" Long Live Climate Fiction!'' - A blog by Jimbo

 Long Live Climate Fiction!''

a blog by Jimbo. He writes, (with brief edits and corrections for amplification and clarification by blogger and PR operative Dan Bloom) ...

I’ve been following the evolving ''Climate Fiction'' (Cli-Fi) genre for several years. And yes, it takes a hyphen. But what is Cli-Fi? I saw some cool things when the media, and TIME magazine in particular in its May 9, 2015 issue by Lily Rothman, began referring to the recent movie remake of ''Godzilla'' as a Cli-Fi movie (for summer magazine preview reaesons). All it takes is mention of the words “global warming” to get people thinking.

Now Amazon Original Series has entered the field, recently releasing its Warmer Collection series of 7 Cli-Fi short stories. The seven short stories by 7 top writers are relatively short, ranging from just over 30 minutes to about 2 hours in the audio format. I’ve listened to all of them. So.... where are we now?.....some 5 years into the Cli-Fi genre, given that it really began to take off only in 2013 after that NPR segment by Angela Evancie that went viral?

I’ve read some great books I would consider to be Cli-Fi, including Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl, James Powell’s 2084: An Oral History of the Great Warming, Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, and Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow.

Of course, the term “great” presupposes what you expect from Cli-Fi (or any other genre). Cli-Fi as a genre is intended to influence readers’ thinking about climate change.

As you know, I come to Cli-Fi primarily out of my interest in communicating climate change. As a result, I tend to hope Cli-Fi novels will engage readers in thinking about global warming in new ways. And that’s a frame I define as “effective”.

What are some different ways of looking at Cli-Fi? How are they represented in the larger Cli-Fi literature? One way to categorize Cli-Fi is: Cli-Fi as catharsis, Cli-Fi as apocalyptic , Cli-Fi as effective communications tool, and Cli-Fi as something for Hollywood to explore (like in the movie ''Godzilla'' and "Geostorm"). 

I would argue that the 7 Amazon Warmer Collection Cli-Fi short stories fall into the effective category. 

I’ll be the first person to note that different readers can have totally different reactions to a specific Cli-Fi work. With the entry of a player like Amazon onto the Cli-Fi playing field, though, it’s a good time to say hooray!. See www.cli-fi.net 

Long Live Climate Fiction!''

SEE ALSO....................

The arrival of ‘Warmer’ -- 7 new works of short 'cli-fi' stories -- signals 'Amazon Original Stories' interest in social/literary relevance. - Cli-fi News via Publishing Perspectives    https://publishingperspectives.com/2018/10/amazon-original-stories-introduces-cli-fi-collection-with-literary-studio-plympton/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook /

[Dr  Porter Anderson is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives.]

‘Cli-Fi Stories That Are Part of the Cultural Conversation’

There’s good news for those looking to see contemporary literature address urgent issues of societal importance — and to speed its way to market to match the pace of today’s current events.



The newest of the Amazon Publishing imprints, Amazon Original Stories, has released a new group of seven short ''cli-fi'' stories, a collection of cli-fi, called Warmer.

''The Cli-Fi Report'' curated by Dan Bloom at www.cli-fi.net

In a chat with Publishing Perspectives, Original Stories’ editorial director Julie Sommerfeld says that the socially significant nature of the new work is no accident.

“Our editorial team loves cli-fi novels,” Sommerfeld says, “like Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, and [the team] wanted to create another entry point for readers – short ''cli-fi'' stories that people can read or listen to in a single sitting.”

