Seeds for the Swarm

by Sim Kern

Rylla McCracken dreams of escaping her family's trailer in the Dust States to go to college, but on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, her mother demands she drop out of school to work for Lockburn chemical refinery instead. When Rylla learns Lockburn is planning to dam the Guadalupe River—the last flowing water in Texas—she defies her mother to protest in the state capital. The protest ends in disaster, but her ensuing viral infamy gains Rylla an acceptance to the mysterious Wingates University.

At Wingates, Rylla befriends a diverse group of students, all working on new technologies to save the planet. Besides mountains of homework, Rylla struggles with guilt for leaving her brother behind in the Dust, where tensions with the Lush States are escalating towards civil war. Succeeding at Wingates seems like Rylla’s best chance to help her family, until she uncovers a terrible secret about the school’s billionaire backers. Now, Rylla and her friends are in a race against the rich to reclaim the world-altering technology they've developed—before it’s too late.

Genres: Science Fiction, Queer, Dystopia, Fiction, LGBT, Young Adult, Solarpunk

415 pages, Paperback

Published March 1, 2023

Reviews

[Margherita]

DNF @ 27%

I received an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

I have a few things to say about this.
First of all, the book starts without any explanation of what world we find ourselves in and then the characters suddenly give us a bunch of made-up terms that we are just supposed to EVENTUALLY understand. It felt like I started a series on the third book without knowing.

Rylla is a seventeen year old who suddenly decides to stand up for the river she loves so much when she finds out that some politicians want to build a dam. She gives a half-assed speech and that gets turned into a meme song and somehow a university finds it and thinks she’s worthy of a scholarship? I feel bad using the word “ridiculous” to describe this situation but I can’t think of another appropriate word at the moment.

And another thing: I ended up skimming through some things because I couldn’t find interest in some parts so I might have missed the bigger picture here but… Rylla clearly gets told social medias aren’t allowed on campus but somehow everyone knows who she is and about her viral moment. What??

I don’t think the story was BAD, but I couldn’t be bothered to care about anything that was happening and I didn’t really like the writing style either. It was clearly a book written with the intent to make people think about the environment but I don’t feel like the execution was good enough.
Maybe it gets better, but I really can’t continue reading this, I’m sorry.

All of this is just my opinion, and I definitely felt like the book was not for me, but some people might still really enjoy it so don’t take my review too seriously :)

[Karen Heenan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The worst thing I can think to say about this book is that it is earnest. As an adult reader, with a slightly more jaundiced view of what humanity has done to the earth, I raised an occasional eyebrow but by the end was still sold on the thread of hope that runs beneath the story.

For teens and young adults - the intended audience for Seeds for the Swarm - this may be exactly what they need. They, too, know what humanity has done to the earth, but they haven't had as many years to become cynical. The main characters in this book, intelligent teens who want to repair the world, and have the skills and are in a place to effect some of that repair, are - for the most part - as likable as they are inspiring.

Kern's view of our potential future is frightening in its potential accuracy. Politicians, the billionaire class, and the media all come in for their fair share of criticism, and pointed commentary is made in the introduction of some crackpot theories and the disparate groups that come together when people are frightened and looking for someone to lead them out of the mess they're in.

Well written, with a complex plot, and scientific and technological aspects well described for a non-tech readership, this book somehow manages to end on a hopeful note, even though the reader - as well as the characters - should probably know better, people being what they are.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Marcella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seeds for the Swarm was the first sci-fi book I read after a while, so it took me some chapters to get used to the dystopian world. It moved in relatively fast pace, almost like Divergent-kind of book, with darker twists and environmental messages. Also love how characters casually presented themselves with names and pronounces, and this book has wide range of diverse characters!

Story wise, I really enjoyed this kind of dystopian, futuristic sci-fi infused with politics, rebel groups, and the sorts. About the characters, Rylla certainly had a personality. We know about her secluded background and why she seemed to keep making these "wrong choices" especially relationship wise, although yes it irked me a bit at times haha but she was a nice lead of this book. Jury is still out for Theo, though.

I'm excited to read the next book and know what will happen!

[Fanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A realistically bleak future with a tinge of hope. The planet is ending and a young girl lives in the abandoned, barren southern lands, where water is a luxury and survival is necessary. When her speech at a protest goes viral, she is offered admission into an elite school where tech opportunities exist and so do monstrous secrets. This dystopian is a little too much at times but might be the perfect recipe for some readers who don’t mind a lot of the repeated tropes: an authoritarian state, a futuristic setting, a clear conclusion of what’s right and wrong. Though, the world building does pull in despite the pedantic writing and the diversity taken into account reads refreshing with respect to the genre.

