Emily St. John Mandel, best known for her prescient flu pandemic novel Station Eleven, joined the New 精东传媒 Book Club to talk about her latest book, the science-fiction novel Exit Party. Emily discussed everything from why she is compelled to write about the aftermath of disaster 鈥� this latest book takes place in a near-future US, after a civil war 鈥� to how hard it was to keep ahead of the US news cycle as she wrote.

In the first spring after the collapse of the United States, the blossoming of the jacaranda trees felt to Ari like grace. The trees bloomed in the same week that international peacekeeping troops withdrew from Los Angeles, and the convergence of flowers with the absence of foreign soldiers brought a delirious kind of hope. Everyone in the spring of 2031 knew the city was one terrorist attack away from disaster, but that peril made the season more vivid, not less.

It was Ari鈥檚 first spring outside of prison in nearly two decades, and she spent hours at a time walking the streets. Prison is a wasteland of sensory deprivation, and now the city was overwhelming. She kept expecting that the details of the world would cease to be extraordinary, but that kept not happening. No one around her seemed to notice the jacarandas, because in Los Angeles there are flowers every month of the year, but she walked streets where the trees were lit up by purple blue blossoms and thought, My god. This place. She was forty-eight years old but felt younger, because so much of the world was new.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Book Club

Sign up to newsletter

The United States had come undone following a coup d鈥櫭﹖at. Several states had seceded within a week of the coup, either alone or in alliances with neighbours, and war had broken out within the month. Now the fighting had subsided, for the most part, and Ari had been released into an uneasy aftermath.

鈥淲hen I think of what the city was a year ago,鈥� Gloria said. Gloria was Ari鈥檚 roommate in a very small apartment in Echo Park. She was about a decade younger than Ari, a refugee who鈥檇 fled fighting between rival militias in Tennessee. Gloria slept in the bedroom. Ari slept in the living room, with an old sheet stapled to the door frame as a makeshift door, and they met one another in the tiny kitchen. Gloria seemed to spend most of her time reading the news online, her eyes wide and blank in the blue light of her laptop. What the city had been like a year ago was Gloria鈥檚 favourite topic of conversation.

鈥淚 know,鈥� Ari said gently, although she didn鈥檛. Their experiences were not the same. A year ago, Ari had been imprisoned in what was now a different country and Gloria had been holed up in this apartment with a different roommate.

But tonight the curfew had lifted, and when Ari had gone for a walk earlier, her impression from passing conversations was that everyone in Los Angeles was going out tonight. Gloria was going to her friend Kareem鈥檚 party, one neighbourhood over, and had invited Ari to come. But now, with dusk approaching, she鈥檇 settled into her familiar position with her laptop at the kitchen table, and showed no signs of getting ready.

鈥淲hat time shall we leave for that party?鈥� Ari asked.

漏 Emily St. John Mandel

This is聽an extract from by Emily St. John Mandel (Picador),听the October read for the New 精东传媒 Book Club. Sign up for the club聽here, and join the discussion on Discord聽.

When you make a purchase via the links聽on this page, we receive a commission.

The New 精东传媒 Book Club has been testing its collective brain power in September with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein鈥檚 . Subtitled 鈥減articles, poetry and the cosmic dream boogie鈥�, this sees the New 精东传媒 columnist and theoretical physicist set out to explain our universe, from the quantum to the inner workings of black holes.

That鈥檚 a lot to get through, but as Chanda writes in her book, it is worth the effort: 鈥淲e should bother with physics because it is, in part, how we as a species learn to use our minds.鈥� She went further in an exclusive essay for book club members, challenging us to get to grips with the quantum nature of space-time. 鈥淪pending time with what feels strange about physics can help prepare us to better reckon with difficult political questions,鈥� she wrote. 鈥淕iven the crises we face 鈥� genocides, climate change, attacks on transgender people 鈥� we need our critical faculties now more than ever.鈥�

Starting with a careful deconstruction of why we need to think hard about the metaphors we use in science writing to make sure they are helping rather than hindering readers in understanding non-intuitive concepts in science, Chanda goes on to take us through some of the most abstract areas of theoretical physics. It is, as member Dee55 put it, a 鈥渨ild ride鈥�, in terms of both the physics and the in-depth conversation that members have been having about the book over on our channel.