Included in the new ''Warmer'' collection:

• The Way the World Ends by Jess Walter in which a crazy ice storm lays waste to the South
• Boca Raton by Lauren Groff surveys relentlessly rising seas that put not only the planet but the imagination under pressure
• Controller by Jesse Kellerman examines how a few degrees make all the difference in a mother-son story of terror
• There’s No Place Like Home by Edan Lepucki looks at a girl growing up amid global catastrophe and personal chaos in a climate-ravaged future
• Falls the Shadow by Skip Horack sees a North Carolina combat veteran on the front lines of an environmental battle
• At the Bottom of New Lake by Sonya Larson gives us a on Cape Cod exploring the collectible debris of a once-perfect world she’s too young to remember
• The Hillside by Jane Smiley envisions a time when the age of humans is over and a “tender and tragic cautionary fable ensues

Those descriptive lines are from Plympton, a startup that many in publishing will recall from its inception in 2011 as the collaboration of writer-entrepreneurs Jennifer 8. Lee and Yael Goldstein Love. Plympton is the provenance of this new, culturally aware collection — a kind of work that Sommerfeld says is a good fit for what she sees Original Stories producing.

‘A Variety of Societal Issues’

“Amazon Original Stories creates powerful, memorable stories,” Sommerfeld tells us, “that expand readers’ horizons–whether that’s by helping them to find a new writer they’ll love or trying a different genre than they usually gravitate to, or thinking about important issues from new perspectives.

Julia Sommerfeld

“Our authors are telling stories that are part of the cultural conversation.”




In terms of fiction, however, Sommerfeld is leading her team on a promising departure.

“Warmer is our first collection of topical fiction,” she says, “an area where we plan to keep expanding next year with collections of socially-attuned suspense stories, tales of dating after #MeToo, and more.



Sommerfeld describes a welcome concept for the best thinking of modern writers: “As part of Amazon Publishing,” she says, “a big focus for us is innovating on behalf of writers.

“Having a speedier process for publishing shorter works helps authors launch their ideas while they’re most relevant. The single-sitting length of these stories also allows busy readers to take a chance on something new.”

And in bringing the Warmer cli-fi collection to market, Sommerfeld says, the collaboration with Plympton was a matter of “providing authors we admire with a simple prompt: tell us a story inspired by climate change.

“The range of what they came up just blew us away.''

“Lauren Groff’s story, Boca Raton, is a devastating look at how a mother is crushed by the uncertainty of it all, while Jess Walter’s The Way the World Ends has a sideways humor that leaves you laughing and, most importantly, hoping. Jesse Kellerman’s Controller is a psychological thriller about a power struggle over a thermostat.”

‘The Existential Crisis of Our Era’

If you’re noticing that the roster of authors on the Warmer project, like the sound of the writings, gravitates more toward cli-fi. than sci-fi or fantasy, you’re on the right track. 

Jennifer 8. Lee

Living up to Lee’s classification of it as a “literary studio,” Plympton in recent years has been behind several interesting projects with which Publishing Perspectives readers are familiar.






Modestly, Jenny Lee hands off to her business partner, Goldstein Love, for a statement of how they see the character of the Warmer collection now available from Amazon Original Stories: “We conceived and pitched this cli-fi short-story project as a way of giving fiction writers a collective voice around the existential crisis of our era—and found the writers we approached eager to join this global conversation.”



For now, the good news for readers and for authors, as Lee frames it, is that “thematic originals are a way for fiction writers to create stories that feel highly relevant.”

In terms of fiction in the service of the most pressing issues of our time, Amazon Original Stories’ approach—and Plympton’s work with writers who are attuned to the need—may mean that publishing’s response to its consumers may be getting Warmer.

Sci-fi expert and literary critic Gautham Shenoy in INDIA on ''A genre called Cli-Fi''

I'm excited to be ''quoted'' in this news report from INDIA by literary critic Mr. Gautham Shenoy about the rise of the new literary genre everyone is calling  ''cli-fi''  now....



