As it happens, I just finished reading Varley's Slow Apocalypse, and I think you're dead wrong.
I see no intimation that they're creating a better world. There are discussions of compensations, but that's not the same thing; it's a human trait to make the best of what can't be helped.
My problems with the book are a) the totally contrived beginning that gets them into the problem, b) the way the protagonist keeps making the right decision, and then circumstances conspire to make the decision have happened 24 hours too late, and c) the way the whole thing just kind of fizzles out at the end. Though in a way, c) is what the book seems to be about: coping with the immediate situation, because situations are such that long-term planning doesn't work. But it annoys me mightily that we never find out anything about all those people being herded onto the nuclear-powered ships.
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I see no intimation that they're creating a better world. There are discussions of compensations, but that's not the same thing; it's a human trait to make the best of what can't be helped.
My problems with the book are a) the totally contrived beginning that gets them into the problem, b) the way the protagonist keeps making the right decision, and then circumstances conspire to make the decision have happened 24 hours too late, and c) the way the whole thing just kind of fizzles out at the end. Though in a way, c) is what the book seems to be about: coping with the immediate situation, because situations are such that long-term planning doesn't work. But it annoys me mightily that we never find out anything about all those people being herded onto the nuclear-powered ships.