I really enjoyed this book. I am someone who didn鈥檛 manage to finish Stephen Hawking鈥檚 A Brief History of Time, but who, thanks to Chanda鈥檚 friendly, encouraging and (most importantly) clear writing, emerged at the end of this book a little more knowledgeable about physics. I liked how Chanda slipped in multiple references to literature and popular culture to help make her points, as well as how she told us firmly: 鈥淭his is supposed to be fun, and there is no test at the end.鈥� She reiterated this in our interview: 鈥淸Part] of welcoming people into the material is saying, this isn鈥檛 something that only鈥� a lone genius can think about. You鈥檙e entitled to this as well. This is your universe, too.鈥�

Many book club members were similarly enamoured. 鈥淥ne of the earliest statements in this book which blew me away (there have been many) was 鈥楬umanity has only been aware of this cosmic light[from the beginnings of the universe]for sixty-two years鈥�,鈥� wrote Melissa on Discord. 鈥淛ust the incomprehensible fact of cosmic light from the unimaginable ancientness of the beginning of the universe鈥攚hich is just there but people have only found out about it in the space of less than one human lifetime ago.鈥�

Jodie has been 鈥渆njoying it a lot, even if it does make my head ache at times!鈥� 鈥� I think that鈥檚 fair, Jodie! 鈥� while Dee55 has also found Chanda鈥檚 explanations mind-expanding: 鈥淔or years I have been making periodic attempts to understand Quantum Stuff and always come away fairly befuddled but also intrigued 鈥� and this time feels just a little different, as if I am not exactly grasping something but perhaps catching fleeting glimpses of it (we don鈥檛 get far without metaphors, I find).鈥�

鈥淭he wonderful gift this book gives us is the opportunity to spend time in practicing feeling unsettled, sometimes even bewildered, as we experience the strangeness of quantum physics,鈥� added Laura Akers. 鈥淚t鈥檚 several hours, in my case over many days, of practicing the acceptance that science and reality are strange, bizarre鈥� rather than simple and reassuring 鈥� and it鈥檚 really okay.鈥�

Free newsletter

Sign up to Book Club

Sign up to newsletter

鈥淚鈥檝e really enjoyed The Edge of Space-time,鈥� wrote DavidCl on Discord. 鈥淎bout half way through I realised what my perspective of reading it was like. It鈥檚 like sitting down and spending time with a good friend who is way cleverer and more intelligent than I am while she tries to explain what it is she does, why she does it and what drives her onwards.鈥�

This book is packed with literary allusions, and with Chanda鈥檚 strongly expressed political perspectives 鈥� not everyone appreciated this. 鈥淚 am not really enjoying this book, to be honest. I prefer straightforward scientific information and explanations,鈥� wrote Lowenna, while Katita2026 found that Chanda鈥檚 politics and her subjective takes intruded on the physics a little too much. 鈥淒r. Prescod-Weinstein is an incredible storyteller. I absolutely love how she brings the cold, intimidating world of astrophysics right down to earth. Explaining cosmic inflation through a TR-808 drum machine, or bringing Missy Elliott and Wu-Tang Clan into a physics book, is just brilliant science communication,鈥� wrote Katita. But 鈥渁s much as I鈥檓 enjoying the read, I find myself struggling when she tries to make the physics fit her politics鈥�.

This was a question picked over with great sensitivity by book club members. 鈥淚 do agree that some of the connections are bit forced, but I think the author is trying to show not only how physics says that the universe is, but also how she from a particular background visualises that,鈥� wrote Alan_P. 鈥淲e all bring our own experiences and backgrounds to any field of knowledge and view things through that prism 鈥� she鈥檚 just giving us her prism. She many times explains the sheer wonder and joy that she experiences as a physicist, and that this is finding out about an objective reality.鈥� DavidCl felt similarly: 鈥淭he explanations are peppered with her personal viewpoints and politics but that鈥檚 ok because her passion and occasionally sweary outbursts are all part of painting a compelling picture.鈥�

All in all, I think this was a (challenging) hit with book club members 鈥� on to the next one.

When you make a purchase via the links on this page, we receive a commission.

Theoretical physicist and New 精东传媒 columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein takes a deep dive into particle physics in her new book The Edge of Space-Time. She joined the New 精东传媒 Book Club to talk about the weirdness of the quantum world, why she included so much poetry in her book – and why the importance of physics shouldn’t be filtered through its contribution to the economy.