''A genre called Cli-Fi'' 

 with Mr. Gautham Shenoy in INDIA reporting

TEXT by Mr Shenoy ....with a few slight edits here for clarification and amplification

Two years ago, the Indian-American author of a sci-fi novel titled ''The Calcutta Chromosome'', Amitav Ghosh, asked “Where are all the novels and movies about climate change?”, lamenting the fact that “serious literary fiction” had often failed in its duty when it comes to addressing climate change, noting that ‘fiction that deals with climate change is almost by definition not of the kind that is taken seriously: the mere mention of the subject is often enough to relegate a novel or a short story to the gutter genre of science fiction’. But  Ghosh’s next novel, set for a 2019 release in India, Italy, the UK and the USA is a cli-fi novel. He describes the novel, ''Gun Island,'' as a story about a world wracked by climate change in which creatures and beings of every kind have been torn loose from their accustomed homes by the catastrophic processes of displacement that are now unfolding across the Earth at an ever-increasing pace.

When it comes out next year, ''Gun Island'' will be the latest amongst cli-fi novels to deal with climate change. So many are the books that deal with this subject – especially in recent years when climate change has gone from science fiction to science fact – that they are now classified under a separate genre – Climate Fiction, or Cli-Fi for short.

Climate change is underway, and unless concrete steps are taken, its effects could be irreversible and so far, sadly, looks so inevitable that for any novel set in the future to be a realistic extrapolation it cannot afford to ignore climate change. As Annalee Newitz, the author of ''Autonomous'', a novel set over a century in the future, in a world where climate change has taken its toll, notes in a cli-fi columnist Amy Brady interview, “Any story about the future that’s at least a century out has to include a dramatic picture of climate change Any good world-building will grapple with climate change in some way.” Sometimes, it doesn’t even have to be set 100 years in the future. Eliot Peper’s ''Bandwidth'' which I wrote about in an earlier  column, is set in the near-future in a climate-changed world, while in Ian McDonald’s acclaimed novel, River of Gods – portraying India in 2047 – water wars rage across the country, and one of the more desperate states has plans of towing icebergs from what’s left of the Antarctic ice sheet into the Bay of Bengal to the mouth of the Ganga, to overcome the freshwater shortage but mostly in the hopes of kick-starting long-delayed monsoons.

Cli-Fi books sharpen this focus by taking it even further, by bringing climate change and its effects from the background into the forefront, to consider the specific problem of human-made global warming and its effects thereof. Because now more than ever, we need well-told stories. It will be critical to raise awareness and put the spotlight on the implications of climate change, on the planet, on societies, on individuals.

As Dan Bloom, the journalist who coined the term ‘Climate Fiction’ and its short eye-catching contraction ‘Cli-Fi’ tells me, “Cli-fi is relevant today more than ever and will remain so for the next 100 years because such novels shine a light on today’s daily headlines worldwide. It’s a global viewfinder. Climate change is on everyone’s mind now with wildfires, floods, heat waves, cyclones, droughts worldwide. So put sci-fi together with cli-fi and the hybrid mix is ablaze with timely immediacy.” And the genre’s purpose as per him? “To act as a wake-up call, a warning flare, a cri de coeur, an alarm bell. Literature matters and cli-fi has a future in the 21st and 22nd centuries for sure. Cli-fi can minister to our anxieties and fears.”

The findings of the latest report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes for alarming reading. It predicts dire consequences if the global average temperatures increases 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, with the future a lot grimmer if it reaches 2°C.

So, is Cli-fi what we need to spur a change in our thinking, to spark action that could accelerate a positive political transformation? And can works of fiction contribute to saving this world, from itself? Perhaps they can. Because cli-fi can help us imagine our planet’s dystopian future through the eyes of people like us and in doing so help us avoid it. To quote the late, great Ursula Le Guin, “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” Climate change may seem inescapable, but at the very least, cli-fi can drive home the enormity of what awaits us if we don’t change through stories that engage us and help us comprehend what lies ahead, and in doing so spur us and inspire us to do our bit in doing something about climate change.

The New York Times Book Review under editor Pamela Paul is going cli-fi for EARTH DAY WEEK 2019

The New York Times Book Review under editor Pamela Paul is going cli-fi.

Yes, The Times Book Review section noted that while it puts a spotlight on “books and stories, it also puts the spotlight also on how novels being written today reflect the world outside of books.”

Editors said that climate change and global warming are major existential threats to humanity and therefore the Times is printing 5 cli-fi short stories in an upcoming issue of the standalone Sunday New York Times Book Review, all written by well-known novelists.

One of the short stories on the Times' online Book Review page - to be published in Sunday's print edition that week -  will be a chilling story about climate change in the 21st century.

A Times spokesperson told CNN: "These stories are but works of fiction, climate fiction, a new genre dubbed 'cli-fi' and they will he part of our Earth Day week edition in 2019.''

Amazon Original Series launches a cli-fi short story collection featuring 7 top American authors

Amazon Original Series launches a cli-fi short story collection featuring 7 top American authors

What is cli-fi?

A new literary genre that is rising fast in these post-IPCC Report times...

Emily Birnbaum at @thehill writes for The Hill website -- @birnbaum_e -- beneath a headline that reads: ''Amazon launches a ''cli-fi'' series of short stories about some ‘possible tomorrows’''...

See also earlier news here:
https://northwardho.blogspot.com/2018/10/warmer-new-amazon-published-collection.html

Amazon Original Stories, an Amazon Publishing imprint, has launched a cli-fi short story collection about "possible tomorrows" in a United States ravaged by climate change.

The series, called "Warmer," includes seven cli-fi short stories that explore fictional stories about characters fighting to survive despite rising temperatures, floods, ice storms and rising sea levels.

ADVERTISEMENT

“'Warmer' is our first collection of topical fiction, an area where we plan to keep expanding next year with collections of socially-attuned suspense stories, tales of dating after #MeToo, and more," Original Stories’ editorial director Julia Sommerfeld told Porter Anderson in an interview with Publishing Perspectives.

Good timing? Although conceived more than two years ago, the collection launched only a few weeks after an IPCC United Nations report warned that the world might be on a path toward catastrophic climate change if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t cut dramatically by 2030.

Each short story in "Warmer" takes place in a U.S. state.

"At The Bottom of New Lake" tells the story of a Cape Cod girl learning about the world before an enormous flood washed away its remnants, while "Boca Raton" explores a girl in Florida who discovers "heartbreaking evidence of an irreversibly changing earth," according to the story  summaries on Amazon.



 

Let's talk about ''cli-fi'' in the 21st century, shall we?

Let's talk about ''cli-fi'' in the 21st century, shall we?

In 2018, Cli-Fi has become a rapidly emerging genre within contemporary literature and film that addresses urgent environmental questions and concerns through the imaginative lens of fiction. Coined as “cli-fi” by literary activist Dan Bloom and accepted now as a buzzword in the popular press, it has recently become the focus of academic scholarship as well as college courses.

The Chicago Review of Books has a monthly ''cli-fi trends'' column by literary critic Amy Brady dedicated to highlighting recent publications in the genre; Goodreads has a list devoted to cli-fi; and Twitter has a lively feed via the hashtag #clifi.

So for writers, readers, and teachers working in 21st century cli-fi, let's try to map this growing field and articulate its role within the broader climate conversation.

In our discissions, we can address two key questions:

what is cli-fi?

and what are its uses?

You might propose a single 21st century fictional text through which to offer a definition of cli-fi, illuminate the field’s broader contours, and highlight its central questions and stakes.

Texts you focus on can be established or unexpected but should signal a significant issue within the field or represent an identifiable node in its larger network.

Topics might address:

what are 21st century cli-fi novels' key themes or motifs?

its formal features or generic affiliations?

its central methods, meanings, or motives?

what role should cli-fi play within academic, activist, or popular discourses of climate change?

Our discussion online here and on Twitter threads as a whole will seek to provoke lively debate both among its participants and with the audience as we work together to chart the field and identify its important trajectories.