[Paige (pagebypaigebooks) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“So yeah, okay, we’ve blown up a lot of mountains, we’ve killed a lot of trees. But look how much is left. There’s still a lot of world left to save.”

Thank you to Stelliform Press for sending me an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review!

I've also posted this review on Instagram and my blog.

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I had a great time reading this! I have been really enjoying sci fi books lately and I've been meaning to pick up more climate fiction so I was excited to dive into Seeds for the Swarm. One thing that I enjoyed the most about this book was the complex world history it had! From the descriptions of how the Dust and Lush states came to be, to the references to fictional historical events this made the story even more immersive and intriguing. Our main character Rylla was very interesting to read about. When arriving at Wingates, she had her own idea about what life and her world was like, but it was a lot of fun seeing her grow and learn as time went on, Throughout the story Rylla makes a lot of mistakes, and I thought this made her character more relatable. Even though she made bad choices, she had to live with them and come up with solutions to her problems. There's also the found family trope! I enjoyed learning about Rylla's friend group and seeing how they all came together to support one another. Another element that I thought was a lot of fun was the futuristic technology! There were so many interesting devices and programs to learn about, but the descriptions made them easy to understand. Speaking of technology, I loved the scenes set at Wingates University! I can't get enough of school settings in books and I enjoyed reading about Rylla's classes. The school system and the idea of a university filled with the brightest students was a fun concept. I enjoyed learning about Rylla's love for insects and nature in the beginning of the book and would have loved to see it included more, along with more descriptions of her classes and assignments. This book deals with a lot of important issues involving climate justice and social and ethical dilemmas. It definitely makes you think and explores a lot of heavy topics while also including humour and fun.

This is definitely a book for everyone looking to get into climate fiction! I'm excited to read more of Sim's work and continue the trilogy.

[Roberta R. (Offbeat YA) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mini blurb: In a future of water wars between the rich and the poor, an 18 y.o. girl from the latter group who became internet-famous after a protest speech gains acceptance to a prestigious institute, befriends a handful of brilliant students and sets to uncover the school's secrets.

***

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Netgalley. Thanks to Stelliform Press for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

Alas, I had to give up midway through. The premise was a stretch, I wasn't feeling the characters (except Magenta, the gender-bending roommate), everything was happening so fast, especially the romance(s)...the protagonist was pining after a school friend, and suddenly she was in love with someone else she had only known for a month (and ready to give up her world for his), and suddenly..."stuff" ensued, etc. The environmental message and the diversity are the driving force of the story, and I commend the author for that; but it wasn't enough to grab and sustain my attention, especially with the story itself being all over the place/feeling cliché more often than not/needing more suspension of disbelief than I can provide (and I mean the contemporary bits, not the sci-fi ones...).

Note: definitive review (I don't have enough to say to justify writing a full-length one later, and of course I don't plan to reread this book).

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

C/W:death of a loved one, misgendering, violence, drug use, drug addiction

Seeds for the Swarm is an engrossing story that follows Rylla as she comes of age during the climate apocalypse. There's a great balance between Rylla's personal growth over the course of the book and the external conflicts of increasing political unrest and mysteries at Wingates University. Rylla's choices exasperated me at times but she was a wonderfully complicated, relatable character that I really enjoyed rooting for. Kern's writing was easy to read. I felt immersed in the story from the very first chapter. There were some slow parts in the story but the writing kept me invested.

The setting of the United States in 2075 is vividly rendered by Kern. The country is split between the Lush states that have ample access to water and the Dust states where desertification has turned the soil to dust and water has to be shipped in. The ways in which life has changed to adapt to environmental catastrophe were both fascinating and horrifying. I liked that even in a bleak future, there's still hope for humanity in Seeds for the Swarm.

Thank you to Netgalley and Stelliform Press for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[meshell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a 4.25/5 for me if I had the option here on Goodreads.

I stayed up until the middle of the night reading Seeds for the Swarm. I feel like it’s one of those books that you can hungrily finish in an afternoon, if it catches your interest as it did mine.

I liked the premise and the themes explored in this YA cli-fi novel. It's highly readable, but occasionally a bit instructive at times. There were only a few points at which I felt the educational aspect was a bit heavy handed, but I didn’t feel like they distracted me too much from the story.

Rylla, is the main protagonist, she’s a “Dust State” dwelling person (“a dustie”) on the cusp of adulthood. The story begins with water recycling issues, and sets the stage for a dry, dirty, and dismal potential future. Rylla wants to go to university to hopefully escape or improve her circumstances but poverty may not allow for it - she’s looking at working for the very oil refineries she’s against. But after staging a one-woman protest, she goes viral (albeit not for the reason she would have wanted) and as a result, is invited to the kind of “Lush State” university she was dreaming of, all expenses paid.