Emily St. John Mandel, Pan Macmillan

It is always a big deal when Emily St. John Mandel, the much-feted author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquillity, has a new novel out, and her latest doesn鈥檛 disappoint.

Exit Party is a parallel-universe story that flits backwards and forwards in time, from character to character, and eventually between worlds. It is as elegant and brilliantly executed as her fans have grown to expect, a book where every detail matters. I will give only the general set-up in this review, so no need to fear spoilers.

We begin in California, 2031. The US has been torn apart by war, but the curfew in Los Angeles has just been lifted. Our main protagonist, Ari, and her roommate Gloria plan to go to a party. (I read this very early section a few times before sticking with it, so if you find yourself in the same situation, know that it鈥檚 worth pushing on.)

Ari has just spent 20 years in prison for taking out a hit on someone, and she is very keen to party, but Gloria is reluctant to leave home when it comes to it. She shows signs of PTSD and mentions another party where a bomb went off. Eventually the two get to the party, and find the house full of flowers and the host, Kareem, warm and welcoming. At first, everything feels magical and exciting, but later something goes badly wrong, in ways that will take years for Ari to unravel.

鈥淭here were extra people,鈥� is how a guest at the party explains it. Yes, there are too many people at the party. At one point, Ari realises a woman is there in two completely different outfits; are they twins? The next day, Kareem is missing, having vanished entirely.

Exit Party is as elegant and brilliantly executed as fans have grown to expect

Exit Party鈥榮 structure is unusual, playing with time and points of view as your understanding of what is really going on deepens. St. John Mandel鈥檚 plotting skills and ability to build character quickly mean that the book never loses its dramatic intensity and forward propulsion as we make our leaps in time and viewpoint.

Thinking over the book, once I had finished it, I was struck by how much St. John Mandel was able to explore through her two-worlds structure, in what isn鈥檛 a long book. We get to imagine how different a person might be if life dealt them a different hand, or if they lived in a different world, a world also broken but in a very different way, perhaps. We also get to ponder how, without witnesses to sections of our life, we can end up in a different world without having to cross between universes. Oh, and so much more. It is a wonderfully thoughtful book.

Novels by St. John Mandel are usually described as speculative or dystopian fiction. This one also counts as old-fashioned sci-fi, I guess, because of the parallel universes, but there is close to zero science, because how people cross between worlds isn鈥檛 the point. This is about fate, courage, character and destiny, through the prism of parallel worlds.

A key facet of the book is also that Ari has premonitions, where she (sort of) knows what is going to happen next. Again, a science-free zone, but it makes for great entertainment.

My only bone to pick is that I never bought Ari鈥檚 full backstory. We are meant to believe that this canny, well-prepared, criminally savvy and basically OK woman, who also happens to experience strong premonitions, would take out a clumsy hit on one of her very few close relatives. Hmmm.

Anyway, that aside, bravo to Emily St. John Mandel, an absolute force in modern fiction.

Emily also recommends鈥�

TV

Fringe
Created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, This five-season TV show was uneven on many levels, to say the least. However it was also a bold and at times wildly creative exploration of parallel universes, with moments of absolute genius.

Emily H. Wilson is the author of the Sumerians series (Inanna, Gilgamesh and Ninshubar, all published by Titan) and she is currently working on her first sci-fi novel. She is a former editor of New 精东传媒 and you can follow her on Instagram @emilyhwilson1.

When you make a purchase via the links on this page, we receive a commission.

If I could go back in time and tell my younger self something about life as a theoretical physicist, I might say: mind the gap between what鈥檚 exciting about physics and what the job actually is. My new book, , was born in part out of thinking about the physical questions that get pushed to the margins in professional physics. Big-picture questions like, what is the material nature of space? What is a quantum theory of time? It is very difficult to build a professional life working on these questions 鈥� even as books tout them as the most exciting ones in the universe.

I was recruited into the world of physics by the Errol Morris documentary about Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. Eventually, I read Hawking鈥檚 book of the same name and my impression of a working life in physics was that, for the most part, physicists think big thoughts about wonders of the universe every day.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Book Club

Sign up to newsletter

Today, I鈥檓 a tenured professor of physics at a major research institution, and a lot of my job is sending emails about bureaucratic things, like asking whether anyone can tell me the policy that is governing changes that the university is making to my grant. On a good day, I get to have conversations about science with the postdoctoral fellows I employ in my research group 鈥� but that鈥檚 not every day. And in either case, the kind of research that we can get grant funding to do is quite limited. The sort of work Hawking did on the nature of time is financially out of reach for most physicists, a situation that is getting worse as the UK and the US both slash and burn basic science budgets.

