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Tomorrow's Parties

Life in the Anthropocene

Part of Twelve Tomorrows

Edited by Jonathan Strahan

Paperback

$19.95 US

The MIT Press

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On sale Aug 23, 2022 | 232 Pages | 9780262544436

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Fantasy & Sci-Fi Prose > Sci-Fi > More Sci-Fi...

Twelve visions of living in a climate-changed world.

We are living in the Anthropocene—an era of dramatic and violent climate change featuring warming oceans, melting icecaps, extreme weather events, habitat loss, species extinction, and more. What will life be like in a climate-changed world? In Tomorrow’s Parties, science fiction authors speculate how we might be able to live and even thrive through the advancing Anthropocene. In ten original stories by writers from around the world, an interview with celebrated writer Kim Stanley Robinson, and a series of intricate and elegant artworks by Sean Bodley, Tomorrow’s Parties takes rational optimism as a moral imperative, or at least a pragmatic alternative to despair.

In these stories—by writers from the United Kingdom, the United States, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, and Australia—a young man steals from delivery drones; a political community lives on an island made of ocean-borne plastic waste; and a climate change denier tries to unmask “crisis actors.” Climate-changed life also has its pleasures and epiphanies, as when a father in Africa works to make his son’s dreams of “Viking adventure” a reality, and an IT professional dispatched to a distant village encounters a marvelous predigital fungal network. Contributors include Pascall Prize for Criticism winner James Bradley, Hugo Award winners Greg Egan and Sarah Gailey, Philip K Dick Award winner Meg Elison, and New York Times bestselling author Daryl Gregory.

FINALIST | 2023
Locus Awards

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Introduction: Science Fiction in the Anthropocene vii
Jonathan Strahan
1 It's Science Over Capitalism: Kim Stanley Robinson and the Imperative of Hope 1
James Bradley
2 Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley 11
Meg Elison
3 Down and Out in Exile Park 27
Tade Thompson
4 Once Upon a Future in the West 47
Daryl Gregory
5 Crisis Actors 75
Greg Egan
6 When the Tide Rises 95
Sarah Gailey
7 I Give You the Moon 115
Justina Robson
8 Do You Hear the Fungi Sing? 135
Chen Qiufan, translated by Emily Jin
9 Legion 157
Malka Older
10 The Ferryman 173
Saad Z. Hossain
11 After the Storm 189
James Bradley
Artwork: Sean Bodley 213
Acknowledgments 217
Contributors 219

"A disarmingly credible portrait of what life and work might be like in a future that may already be here, and that may or may not be reclaimable."
—Locus Magazine

"A great lineup of stories."
—Toronto Star

"A treat box full of riveting narratives about lived experiences in the Anthropocene. Together they present a compelling narrative . . . that the richness of life will endure past most changes."
—Physics World

"Packed with solid stories, including a handful of gems, and succeeds in its aim to explore our future with rational optimism."
—Engineering & Technology

“Our future is likely to be preoccupied by climate disaster. But what will that actually look like, and how will we find ways to keep going? Ten science fiction and fantasy authors explore our possible futures. Malka Older writes about surveillance being turned into a force for good; Tade Thompson explores the possibility of a utopia built on a floating island of plastics. These stories are interesting, thought-provoking and hopeful.”
—Observer

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Awards

FINALIST | 2023
Locus Awards