Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Ultimatum by Matthew Glass

Ultimatum by Matthew Glass

Ultimatum

by Matthew Glass

  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2009, 400 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

November 2033, Joe Benton, a three-term democratic senator from Arizona, is the newly elected American president. Just days into his presidency, Benton learns of devastating news: his predecessor has engaged in failed climate change talks with China, and previous estimates regarding the effect of global warming on rising sea levels have been grossly underestimated. Miami will soon be washed away, and thirty million coastal-dwelling citizens in the United States will need to be relocated. For Benton, the only solution is to abandon multilateral negotiations in the impending Kyoto 4 and renew top-secret talks with his country's largest rival and now the world's leading polluter, China, to force it to drastically lower its emission levels before it is, simply, too late.

Ultimatum explores the most pressing issue of the twenty-first century—the future of our planet—and shows the effects that climate change will have on our lives and those of our children. It is a brilliant character study of a U.S. president and his key staff, and an impressively convincing portrayal of the inner workings of the U.S. administration. With tension escalating on almost every page and an astonishing and terrifying ending, Matt Glass's visionary and deeply unsettling thriller steers us into the dark heart of political intrigue and a future that is all too believable.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Glass's debut, an anxiety-inducing thriller about global warming, effectively taps a hot topic and handles it with flair." - Publishers Weekly.

"Glass's plot is fresh and arresting, but the book lacks distinctive, identifiable characters to drive it." - Kirkus Reviews.

"A rare thriller that terrifies not because it is possible, but because it feels probable—if not inevitable. ... A masterful novel with deftly drawn characters, real settings and a dark, dark understanding of geopolitical reality. The ending will leave you gasping." - Douglas Preston.

This information about Ultimatum was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Matthew Glass

Matthew Glass lives in England. Ultimatum is his first novel.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.