The Edge of Space-Time was born in this gap between what we say science is and the reality of living it. I began it at a moment of transition. I had just been awarded tenure, which, in the US, historically has meant my position is permanent, and I am free to research whatever interests me without worrying about being fired. At the moment my tenure became official, I was thinking about what I had given up to get there, the strategic choices I had made.

I gave up working on quantum gravity, for example, both because of racism I experienced as a PhD student and because the job prospects weren鈥檛 good. I never took a class where we were asked to think deeply about time, space and the fundamental nature of space-time. Mostly, I learned to calculate and pursue questions that were broadly agreeable to the physics community, like understanding the nature of dark matter. And while I think these questions are important and interesting, they live at a kind of margin that physicists are pushed to by economic and social forces that determine which questions we can be paid to pursue and which we won鈥檛 be.

When I began working on the book in 2023, I was in the midst of a five-year stint working in US science policy, alongside colleagues from around the world (mostly the UK, Europe and Canada). As I learned more about the politics of science at the government level, it became clear to me that particle physics and cosmology were in trouble. Politicians were no longer sold on the fundamental importance of our research and didn鈥檛 see how it was beneficial to the capitalist economy or the military, which historically is how that support has been rationalised. The cultural arguments 鈥� that a well-cultured civilisation does things like try to understand the universe 鈥� didn鈥檛 seem impactful at all. And the general public, struggling with climate change and economies that don鈥檛 serve the 99 per cent, couldn鈥檛 see how we had anything to add.

I could see that we were about to be on the margins in a new way. And so The Edge of Space-Time became not just a return to my roots and the big-picture questions that once drove me, it also became a plea: don鈥檛 let me be the last of my kind. The cuts that are being made to science in the UK and the US right now seem like a political problem that is easily remedied, but it is more complicated than that. Even one year where there is a gap in funding means we haemorrhage workers who may never return. As those researchers leave, they take with them knowledge. Because the sciences work through apprenticeship, if there is no senior instructor to pass on knowledge, it doesn鈥檛 matter if there is money and an apprentice waiting in the wings.

With The Edge of Space-Time, I take readers on a journey through huge questions, like why does my favourite physics experiment foist the structures of quantum physics on us? And will we ever know what space-time really is, or is it always just going to be a useful mathematical construct that allows us to calculate motion in environments where gravity plays a significant role, like near black holes?

While thinking through the physics, I also try to make the case for why any healthy democracy needs people who live at the edge of what is known and what is unknown 鈥� the keepers of these cosmic stories that have fascinated humans for millennia. I make the case that, like poetry, physics gives us a viewpoint on the universe that we need because it is our ancestral inheritance. I also argue that spending time with what feels strange about physics can help prepare us to better reckon with difficult political questions.

Given the crises we face 鈥� genocides, climate change, attacks on transgender people 鈥� we need our critical faculties now more than ever. Thinking a bit about the various edges of space-time, like black holes and cosmic event horizons, can help us build the better world we need.

by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (Canongate Books) is the September read for the New 精东传媒 Book Club. Sign up for the club聽here, and join the discussion on Discord聽.

When you make a purchase via the links聽on this page, we receive a commission.

s蔚 wo wer蔚 fi na wosan k蓴fa a, y蔚nkyi

it is not incorrect to go back and get what you forgot

鈥擜kan proverb

We are called to go back and get the history of space-time. And who am I to argue with the ancestors?

Even so, I do. Science in this society is often done for the wrong rea颅sons, I find myself telling them. And they remind me that because it鈥檚 my job to study the origin and evolution of the universe and every颅thing inside it, I know there is a location in space-time where the uni颅verse became transparent to light: the first place where light could fly free. The ancestors insist: This is a story that I have learned so I could tell it to others. To do cosmology鈥攖o study the beginning and evolu颅tion of space, time, and matter鈥攊s to be a griot, a keeper of stories and history. To do cosmology is to go back and get the beginning, to map out the future.

