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The Floating World
Not yet published
Expected 29 Sep 26A cautionary tale of a young, newly widowed art critic who goes to work for a mysterious billionaire determined to build a geodesic-domed paradise to shelter the rich.
For fans of novels of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection and Blake Butler’s Molly
On a remote island in the Aegean, Morel, a billionaire, is constructing a utopian community beneath a giant geodesic dome. The “Floating World” is advertised as a refuge for only the wealthiest people from the crises engulfing the planet.
Our protagonist is offered a job working on the spectacular art exhibition that will inaugurate this closed society. Recognizing that this is a branding exercise for ethically dubious property development, he is nonetheless attracted by the opportunity to work with an artist he once hero-worshipped—the reclusive, semi-retired Finn Reith—and to restart a life that stopped with the loss of his wife.
At first glance, the Floating World seems like a paradise, but it soon becomes clear that all is not well beneath the shimmering dome. Why is the billionaire head of the corporation ensconced in his own residence on the far side of the island, surrounded by bodyguards? Why are the workers so reluctant to speak of their experiences? Our protagonist’s gaze is distracted from these indicators of some deeper disturbance by Selima, the uncannily familiar technical director of the exhibition.
The Floating World is a dystopia and Bildungsroman, steeped in atmosphere and sparkling with intelligence, and signals the arrival of a major new talent on the fiction scene.
For fans of novels of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection and Blake Butler’s Molly
On a remote island in the Aegean, Morel, a billionaire, is constructing a utopian community beneath a giant geodesic dome. The “Floating World” is advertised as a refuge for only the wealthiest people from the crises engulfing the planet.
Our protagonist is offered a job working on the spectacular art exhibition that will inaugurate this closed society. Recognizing that this is a branding exercise for ethically dubious property development, he is nonetheless attracted by the opportunity to work with an artist he once hero-worshipped—the reclusive, semi-retired Finn Reith—and to restart a life that stopped with the loss of his wife.
At first glance, the Floating World seems like a paradise, but it soon becomes clear that all is not well beneath the shimmering dome. Why is the billionaire head of the corporation ensconced in his own residence on the far side of the island, surrounded by bodyguards? Why are the workers so reluctant to speak of their experiences? Our protagonist’s gaze is distracted from these indicators of some deeper disturbance by Selima, the uncannily familiar technical director of the exhibition.
The Floating World is a dystopia and Bildungsroman, steeped in atmosphere and sparkling with intelligence, and signals the arrival of a major new talent on the fiction scene.
288 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication September 29, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 1, 2026
It seems like this should be a moment for dystopian novels. Eastman does two things in the floating world that make the novel particularly haunting: the novel takes place right before an imminent catastrophe and his narrator is so incapable of cynicism that it makes the reader imagine the novel’s doom sequence.
While the narrator is so naive that the floating world doesn’t feel like an overtly political novel, it engages with three big themes which are grief (the narrator’s wife was killed in some sort of climate related regional war), the social role of art (the narrator is involved in an art project for a techno-billionaire’s end of the world bunker community), and the lines society draws to segment human beings (there is a constant backdrop of protests and mass migration).
Eastman is an art writer of some sort and the book’s portrayal and critique of how wealth and power use art as an instrument are what you’d expect and feel fully developed. The novel’s weakness is its exploration of grief.
Recent climate disaster novels tend to be tragic (like Tea Obreht’s The Morningside), satirical (Kleeman’s Something New Under the Sun), or a sci-fi-ish thriller (Vara’s The Immortal King Rao). Eastman seems to really want this novel to be tragic, but doesn’t spend enough time developing any of his characters. I can fill in the blanks of a story about ecological loss, geopolitical violence, and the sick ways billionaires behave because I’ve peeked at the news. I can maybe imagine the impact of collective grief from the end to the world, but I found the conclusion of this novel melodramatic because I didn’t ever start to care about any of the characters in it.
While the narrator is so naive that the floating world doesn’t feel like an overtly political novel, it engages with three big themes which are grief (the narrator’s wife was killed in some sort of climate related regional war), the social role of art (the narrator is involved in an art project for a techno-billionaire’s end of the world bunker community), and the lines society draws to segment human beings (there is a constant backdrop of protests and mass migration).
Eastman is an art writer of some sort and the book’s portrayal and critique of how wealth and power use art as an instrument are what you’d expect and feel fully developed. The novel’s weakness is its exploration of grief.
Recent climate disaster novels tend to be tragic (like Tea Obreht’s The Morningside), satirical (Kleeman’s Something New Under the Sun), or a sci-fi-ish thriller (Vara’s The Immortal King Rao). Eastman seems to really want this novel to be tragic, but doesn’t spend enough time developing any of his characters. I can fill in the blanks of a story about ecological loss, geopolitical violence, and the sick ways billionaires behave because I’ve peeked at the news. I can maybe imagine the impact of collective grief from the end to the world, but I found the conclusion of this novel melodramatic because I didn’t ever start to care about any of the characters in it.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The idea for this book sounded really interesting, but for me the execution falls short. What the book does well is how art is perceived by different classes of people and what art means to different people. This makes sense given the author's background.
What doesn't work for me is the doomsday narrative and the characters. I didn't necessarily feel much tension except for hearing about events taking place, and didn't necessarily feel the characters either.
A good comparison point could be Megha Majumdar's climate novel 'A Guardian and A Thief' which tried to do something similar, in trying to draw blurry moral lines and tell a doomsday novel but does it better.
Another thing I noticed was towards the end of the book, there was something which felt like a typo where it said something like "unknown filmmaker who makes who makes".
I would like to thank NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the advanced review copy of the book!
What doesn't work for me is the doomsday narrative and the characters. I didn't necessarily feel much tension except for hearing about events taking place, and didn't necessarily feel the characters either.
A good comparison point could be Megha Majumdar's climate novel 'A Guardian and A Thief' which tried to do something similar, in trying to draw blurry moral lines and tell a doomsday novel but does it better.
Another thing I noticed was towards the end of the book, there was something which felt like a typo where it said something like "unknown filmmaker who makes who makes".
I would like to thank NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for the advanced review copy of the book!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Dystopia is my favorite genre, so I really wanted to love this. A climate dome for billionaires on a Greek island, art as propaganda for the end of the world, mass migration in the background. On paper, that's exactly my kind of book.
In practice, it never comes together. The premise is doing all the work while the story drifts from one beautiful sentence to the next without ever committing to anything. The satire of wealth and the art world is sharp in places, but the plot it's attached to stays vague: the "deep currents of violence" we're promised never become anything concrete enough to feel dangerous, and the narrator is so passive that I stopped caring what he discovered. His grief, which should be the emotional core, is told more than felt.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC
In practice, it never comes together. The premise is doing all the work while the story drifts from one beautiful sentence to the next without ever committing to anything. The satire of wealth and the art world is sharp in places, but the plot it's attached to stays vague: the "deep currents of violence" we're promised never become anything concrete enough to feel dangerous, and the narrator is so passive that I stopped caring what he discovered. His grief, which should be the emotional core, is told more than felt.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Floating World immediately caught my attention with its premise: a climate-controlled artistic enclave funded by a billionaire while the rest of the world faces environmental collapse. I was drawn in by its blend of climate fiction, art, wealth, and power, and I appreciated its ambitious themes around privilege, creativity, and culture in times of crisis. Ultimately, though, I never became emotionally invested in the characters, so the stakes never fully landed for me. While I admired the ideas, I wasn't as engaged by the story as I'd hoped to be.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I loved the book in the beginning it had great themes and very apt for the current age. It sort of lost me in the middle it felt a little meandering and the character became someone I didn’t like. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews