Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin

Translated into English, January 2017–(originally Distancia de rescate), Fever Dream is shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize. With virtuoso skill, well served in Megan McDowell’s finely textured translation, Ms Schweblin fuses a study in maternal anxiety with an ecological horror story. –The Economist Fever Dream is a nightmare […]

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Tales from the Warming

Author: © Lorin R. Robinson Publisher/Ordering: Open Books Publication Date: May 1, 2017 Type: Fiction – Fiction Anthology Social Media: Facebook, Twitter Excerpt from “The Perfect Storm” Sometime during the long night, the rain lessened to a steady drizzle. The wind, which had been from the south, providing cooler air […]

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Mara Tusconi Oceanography Mystery Series – Charlene D’Avanzo

Updated to post the second in this oceanography mystery series, Demon Spirit, Devil Sea, which is out in May 2017. I had the pleasure of reading an advanced copy of the novel. I wrote: The novel opens readers’ eyes to a beautiful, mysterious, and threatened rainforest as a climate change […]

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Climate Change Author Spotlight – Peter Heller

Back to the series Denver resident Peter Heller is a contributor to NPR, Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. He has written literary nonfiction and fiction–and he loves the outdoors, so his writing reflects his adventures, including in Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River, The Whale […]

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Clara Hume’s Back to the Garden, Review by Tom Hibbard

ECO-FICTION THE INVISIBLE PARADISE: BACK TO THE GARDEN BY CLARA HUME “There is no immobile absolute, no spiritual ‘beyond’.” -Henri Lefebvre by poet Tom Hibbard, May 3, 2017 The term “eco-fiction” is, like other terms that describe types and categories, one for which a group of people are attempting to […]

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Interview with Donelle Dreese, Cave Walker

Part XVI. Women Working in Nature and the Arts Returning to our “Women Working in Nature and the Arts” interview series, I’m happy to introduce Donelle Dreese. Donelle is an author and Professor of English at Northern Kentucky University.  Her books include Cave Walker (Moon Willow Press), Sophrosyne (Aldrich Press), Deep River […]

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Cli-Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change, Bruce Meyer et al.

With the world facing the greatest global crisis of all time – climate change – personal and political indifference has wrought a series of unfolding complications that are altering our planet, and threatening our very existence. Reacting to the warnings sounded by scientists and thinkers, writers are responding imaginatively to […]

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Agency, William Gibson

Due out in January 2018, the novel will travel between two periods: one in present-day San Francisco, where Clinton’s White House ambitions are realised; and the other in a post-apocalyptic London, 200 years into the future after 80% of the world population has been killed. –The Guardian In William Gibson’s […]

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The Broken Earth Trilogy, N.K. Jemisin

N.K. Jemisin’s books are some of the most original and eye-opening fantasies being published today, and these books have a particularly vibrant take on survival. Jemisin’s world goes through cycles of catastrophes that upend humanity each time. The stress of the continual shifts leads to an oppressed people known as […]

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Ursocrypha: The Book of Bear, Katie Welch

Thanks to author Katie Welch for writing in to tell us about her novel The Bears (republished as Ursocrypha: The Book of Bear in January 2017). When an oil pipeline in Northern British Columbia ruptures, the ensuing environmental disaster precipitates a crisis for activist Gilbert Crow, arctic researcher Anne McCraig, […]

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Orkney, Amy Sackville

Orkney, the second novel from young British writer Amy Sackville, is certainly evocative: poetic, lyrical, lush in texture. But while this is its strength, the line between beautifully written and over-written is a fine one. –The Independent This is lovely: a beautifully painted story of love, obsession and loss, set […]

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Clay, Melissa Harrison

An interesting novel about loneliness and our disconnection from nature. It centres on a run down city park and four main characters whose lives intersect through their use of the park. -Goodreads (Catherine, reviewer) Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads

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Addlands, Tom Bullough

There have been a number of attempts to graft the style of the so-called new nature writing onto the novel…Tom Bullough’s Addlands is a very creditable contribution to this genre. -The Spectator The stark beauty of the Welsh countryside is given powerful life in this sweeping tale of one family […]

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Climate Change Author Spotlight–Ali Smith

Back to the series This month we’ll look at Ali Smith, who is not a new author, but whose “Seasonal” quartet I just began reading. Smith is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. See a complete bibliography at Wikipedia. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on […]

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Alaska Highway Two-Step, Caroline Woodward

I’m speaking with the author and part-time lighthouse keeper just after the re-publication of her book Alaska Highway Two-Step. First published in 1993, the unusual mystery novel is set in part along the legendary route and the release of its new edition coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Highway’s […]

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