So: Quite nearly at the beginning, the universe said let there be light. And particles of light鈥攑hotons鈥攁ll of them traveling at the speed of light, the fastest in the universe, couldn鈥檛 get very far. They were stuck in a plasma stew where they constantly bumped into par颅ticles, especially electrons, which swallowed their energy and spat it out in the form of new photons and other particles.

Humanity has only been aware of this cosmic light for eighty-two years. It has been there almost since the beginning of everything and has been traveling for nearly 14 billion years. It was there when the universe was cool enough for atoms to form. It was with the sun when it was just a cloud of gas, and it was there when the sun鈥檚 hydrogen ignited with fusion, turning the sun into a star. It was there when the leftovers from the gas cloud condensed into planet Earth. And it was there when carbon-based life forms evolved into apes.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Book Club

Sign up to newsletter

This light is a cosmic edge: We cannot look past it because at any time earlier than that, the photons were trapped, unable to get out. And this edge is a reminder that physics is a way of gaining deep insight into the universe, one we can add to the variety of overlapping forms of knowing that we have long used. To understand this bound颅ary, and how we have come to know about it, is to deepen our rela颅tionship with ourselves and the universe around us in a very specific and beautiful way. We should embrace it, for ourselves, and for future generations, because it is our history鈥攁nd who are we to argue with the ancestors?

鈥�

The book you are reading is about the queer, poetic wonder that is our universe and what we gain when we look at it from the margins. It is my version of what historian Aim茅 Dafon S猫gla calls cosmovi颅sions, a response to the question of why we should bother trying to get beyond the edges of human knowledge about the physical universe. The Edge of Space-Time is part of a larger tradition that includes not just scientists but also artists. People like jazz percussionist, artist, and technologist Milford Graves, who used percussion, sound, and observations of praying mantises and plant growth to understand a phenomenon he termed 鈥渃osmic energy.鈥� Graves, a maker working in a long tradition of Black artists, was not formally trained as a scien颅tist, and 鈥渃osmic energy鈥� sounds a little like mystic talk. But when I listened to him describe his ideas in the documentary Milford Graves Full Mantis, I heard a familiar sensibility about how matter is linked with and through space-time, a relationship that takes center stage in this book.

As a set of knowledges and techniques, physics provides a path颅way toward answering the same questions Graves asked about the fundamental nature of our cosmos and the relationship between matter, energy, and space-time. It allows us to specify in great detail the relationship between photons and the plants in Graves鈥檚 garden which transformed the photons into living particles. It is another entry point to what plant biologist and Black feminist theorist of intersectionality in science Beronda L. Montgomery calls lessons from plants.

When it鈥檚 at its best, physics is a kind of poetry, a story about the cosmos that is made from metaphors鈥攁nd a producer of metaphors in its own right. We often analyze the world through metaphor, and I believe that seeing the universe through the perspective offered by physics strengthens our ability to understand what work metaphors are doing on us and how we might wield them. It is in this sense that physics works on us like poetry: a perspective on the world that provides insights not available to us elsewhere. This helps us under颅stand why we should bother with it. We should bother with physics because it is, in part, how we as a species learn to use our minds. We should learn and teach poetry, physics, algebra, and other abstract ideas because they train us to think in symbolic and figurative terms. The same goes for calculus and quantum mechanics. And if we can颅not learn to think in and through the abstract and the symbolic, then we are pliable. We are sitting ducks for the fascists and authoritarians who will use us for their ends, and their ends are ultimately catastro颅phe for the rest of us. That鈥檚 always been true, and it always will be.

In a world where genocides (plural) can be live-streamed and still continue unabated, it is hard to imagine that society could be oth颅erwise when what is broken about it feels so total and, in the case of the families shattered and lives lost, so final. I don鈥檛 think cosmology by itself can save the world. Even so, I believe in the ways that people experience a connection to the cosmos as nourishing. And I believe in preparing for the better world that is coming.

This is an extract from by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (Canongate Books), the September read for the New 精东传媒 Book Club. Sign up for the club聽here, and join the discussion on Discord聽.

When you make a purchase via the links聽on this page, we receive a commission.

The New 精东传媒 Book Club moved from a far-future space opera in July鈥檚 read, Claire North鈥檚 Slow Gods, to a much nearer future on Earth in our read for August. Peter Heller鈥檚 takes place after a flu pandemic has wiped out the majority of Earth鈥檚 population, and follows the story of Hig, a lonely pilot, his dog Jasper 鈥� and their somewhat problematic neighbour Bangley. If that pandemic-struck world sounds like Peter was riffing off the real events of 2020, he wasn鈥檛: he wrote it well before covid, and (as he wrote in an essay for the book club) found it extremely eerie to find life imitating art, as the world shut down around us six years ago.