''21st century cli-fi'' at 2019 ASLE convention -- CFP for panel discussion at ASLE 2019 event for academics

 

    

21st Century Cli-Fi

Ends on December 15, 2018

Organizer: Teresa Goddu ( teresa.a.goddu@vanderbilt.edu ), Vanderbilt University
Planned Format:   Roundtable (5-6 Presenters)

Cli-Fi is a rapidly emerging genre within contemporary literature and film that addresses urgent environmental questions and concerns through the imaginative lens of fiction. Coined as “cli-fi” by literary activist Dan Bloom and accepted now as a buzzword in the popular press, it has recently become the focus of academic scholarship as well as college courses. The Chicago Review of Books has a monthly ''cli-fi trends'' column by literary critic Amy Brady dedicated to highlighting recent publications in the genre; Goodreads has a list devoted to cli-fi; and Twitter has a lively feed via the hashtag #clifi.

This roundtable seeks to bring together writers, readers, and teachers working in 21st century cli-fi  to map this growing field and articulate its role within the broader climate conversation.

The roundtable seeks to address two key questions:

what is climate fiction?

and what are its uses?

Each participant will propose a single 21st century fictional text through which to offer a definition of cli-fi, illuminate the field’s broader contours, and highlight its central questions and stakes.

Texts can be established or unexpected but should signal a significant issue within the field or represent an identifiable node in its larger network.

Remarks should be brief (5-8 minutes). Topics participants might address:

what are 21st century cli-fi novels' key themes or motifs?

its formal features or generic affiliations?

its central methods, meanings, or motives? what role should cli-fi play within academic, activist, or popular discourses of climate change?

The roundtable as a whole seeks to provoke lively debate both among its participants and with the audience as we work together to chart the field and identify its important trajectories.

 

''WARMER'' -- a new Amazon-published collection of cli-fi stories from 7 noted authors

AMAZON LINK

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J9MHYGF/ref=apubna_nr_na_10063_ul_1_1_1810

Fear, hope, and imagination collide in this collection of possible tomorrows. What happens when boiling temperatures stoke family resentments during a long, hot winter; when a girl's personal crisis trumps global catastrophe; or when the storm of the century creates the ideal hookup for two climate scientists to party like it's the end of the world? Like the best sci-fi, these cli-fi stories offer up answers that are darkly funny, liberating, and frighteningly conceivable.

Featuring: Jess Walter, Lauren Groff, Jesse Kellerman, Edan Lepucki, Skip Horack, Sonya Larson, Jane Smiley

An interesting literary project that Amazon is releasing debuts on October 30: a “cli-fi” short story collection (aka ''climate change fiction''), with stories by Lauren Groff (2x National Book Award finalist), Jess Walters (of Beautiful Ruins), Jane Smiley (Pulitzer winner) and Edan Lepucki (of the Hachette-Amazon dispute fans). This collection is part of Amazon's idea to create more benefits for Amazon Prime members.

The collection emphasizes less speculative/sci-fi, and more takes a hard look at the human relations that are strained under a warming planet, in a way that literary fiction does best.

This innovative cli-fi project was pitched by the idea people behind the concept to Amazon as a way of giving fictional writers a collective voice around the greatest existential crisis of our era: climate change and runaway global warming.

The collection will go live at a custom Amazon page: www.amazon.com/warmer on Oct. 30,

WARMER: Fear, hope, and imagination collide in this collection of possible tomorrows. What happens when boiling temperatures stoke family resentments during a long, hot winter; when a girl’s personal crisis trumps global catastrophe; or when the storm of the century creates the ideal hookup for two climate scientists to party like it’s the end of the world? Like the best sci-fi, these cli-fi stories offer up answers that are darkly funny, liberating, and frighteningly conceivable.

Lineup:

The Way the World Ends, by Jess Walter
Sleet in Mississippi? In March? A crazy ice storm lays waste to the South this invigorating, touching story of one slippery night, an open bar, and total abandon.