I enjoyed the exploration of “Dust state” vs “Lush State,” and it wasn't cut and dry as to who the villains and heroes were. I did not know where this story was going to go when starting out. There were several imperfect unlikeable characters, which worked quite well for this novel, there were moments of mutual awkwardness and misunderstanding, where the Lush State wasn’t entirely a woke paradise, and the Dustie wasn’t always the backwards bumpkin. I would have liked to get to know some of the other characters better, but perhaps that will be something for future books.

There are several opportunities to reexamine your initial assumptions about a character or a group, and I think that was done very well too.

Loved the queer rep, it felt genuine and not just haphazardly placed.


I found the handling of addiction a bit disappointing, considering the futuristic setting, and the technological advancements the Lush State potentially had at its disposal - it felt a bit too willpower and shame based for this so-called advanced society - but I did like the somewhat attempt at a community responsibility model.


Criticisms aside, there are a lot of interesting ideas presented here, the story is solid and inventive, and has a lot of adventurous reading potential. I am eager to read the next book in the series and find out what happens to Rylla and the rest of the crew in the rest of the trilogy.

I got to read this as a Digital ARC thanks to Netgalley and Stelliform Press.

[Tee. · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, full disclosure I am a very particular sci-fi reader. Hard science sci-fi can kick rocks. But science fantasy is right up my alley. This book has everything I love about the genre too. Excellent worldbuilding, a fun action filled story and something different. That something different is solarpunk! I am absolutely a solarpunk junkie and this book delivers home. Not only is there a bit of mystery to be solved but there’s hope and care for the environment. There’s a sun people can’t even walk under and dust storms and water rations. I know that doesn’t sound very appealing from a logical standpoint but it’s very appealing to read about in the books. I also really enjoyed the different dynamics between the characters. The sort of juggling act our main lead has to balance as she tightropes between two very different kinds of people. Also the ending! What a cliffhanger, seems like much more is going to happen in this world and I cannot wait.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked Kern's earlier novel "Depart! Depart!" but this YA novel--the first in a projected trilogy--was a little too pedantic for my liking. Younger readers might not recognize all of the education being dispensed to them as they follow the story of a young woman from "the Dust"--the barren, impoverished lands of the south of the US--as she travels to an elite university in "the Lush," where she finds that her professors have nefarious plans for saving the planet by killing most of its inhabitants. With a few rather cardboard characters, the book moves from teaching the reader about water conservation to nanotechnology to bioengineering to fungi recycling. All of the teaching is done through conversations or discoveries between the characters, and since they're at college, it might not seem too much, but after a while it begins to grate. Things that happen at the beginning of the novel inevitably return later--a wall-climbing class readies the protagonist for a later climb up a building-and after a while it becomes easy to predict what will happen next. This is a novel designed to instruct, and it does so, but at the cost of it having more fully-fleshed out characters and a less predictable, more original, series of connections overall.

[Clank · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book and tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. I was hoping the ending would maybe make it worthwhile, but it unfortunately did not do it for me. The overarching message of Seeds For The Swarm on the topics of diversity and protecting the environment are noble ones, but the story itself felt incredibly disjointed. I struggled a lot with the pacing, as well as how many large concepts and elements were being continously added; I think the author may have intended to intertwine them, but it left me overwhelmed.

I normally enjoy "unlikable" characters, but I felt that Rylla was an extremely frustrating protagonist no matter how much I reminded myself she was young. I don't feel like there was much growth to her at all and I would have liked to see her stop repeating the same mistakes. All in all, I do not think I would read more from this author.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest review! All opinions are my own.

[Maranda Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

4

[Navarre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeds for the Swarm by Sim Kern takes us on a journey of the near future where warming has continued and much of the United States is now barely habitable. People from the "Dust States" try to emigrate through a tightly-controlled border to the "Lush States" or muddle through with that rugged individualism we take so much pride in here.

This feels like a very likely future with continued exploitation of oil and corporate/government collusion leading to huge sacrifice zones where people work hard in polluting industries that are choking their communities so they can put food on the table for their families. Rylla, our protagonist, wants desperately to go to college, but doesn't have much hope of getting out of the Dust States even though she's in the top of her nationwide virtual high school.

When she finds out the oil company in her hometown plans to destroy the watershed that provides what meager water is available to her region and is the last thing to give her hope, she gets a ride to speak to the state legislature committee in charge. Despite an impassioned speech, her entreaties fall on distracted ears beholden to corporate overlords and gadget addictions. One viral, embarrassing remix of her speech later, she gets recruited as a scholarship student at a university in the Lush States.