I have to start with an admission: I am a big Peter Heller fan. He was an adventure writer and journalist before turning to fiction, and I really enjoyed his thrillers The River and The Guide for their unique blend of gorgeous nature writing and heart-in-your-mouth survival. Somehow, I鈥檇 never got round to reading The Dog Stars, and when I discovered that it was about to be released as a film by Ridley Scott 鈥� and that it was a piece of post-apocalyptic fiction 鈥� I couldn鈥檛 wait to read it with our book club.

I wasn鈥檛 surprised to also love this novel. It combined all my favourite things: wilderness survival, a post-disaster world, lovely writing 鈥� and a Very Good Dog. I was fascinated to learn, in Peter鈥檚 essay, how he wrote the novel cold 鈥� no initial research, no planning: 鈥淚t was as if Hig were on the other side of a campfire on an October night, with the wind blowing the flames around, telling me what had happened to him a few years before. I wrote in a white heat. I was constantly surprised, awed, devastated by what happened. I鈥檇 have tears dripping off my chin onto the coffee shop table.鈥� In our interview, Peter also told me about how he decided on the nature of the apocalypse that would affect his world, and what it was like to see his characters appear on the big screen, courtesy of Scott 鈥� spoiler alert, there were tears.

There was more of a mixed response to The Dog Stars from book club members. Karen Warren 鈥渇ound the first half a bit tedious, and probably wouldn鈥檛 have carried on if it hadn鈥檛 been a book club choice鈥�. But ultimately she was glad she did, and 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 put it down towards the end鈥�. 鈥淚 loved the way that there was hope even in a seemingly impossible environment,鈥� she wrote on , describing the novel as 鈥渁 testament to the triumph of the human spirit鈥�.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Book Club

Sign up to newsletter

The writing in this book is very distinctive 鈥� jumpy and disjointed, reflecting Hig鈥檚 state of mind. Readers entered into an interesting debate about the reason for this. 鈥淚 read it as him losing some of his expressive power while living with Bangley: not much real conversation, not much novelty, a lot of silence and repetition,鈥� wrote warsaw_sun. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a suggestion of fever in his history, is that supposed to have affected his language, or is it just that 鈥榤en of action鈥� try to cut the descriptions right down following Hemingway?鈥� wondered Alan_P.

Overall, Alan was not a fan. 鈥淚鈥檓 sure a lot of people will enjoy the book 鈥� but for me the view of human nature is just too grim and not realistic,鈥� he wrote. He compared The Dog Stars to Tim Winton鈥檚 Juice 鈥� another book club read that is also set post-apocalypse, this time a climate one. 鈥淲hat bothers me is how these stories naturalise the idea that the only way to survive is to become the very kind of armed, unchallengeable patriarch that helped create the violence in the first place,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淎s humans we do well when we cooperate and badly when we don鈥檛. Perhaps I wouldn鈥檛 survive a holocaust, but I don鈥檛 think empathy is weakness, I don鈥檛 think that kindness is naivety, and I don鈥檛 want to read any more dystopias.鈥�

For Kelly, The Dog Stars was 鈥渘ot so much an apocalypse story (the how and the why) but a people story鈥�; for Barbara Howe, it was 鈥渁s much an old-fashioned Western as it is science fiction, if not more so鈥�. 鈥淎s in, isolated men with guns defending their claim and their women against marauders.鈥� Dee55, meanwhile, was left pondering the very nature of science fiction. 鈥淚鈥檝e been meaning to ask other readers here 鈥� does anything set in the future automatically count as science fiction? Or does the epidemic make it science fiction because that鈥檚 not a known type?鈥�

It鈥檚 a great question! For me, science fiction is a broad and generous church, ranging from the science-light writing of the likes of The Dog Stars or another book club read, Kaliane Bradley鈥檚 The Ministry of Time, to the hard sci-fi of Kim Stanley Robinson鈥檚 Red Mars and the space opera of Slow Gods. Next month, however, defining sci-fi isn鈥檛 something the book club will need to worry about鈥�

When you make a purchase via the links聽on this page, we receive a commission.