Boca Raton, by Lauren Groff
A mother’s latent fears rise as relentlessly as the Florida seas in a startling story of a planet, and an imagination, under pressure.

Controller, by Jesse Kellerman

What happens when temperatures flare between a mother and son? A few degrees make all the difference in this blazingly chilling story of psychological terror.

There’s No Place Like Home, Edan Lepucki

In a climate-ravaged future, it’s not easy to grow up. One girl is trying her best in a story about global catastrophe and personal chaos.

Falls the Shadow, by Skip Horack

A North Carolina combat vet finds himself far from home on the front lines of an environmental battle to save the planet.

At the Bottom of New Lake, by Sonya Larson

A girl growing up in Cape Cod explores the collectible debris of a once-perfect world she’s too young to remember. But as the past resurfaces, so do old questions about her place in society.

The Hillside, by Jane Smiley

After bringing Earth to ruin, the age of humans is over. It is a blessing for some in this tender and tragic cautionary fable.

What exactly are Amazon collections?

They are a new episodic storytelling experience presented by Amazon Original Stories. These are collections of original, exclusive, and editorially curated long-form narratives that explore a theme. A collection of Amazon Original Stories combines short-form reading with the addictive qualities of a narrative podcast: a seamless episodic reading and listening experience. Each story in a collection is available in ebook and digital audio formats and is free for Prime and KU members.

========================= some screen shots below:

The Way the World Ends (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Jess Walter

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

Sleet in Mississippi? In March? A crazy ice storm lays waste to the South in a #1 New York Times bestselling author’s invigorating, touching story of one slippery night, an open bar, and total abandon.

For three strangers whose paths will cross, the storm hasn’t even reached its peak. Two of them are the kind of climate scientists no one ever listens to in disaster movies. The third, against even icier opposition, has just moved to the Magnolia State to come out. Soon they’ll all be pushed closer to the edge, where the bracing winds of cataclysmic change can be so wildly liberating.

Jess Walter’s The Way the World Ends is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on October 30, 2018.

Boca Raton (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Lauren Groff

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

A mother’s latent fears rise as relentlessly as the Florida seas in a startling story of a planet, and an imagination, under pressure, by the New York Times bestselling author of Fates and Furies.

During an eco-friendly cleanup at the beach, Ange finds something horrifying in the brush. The sickening, heartbreaking evidence of an irreversibly changing earth triggers dread about the future for her daughter. But as reasoned worries slide into paranoia, reality itself begins to untether. For Ange, there may be no stepping back from the destructive darkness of her sleepless nights.

Lauren Groff’s Boca Raton is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on October 30, 2018.

Controller (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Jesse Kellerman

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

What happens when temperatures flare between a mother and son? A few degrees make all the difference in this New York Timesbestselling author’s blazingly chilling story of psychological terror.

It’s the hottest winter on record, but Raymond’s demanding, bedridden mother doesn’t mind. She likes it warm. Lately, however, control over the thermostat has become a nasty struggle. And each morning that she’s still alive is a suffocating new challenge for Raymond. How high can the mercury climb before he boils over?

Jesse Kellerman’s Controller is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on October 30, 2018.

There's No Place Like Home (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Edan Lepucki

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

In a climate-ravaged future, it’s not easy to grow up. One girl is trying her best in a story about global catastrophe and personal chaos, by the New York Times bestselling author of California.

Thirteen-year-old Vic is of the Youngest Generation, fixed in prepubescence after a catastrophic environmental degradation. She’s also her father’s favorite student. But when he takes his own life, the perennially ingenuous Vic wants to understand why. As she sets out on her quest, Vic begins to learn that family isn’t something you’re born with—it’s something you build.

Edan Lepucki’s There’s No Place Like Home is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on October 30, 2018.

Falls the Shadow (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Skip Horack

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

A North Carolina combat vet finds himself far from home on the front lines of an environmental battle to save the planet in an award-winning author’s provocative story of a twenty-first-century Wild West.

