Heavy Weather is a book about a massive climatic change that knocks the US and much of the world on its knees.   I had my doubts about whether such a book could be even vaguely entertaining—Twister was driven by special effects and star power and this book did not have a picture of Helen Hunt on it.   What becomes apparent when you read this novel is that Heavy Weather is everything Twister should have been and more.   Much more.

The story centrally features a brother and a sister.   The brother, Alex, is very (perhaps terminally) ill and wasting away in a black market clinic when his sister, Jane,  discovers and extracts them.   She removes him from the clinic because she’s worried about him and the family money he’s been spending in there.   She takes him to the group she’s been spending her time with.   They’re called the Storm Troupe, and they hack heavy weather.   In other words, they chase tornadoes, gathering basic scientific data.

Dr. Jerry Mulcahey, Jane’s boyfriend and the leader of the Storm Troupe, believes that an F-6, a tornado of unprecedented size and strength, might develop over America.   No one in the traditional academic community believes that such a tornado could form, but his Storm Troupe is composed of the faithful who stand ready to document it if it does.   The truly monstrous quality of an F-6 is that it might be a permanent, stable feature of the atmosphere, like Jupiter’s Red Spot.

This is the base plot of Heavy Weather.   But the plot soars far beyond its simple man vs. nature theme and even provides a believable villain-by-proxy.   The plot remains consistent and breathtaking throughout the novel.

The characters are realistic and consistent with the world.   They each have own niche in this disaster-riddled world.   Some study it, some work with it, some live around it, and some are their own disasters.   All have reasons of being where they are, and they all make sense.

Numerous ideas float around in the novel, from smart cars to global warming.   Sterling never lacks for ideas, and this novel incorporates them effortlessly into the story.   But the central theme, the weather itself, is looked at long and well.   In an interesting pause in the action of the story, the characters of the Storm Troupe are asked when mankind lost control of its destiny.   The spectrum of answers provided raises its own questions: Have we already doomed ourselves to ecological disaster already?   Do we still have time to save ourselves?   Is it not in our hands at all?

Is there anything wrong in this book?   Not much.   There’s a brief explicit scene in here, but it’s not dwelled upon.   The most disturbing thing in the novel is that a guy changes radically from relatively wild to domestic in the blink of an eye.   Just as a cautionary note, that usually doesn’t happen, girls.   Luckily, that’s not dwelled upon either, and there is at least a fairly sound reason for the change in behavior.

This book is very well done, fast-paced and entertaining while retaining Sterling’s characteristic saturation of ideas.   Heavy Weather leaves Twister far behind in the dust.   Even without Helen Hunt’s photo on the cover.