The New 精东传媒 Book Club has been reading Peter Heller’s post-apocalyptic novel The Dog Stars in August. He joined head of books Alison Flood to discuss the trend for dystopian fiction, how he didn’t plan anything before writing the book – and what it felt like to watch Ridley Scott’s film adaptation, released later this month.

I keep the Beast running, I keep the 100 low lead on tap, I foresee attacks. I am young enough, I am old enough. I used to love to fish for trout more than almost anything.

My name is Hig, one name. Big Hig if you need another.

If I ever woke up crying in the middle of a dream, and I鈥檓 not saying I did, it鈥檚 because the trout are gone, every one. Brookies, rainbows, browns, cutthroats, cutbows, everyone.

The tiger left, the elephant, the apes, the baboon, the cheetah. The titmouse, the frigate bird, the pelican (gray), the whale (gray), the collared dove. Sad but. Didn鈥檛 cry until the last trout swam upriver looking for maybe cooler water.

Melissa, my wife, was an old hippy. Not that old. She looked good. In this story she might have been Eve, but I鈥檓 not Adam. I am more like Cain. They didn鈥檛 have a brother like me.

Did you ever read the Bible? I mean sit down and read it like it was a book? Check out Lamentations. That鈥檚 where we鈥檙e at, pretty much. Pretty much lamenting. Pretty much pouring our hearts out like water. They said at the end it would get colder after it gets warmer.

Way colder. Still waiting. She鈥檚 a surprise this old earth, one big surprise after another since before she separated from the moon who circles and circles like the mate of a shot goose.

No more geese. A few. Last October I heard the old bleating after dusk and saw them, five against the cold bloodwashed blue over the ridge. Five all fall, I think, next April none.

I hand pump the 100 low lead aviation gas out of the old airport tank when the sun is not shining, and I have the truck too that was making the fuel delivery. More fuel than the Beast can burn in my lifetime if I keep my sorties local, which I plan to, I have to. She鈥檚 a small plane, a 1956 Cessna 182, really a beaut. Cream and blue. I鈥檓 figuring I鈥檓 dead before the Beast gives up the final ghost. I will buy the farm. Eighty acres of bottomland hay and corn in a country where there is still a cold stream coming out of the purple mountains full of brookies and cuts.

Before that I will make my roundtrips. Out and back.

*

I have a neighbor. One. Just us at a small country airport a few miles from the mountains. A training field where they built a bunch of houses for people who couldn鈥檛 sleep without their little planes, the way golfers live on a golf course. Bangley is the name on the registration of his old truck, which doesn鈥檛 run anymore. Bruce Bangley. I fished it out of the glove box looking for a tire pressure gauge I could take with me in the Beast. A Wheat Ridge address. I don鈥檛 call him that, though, what鈥檚 the point, there鈥檚 only two of us. Only us for at least a radius of eight miles, which is the distance of open prairie to the first juniper woods on the skirt of the mountain. I just say, Hey. Above the juniper is oak brush then black timber. Well, brown. Beetle killed and droughted. A lot of it standing dead now, just swaying like a thousand skeletons, sighing like a thousand ghosts, but not all. There are patches of green woods, and I am their biggest fan. I root for them out here on the plain. Go Go Go Grow Grow Grow! That鈥檚 our fight song. I yell it out the window as I fly low over. The green patches are_ spreading year by year. Life is tenacious if you give it one little bit of encouragement. I could swear they hear me. They wave back, wave their feathery arms back and forth down low by their sides, they remind me of women in kimonos. Tiny steps or no steps, wave wave hands at your sides.

I go up there on foot when I can. To the greener woods. Funny to say that: not like I have to clear my calendar. I go up to breathe. The different air. It鈥檚 dangerous, it鈥檚 an adrenalin rush I could do without. I have seen elk sign. Not so old. If there are still elk. Bangley says no way. Way, but. Never seen one. Seen plenty deer. I bring the .308 and I shoot a doe and I drag her back in the hull of a kayak which I sawed the deck off so it鈥檚 a sled. My green sled. The deer just stayed on with the rabbits and the rats. The cheat grass stayed on, I guess that鈥檚 enough.