Starting with her interaction with the elected representatives, Rylla does a lot of growing up in the course of this book. It felt like Kern took everything I learned during the course of my twenties and made Rylla face these hard truths all in the course of a single year. During her many misadventures, I identified with Rylla's tendency to get swept up in the ideology of the groups she would spend time with before becoming disillusioned when she found they didn't have the answers she needed.

This future has glimmers of hope, but the carcass of our current world is still the dominant society. I think it really fits into what Andrew Dana Hudson would consider solarpunk:

"a solarpunk future is one in which the climate crisis is escalating, institutions are failing, late capitalism is getting even more precarious and putrid, and while technologies of sustainability might be becoming ubiquitous, we haven’t yet managed to fully phase out the toxic old for the green new. It’s a future (slash present!!) in which we need a movement of solarpunks to shove us onto a better path"
- Our Shared Storm: An Interview with Andrew Dana Hudson (Solarpunk Magazine)

As someone who is an engineer, I really love the interactions between Rylla, a humanities major, and all of her engineering/scientist friends. They're preoccupied with how to get their projects to work the way they want them to without necessarily thinking about what secondary or tertiary effects the technology might have on the world. They are often dismissive of Rylla's legitimate concerns and only later realize that she was right in being worried. The Ian Malcolm quote from Jurassic Park comes to mind of "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

Rylla's other main companions are her fellow humanities majors including her previous public school rival from another Dust State and her nonbinary roommate who literally smashes the patriarchy. As one might expect, it's up to Rylla to join the forces of science and the humanities to defeat the Big Bad at the end of the book. I do feel like this book is a little better about explaining why the kids have to be so instrumental in saving the day compared to most other YA novels where it seems the adults just really needed to go on vacation that week.

There are plenty of mishaps, victories, death, and embarrassments to go around in this story, making it a solid entry into the YA genre. I could've done without the love triangle, but I know that's a hard trope to kill. Rylla and the other characters feel like real, messy humans who are doing their best to make it in an imperfect (and pretty neat) world.

Thanks to Stelliform Press for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Johanna ♡]

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

I tried so hard with this one. I had been anticipating it for months so I'm not lying when I say I was literally jumping up and down for joy when I saw I'd received an arc. I love the genre of survival at the end of the world which I discovered earlier this year with Dustborn by Erin Bowman and so after reading the synopsis, and maybe being influenced just a little by the stunning cover, I was so excited to read this book.

The start was promising, and it wasn't until she arrived at Wingates that it started to lose me. First off, there was such a big push for usage of correct pronouns that I tired of on every page there being some comment pushing this idea. I was willing to keep going though. Then we had the trip to Camelot. Oh boy, what a disaster. The trip culminates with a sex scene with the man who Rylla is convinced is her true love. Then, a couple chapters later, she's turned to heavy drug use to forget about her problems. At that point I had to stop as, though I was interested in continuing with the story, I just couldn't get past the mature content.

Another disappointing read that I personally wouldn't recommend but I think that there are a lot of people out there who would still enjoy this book as I know other people wouldn't have a problem reading about the content mentioned above. Happy Reading :)

[Lyra]

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

I'll have to try again in a bit, but I tried three times and the book just bums me out a bit 😅
The writing style is great, easy to read and interesting too, it's the content where it just doesn't work for me. I keep getting stuck at about 20% in.

I'm giving this 3 stars because of the writing style and that it's just not for me after all and that's not the author's or the books fault.

[Alise Miļūna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read for a geeky activist. I think I would have also liked it as a teenager.

It is an art to weave important planetary messages with the everyday human drama that our social brains find more yummy. I heard about this YA novel on Solarpunk Magazine's podcast and was attracted by the environmental theme and the once-familiar Texas-Michigan vector.

After a slower start, new colorful characters (bold and beautiful queers, bioengineering nuns, billionaires playing medieval knights...) and weighty topics (corporate politics, media bias, grief, ethics of science, drug addiction, animal agriculture...) appeared at an accelerating pace, in a wide view of how humans react to planetary collapse while lacking complete understanding of it.

I've personally seen how this can lead to misanthropy, so one of my favorite scenes is when Rylla, the protagonist, struggles with a class assignment to model Earth, run a business-as-usual scenario of human activity that leads to mass extinction, and find what change in the model will prevent this "X-Day" from happening. At a point, she tries removing all humans, but the professor intervenes:

"You haven't accounted for power plants, sewage treatment plants, and nuclear reactors. If all the people were to suddenly "disappear" like you've modeled, then the power to these facilities gets cut - they explode and melt down, starting toxic fires, leaking radioactive waste, thousands of them, all over the world." (..) Rylla watched in horror as the globe lit up with explosions, wildfires, and the atmosphere filled with radiation. The X-Day calculation read: <50 Years. "You see? The only future is one we create."

