This is apparently a science fiction book. It says so on Wikipedia, so it must be true. If true though, it's using a definition that's very broad indeed. It is certainly fiction, it involves much science, and has events in it that have not happened, but might. Does this mean every James Bond knock off or paramilitary gun fantasy is also SF?
As is often the case with a KSR book there are half a handful of viewpoint characters, who interact a bit, but for the most part carry on and do their own thing. Most of them are connected in some way with the National Science Foundation, a perfectly genuine American institution which manages research funding, and may or may not work in the manner described in the book. In the book at least, the NSF seems rather directionless, funding science, but reacting to proposals rather than driving things forward.
The whole book is set against rising ecological... troubles, none of which are more than a step away from today's news, which seeing as how the whole thing is set against the US political establishment involves quite a lot of bashing heads against brick walls.
As well as the NSF types there is a senator's policy gonk, who I assume to look pretty much like Josh Lyman, some bhuddist monks from a made up island nation which is only a fraction above the Indian Ocean on a good day and assorted scientists who might or might not be about to get a grant.
Being a Kim Stanley Robinson book there are a lot internal monologues and more than a few points where people enthusiastically tell each other things they know really. Being concerned by climate change and the American government's inability, or unwillingness, to do anything about it, there's a pretty much continual risk of being terribly preachy, not to mention riddled with trademark KSR infodumps, but KSR is one of the few writers who can pull this kind of thing off. I would probably feel differently if I wasn't pretty sympathetic to the political message, but the book works for me.
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