Hopeful Apocalypse: Climate Fiction for the Cautious Optimist

20sep5:00 pm6:00 pmHopeful Apocalypse: Climate Fiction for the Cautious OptimistEmily Brewes, Premee Mohamed, Rebecca Silver Slayter. Moderator: Kelly Robson5:00 pm - 6:00 pm(GMT-04:00)

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‘Apocalypse’ doesn’t always mean devastating disaster; the word also means an ‘awakening,’ or a ‘reckoning.’ What can we learn about individual resilience and community care from stories at the end of the world? How does our changing environment change us? If our old world is gone for good, how do we go about inventing and imagining a new one?

Moderated by author Kelly Robson.

Books featured:

The Annual Migration of Clouds
ECW Press

In post-climate disaster Alberta, a woman infected with a mysterious parasite must choose whether to pursue a rare opportunity far from home, or stay and help rebuild her community. The world is nothing like it once was: climate disasters have wracked the continent, causing food shortages, ending industry, and leaving little behind. Then came Cad, mysterious mind-altering fungi that invade the bodies of the now-scattered citizenry. Reid, a young woman who carries this parasite, has been given a chance to get away — to move to one of the last remnants of pre-disaster society — but she can’t bring herself to abandon her mother and the community that relies on her. When she’s offered a coveted place on a dangerous and profitable mission, she jumps at the opportunity to set her family up for life, but how can Reid ask people to put their trust in her when she can’t even trust her own mind? With keen insight and biting prose, Premee Mohamed delivers a deeply personal tale in this post-apocalyptic hopepunk novella that reflects on the meaning of community, and asks what we owe to those who have lifted us up.

The Second History
Doubleday Canada

Born in a barren, altered future world, Eban has lived in hiding all his life without ever understanding why. After his mother’s death, he retreated into the northern Appalachians with Judy, the only other woman he has ever known.

But as the years passed and Judy suffered multiple miscarriages, she began to wonder what happened to the cities their parents fled, where a strange sickness is said to have spread among those who stayed behind. To stop the headstrong woman he loves from leaving the safety of the hills to travel to the cities, Eban convinces Judy instead to set out on a journey to the fabled colony of the original mountain settlers, where he promises her they’ll find the answers she seeks.

Now expecting a child once again, Judy and Eban begin their climb deep into the mountains. Along the way, the people they encounter and the secrets they uncover will threaten their lives and the ties between them, further complicating what they know of the world beyond the mountains and of each other.

The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales
Dundurn Press

An astounding tale of a dangerous quest, a talking dog, and fragmented fairy tales in an eerie post-climate collapse future.

A long time ago, the Vanderchucks fled the growing climate disaster and followed their neighbours into the Underground. Jesse Vanderchuck thought it was the end. Of the world. Of life. Eventually, Jesse’s little sister, Olivia, ran away and Jesse started picking through trash heaps in Toronto’s abandoned subway tunnels. Day in, day out.

Now, years later, Jesse meets a talking dog. Fighting illness and the hostile world aboveground, Jesse and Doggo embark on a fool’s errand to find Olivia — or die trying. Along the way, Jesse spins a series of fairy tales from threads of memories, weaving together the past, present, and future into stories of brave girls, of cunning lads, of love in the face of wickedness, and of hope in the midst of despair.