Free newsletter

Sign up to Book Club

Sign up to newsletter

Before I go up there I fly it twice. One day, one night with the goggles. The goggles are pretty good at seeing down through trees if the trees aren鈥檛 too heavy. People make pulsing green shadows, even asleep. Better than not checking. Then I make a loop south and east, come back in from the north. Thirty miles out, at least a day for a traveler. That鈥檚 all open, all plains, sage and grass and rabbit brush and the old farms. The brown circles of fields like the footprint of a crutch fading into the prairie. Hedgerows and windbreaks, half the trees broken, blown over, a few still green by a seep or along a creek. Then I tell Bangley.

I cover the eight miles dragging the empty sled in two hours, then I am in cover. I can still move. It鈥檚 a long way back with a deer, though. Over open country. Bangley covers me from halfway out. We still have the handsets and they still recharge with the panels. Japanese built, good thing. Bangley has a .408 CheyTac sniper rifle set up on a platform he built. A rangefinder. My luck. A gun nut. A really mean gun nut. He says he can pot a man from a mile off. He has done. I鈥檝e seen it more than once. Last summer he shot a girl who was chasing me across the open plain. A young girl, a scarecrow. I heard the shot, stopped, left the sled, went back. She was thrown back over a rock, a hole where her waist should have been, just about torn in half. Her chest was heaving, panting, her head twisted to the side, one black eye shiny and looking up at me, not fear, just like a question, burning, like of all things witnessed this one couldn鈥檛 be believed. Like that. Like fucking why?

That鈥檚 what I asked Bangley, fucking why.

She would have caught you.

So what? I had a gun, she had a little knife. To like protect her from me. She maybe wanted food.

Maybe. Maybe she鈥檇 slit your throat in the middle of the night.

I stared at him, his mind going that far, to the middle of the night, me and her. Jesus. My only neighbor. What can I say to Bangley? He has saved my bacon more times. Saving my bacon is his job. I have the plane, I am the eyes, he has the guns, he is the muscle. He knows I know he knows: he can鈥檛 fly, I don鈥檛 have the stomach for killing. Any other way probably just be one of us. Or none.

I also have Jasper, son of Daisy, which is the best last line of alarm.

So when we get sick of rabbits and sunfish from the pond, I get a deer. Mostly I just want to go up there. It feels like church, hallow and cool. The dead forest swaying and whispering, the green forest full of sighs. The musk smell of deer beds. The creeks where I always pray to see a trout. One fingerling. One big old survivor, his green shadow idling against the green shadows of the stones.

Eight miles of open ground to the mountain front, the first trees. That is our perimeter. Our safety zone. That is my job.

He can concentrate his firepower to the west that way. That鈥檚 how Bangley talks. Because it鈥檚 thirty miles out, high plains all other directions, more than a day鈥檚 walk, but just a couple of hours west to the first trees. The families are south ten miles but they don鈥檛 bother us. That鈥檚 what I call them. They are something like thirty Mennonites with a blood disease that hit after the flu. Like a plague but slow burning. Something like AIDS I think, maybe more contagious. The kids were born with it and it makes them all sick and weak and every year some die.

We have the perimeter. But if someone hid. In the old farmsteads. In the sage. The willows along a creek. Arroyos, too, with undercut banks. He asked me that once: how do I know. How do I know someone is not inside our perimeter, in all that empty country, hiding, waiting to attack us? But thing is I can see a lot. Not like the back of the hand, too simple, but like a book I have read and reread too many times to count, maybe like the Bible for some folks of old. I would know. A sentence out of place. A gap. Two periods where there should be one. I know.

I know, I think: if I am going to die 鈥� no If 鈥� it will be on one of these trips to the mountains. Crossing open ground with the full sled. Shot in the back with an arrow.

Bangley a long time ago gave me bulletproof, one of the vests in his arsenal. He has all kinds of shit. He said it鈥檒l stop any handgun, an arrow, but with a rifle it depends, I better be lucky. I thought about that. We鈥檙e supposed to be the only two living souls but the families in at least hundreds of square miles, the only survivors, I better be lucky. So I wear the vest because it鈥檚 warm, but if it鈥檚 summer I mostly don鈥檛. When I wear it, I feel like I鈥檓 waiting for something. Would I stand on a train platform and wait for a train that hasn鈥檛 come for months? Maybe. Sometimes this whole thing feels just like that.

This is an extract from by Peter Heller (Tinder Press), the August read for the New 精东传媒 Book Club. Sign up for the club here, and join the discussion on Discord .

When you make a purchase via the links on this page, we receive a commission.