Review: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War

2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2034 is a pretty solid read.

It's fiction that is breezy to read, but when you stop for a moment and consider you feel that there is some weight behind what is being discussed. The style of the writing is insufficient to capture the full weight of the ideas being posited, but it does not get in the way with clunkiness either. It is clean and streamlined, even if that means telling the story in the most cliche fiction voice possible.

This kind of streamlining to fit the form extends to other elements of the book as well. The war itself and the world-building around it are shallow at first glance, but as you read you realise that detail has been sacrificed for vibe. The general vibe of the world and the war, the balance of power, the flow of engagements, these build an engaging theatre and series of encounters. I got the sense that this was a deliberate choice, because a more detailed set of scenarios would be too granular and too technical, a challenge.

Similarly, the characters are clean and streamlined, 2-dimensional but sufficient as lens into an interesting conflict that discusses war, geopolitics, and the ways in which domestic systems impact international affairs. Realism and impact would demand a larger cast with more complex characters, but the book sacrifices this for a clean, easy-to-grasp plot.

And that is the focus here. The plot itself, which chugs along with global and local events, where things happen to rather than because of our characters. This is what keeps the book going, it is history-lite, it is fast-paced simplistic foreign policy and conflict. It is easy-to-read, easy-to-follow, with a crisp message that it delivers efficiently. A message about balance of power, new kinds of warfare, intelligence and patriotism. In stripping everything else to its barest elements, 2034 focuses in on the drama of the conflict itself and amplifies it.

Yet, at the end of the day, perhaps 2034 strips away too much. In some ways, it feels like a first draft, maybe even just a first-pass at a book outlining the plot-points that need to be covered in the final edition. It demands a Max Brooks-esque epistolary treatment, or a clearer framing with stronger characters, or maybe even just evocative langauge that can capture the weight of what is being discussed.

Without better writing, the book slightly fizzles in its ability to have a lasting emotional impact. Pretty good read, but haunted by the potential of what it could have been.

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