reference to the anticipated increase in global temperature).

The book starts in the recent past (Obama era) and plows ahead to 2040, charting one climate crisis after another and the near-futile efforts made by both activists and terrorists to bring about real, meaningful change. Just when it seems like American politicians are about to enact painful but necessary legislation, petty bickering takes over from cooler heads and everyone needs to regroup. It is frustrating (but credible) to see how people are willing to cling to short-term power and influence in the face of the worst environmental crisis to face humanity. It doesn't help that one of the smartest men in any room, Pietrus, is also a loose canon who regularly insults the very people they're trying to win over, or that Ash's white papers often include lengthy digressions about his personal life.

Kate is the novel's pivotal figure, a polarizing woman who will go to any lengths to get legislation enacted to punish fossil fuel companies and other contributors to climate change. No other contemporary issue (political correctness, gender considerations, Black Lives Matters, equality) is important to her if the world is doomed. She's willing to cross political aisles to negotiate with people whose fundamental philosophies are anathema to her if they're willing to support climate-saving legislation. She becomes a popular figure until her other predilections (she is highly sexual and is occasionally caught in what might be considered compromising situations, except they aren't to her) threaten to derail her political influence.

It's not a cheerful or optimistic book—it is a dystopia set in times readers will recognize. Often, Markley appears to race to keep up with himself and the changing climate as one disaster after another jeopardizes the very existence of humanity. There are raging wildfires that consume entire cities and states (the Hollywood sign goes up in flames, as does most of the rest of California), hurricanes big enough to fill the Atlantic, inundations that destroy many coastal towns and cities and even some states. Crops fail, persistent heat waves kill legions, prices soar, stock exchanges crash, looting becomes commonplace and a terrorist group shifts from attacking infrastructure to people.

When political maneuvering proves ineffective, even the peaceful activists resort to drastic behavior, including an occupation of Washington, D.C. that brings the government and the country to a standstill. The eventual solution is a bitter pill for everyone to swallow and even it isn't a guarantee that humanity can survive.

For all his prescience (Markley introduces some interesting virtual reality platforms, for example, and anticipates the recent rise in AI-generated content), his world of the 2030s is remarkably similar to our own. Even many of the product brands he mentions are from the 2020s. However, the amount of research and deep thought that went into this book (Markley says he's been working on it for over a decade) is mightily impressive. It can be dense and overwhelming (certainly the book could have been streamlined in places), but it may serve its purpose, which is to put readers on notice. This is a work of fiction, but the things Markley details in our near future may well come to pass unless people make radical changes.