Joel Dunbar, the last branch of an Appalachian family tree, accepts a mysterious invitation from a billionaire plutocrat to attend a conservation expo in San Francisco. The rock star environmentalist has startling plans for the future and a caveat for Joel: don’t ask too many questions, and don’t divulge any answers. But when Joel befriends a rebellious eco-friendly Arizona rancher, he’s roped into a new kind of war, with new kinds of casualties.

Skip Horack’s Falls the Shadow is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on October 30, 2018.

At the Bottom of New Lake (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Sonya Larson

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

A girl growing up in Cape Cod explores the collectible debris of a once-perfect world she’s too young to remember. But as the past resurfaces, so do old questions about her place in society.

To Chinese American teenager Chuntao, New Lake is a beautiful haven where she can hunt for treasures once swallowed up by a big flood. But when she’s caught scavenging by her biology teacher, a woman whose own past has been swept away, Chuntao is faced with an imponderable question: Which world was better—the ideal one she never knew or the destroyed one that now belongs to her?

Sonya Larson’s At the Bottom of New Lake is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your Kindle on October 30, 2018.

The Hillside (Warmer collection) (Oct 30, 2018)

by Jane Smiley

$2.09

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC

After bringing Earth to ruin, the age of humans is over. It is a blessing for some in this tender and tragic cautionary fable from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Thousand Acres.

Now the Congress of Animals is in control, unforgiving, and debating the fate of the planet’s most reviled species. The popular ruling: exterminate humankind without exception. But a curious mare, coming of age, is making a case for a seemingly gentle person she longs to save—a wish for mercy that could once again unbalance the new and righteous nature of the world.

Jane Smiley’s The Hillside is part of Warmer, a collection of seven visions of a conceivable tomorrow by today’s most thought-provoking authors. Alarming, inventive, intimate, and frightening, each story can be read, or listened to, in a single breathtaking sitting.

Read More

$2.09

Pre-order with 1-Click

This title will be auto-delivered to your 

Jess Walter

is the #1

New York Times

bestselling author of

Beautiful Ruins

. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and an Edgar

Award, as well as a three-time honoree in

The Best American

Short Stories

, Walter was also a finalist for the National Book

Award for

The Zero

. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his

family

6

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jess Walter

is the #1

New York Times

bestselling author of

Beautiful Ruins

. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and an Edgar

Award, as well as a three-time honoree in

The Best American

Short Stories

, Walter was also a finalist for the National Book

Award for

The Zero

. He lives in Spokane, Washington, with his

family.

Lauren Groff

is the author of the

New York Time

s Notable

Book and bestseller

Fates and Furies

and the thrilling new

story collection

Florida

. Named one of

Granta

’s Best of Young

American Novelists, Groff was also a finalist for the National

Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the

Kirkus Prize.

Photo

© 2017 Kristin Kozelsky

Jesse Kellerman

is the

New York Times

bestselling author

of nine novels, including

The Genius

(winner of the Grand

prix des lectrices de Elle),

Potboiler

(nominated for the Edgar

Award for Best Novel), and

Crime Scene

(with his father,

Jonathan Kellerman). An award-winning playwright, he lives

in California.

Photo

©

2011 Isabelle Boccon-Gibod

Edan Lepucki

is the

New York Times

bestselling author of

California

and

Woman No. 17

. Her work has been

published in

Esquire

, the

New York Times

, the

Los Angeles

Times

, and

McSweeney’s

, among others. She is the creator

of @mothersbefore on Instagram and a contributing

editor at the

Millions

.

Photo

©

2017 Adam Karsten

A collaboration with the literary studio Plympton.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Jess Walter

is the #1

New York Times

bestselling author of

Beautiful Ruins

. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and an Edgar

Award, as well as a three-time honoree in

The Best American

Short Stories

, Walter was also a finalist for the National Book

Award for

The Z