Review by Booklist Review
This collection of short stories can broadly be called sf, though more precisely perhaps it should be called speculative fiction, based around the general theme of climate. All the stories deal with some aspect of life under climate change. All the stories contained herein are original, and like the subject matter, the future worlds envisioned are wildly diverse. The anthology opens describing an Earth whose populace is split between a communalistic, earth-based ideology and those who seek to emigrate off-planet. Then there is a Native American-like culture coping with an extended, planet-wide drought. Other stories deal with technology, with ecology, with life in a post-fossil fuel world--essentially any aspect of life on a world that has changed or is changing in fundamental ways. The various authors generally try to maintain an optimistic viewpoint, showing how people are coping with this changing world. While sometimes the agenda gets in the way of the storytelling, by and large the stories in Afterglow postulate a hopeful future despite the challenges people are likely to face.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This sparkling anthology of 12 climate fiction stories distinguishes itself with its hopeful bent, promoting the idea that good can still exist within destruction, even if it can only be found in small pockets. Adrienne Maree Brown writes in the foreword that these stories are "attempts to decolonize our thinking of the future, particularly on this planet, and to show what hope and utopia look like through lenses beyond our own." And while some of the stories feel like fragments of larger pieces and ill-fitted to the short form, others deliver exactly what Brown promises: the title story by Lindsey Brodeck explores a future in which the protagonist must decide between leaving Earth for another planet or staying as a "keeper," part of a group working to restore the relationship between humans and nature, while "Broken from the Colony" by Ada M. Patterson sees its trans heroine find community in a coral reef full of trans sisters after a hurricane submerges her island. Offering a glimpse at imagined futures across the globe, this is a welcome lift to the spirits to those who may be struggling to see any brightness amid climate fears. (Feb.)
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