Eventually, Rylla learns that even science is not neutral and can become deadly propaganda, but there is an overarching imperative to stay curious, proactive and, despite the odds, hopeful. I appreciate it.

[SonataReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an exciting work and I had to admit that despite the swift pacing of the novel, it still took me a long time to finish it. The characters are great and interesting. I would love to read and learn more of the side characters but it's great overall.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Glenn Fall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find some nice river or meadow sounds record and let it accompany you as you open this book. A dystopian future with a bit of hope awaits you.

The whole novel flows in a crisp writing style and there is no space for too descriptive or boring pages. The language resembles one of Rylla's favorite creatures. The words jump like insects and carefully push the plot from the start to the ending.

A wast and divided world opens in front of the readers and an engaging and distinct set of characters promptly introduce the biggest problem humanity faces: life's end on the planet. The story takes place in many locations that exist in our current time and reality. But they are much more different in the fictional future. That might not be that fictional. Various future problems bubbling under our feet today bloom in ugly flowers in this book. It is no longer possible to ignore the threat of climate change. Too many parts of the world simply cannot be inhabited any longer. Water rations for whole cities, lack of food, plastic pollution, huge and complicated aftermaths of war, scientific experiments, or nuclear pollution create the characters' mundane daily reality. Again, humor and a dead-serious tone mix well. This is a perfect book for young adults. The scope of world problems this book touches is truly huge, yet they emerge from a very engaging story and this book can inspire young people to follow their favorite characters, study hard, treat our planet better, and try to "save the world" as well. Wingates is a bit like tech Hogwarts. The prestigious school is full of charms and unbelievable opportunities. But it also hides a few monsters and ugly secrets.

The future technology is seamlessly inserted into the story in a natural way. The various technological wonders are both glitchy and highly efficient. The glitches are a source of fun, helping the reader bond with the characters, and feel at home in this fictional world. And the breathtaking technology, like artificial bodies for medicine, or death-bringing war robots, give the plot the proper sci-fi punch, like fresh jalapenos on a pizza.

Different nations, cultures, and customs also fused into a colorful and well-working society. The humans, like the technology, surprise, and charm the readers with many of humanity's imperfections and displays of the best human brain genius. The major characters display all, the good and the bad. And every character is well-crafted and has their own specific history and goals. Even the characters that could be accused of selfishness or a false sense of self-importance and generally could fall into the category of a villain earn the reader's understanding and even a bit of sympathy. Other characters, looking like heroes, can surprise with a few nasty intentions.

Only two things made me lower the book's rating. The events in the first half of the book happen in a rather annoying manner when one coincidence follows another one for the plot purposes. The characters happen to witness things or find out something in a chain of quick unbelievable events that are hammered together and clearly designed for nothing else than quick plot jumps. These events can, of course, happen in the story without a problem. But I would welcome natural dividers that would make the plot feel like the real life. A few short sentences about the characters spending a few days doing mundane tasks, or them stumbling upon an important document only after one sentence describing how they got through other, not that important, files, would reduce the chain of lucky coincidences.

Rylla is a very strong character. She has a powerful drive to save her beloved home. She has her fears and weaknesses, but she struggles on. She is afraid but acts. Those are great qualities of the main character. But she made mistakes or rushed decisions too often for my tolerance. Sometimes she was simply insufferable. Of course, she needs to deal with serious family problems, find her way in a new and demanding school, and face the end of the world anxiety. Her biggest personal failure when she almost loses herself in her troubles and her friends need to help her recover are not the target of this criticism. But the rest annoyed me. But I still like her :)

Review also here: https://glennsnest.com/2022/11/06/rev...

[Jess]

Very timely story. Few post-apocalyptic stories focus on climate change, rather they tend to favor zombies, pandemics, or zombie pandemics. It is refreshing to see a writer tackle climate change, and Kern does it well.

Seeds For the Swarm is poignant with well drawn characters, an engaging story, and offers a well researched and believable climate apocalypse scenario.

[dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

my blog // my twitter

Thank you to Netgalley and Stelliform Press for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review! 💖

The first in a three-part series, Seeds for the Swarm is a bleak cli-fi dystopian YA novel that follows Rylla as she comes of age during a climate apocalypse. The basic worldbuilding premise is that the U.S. in 2075 is divided into “Dust States” and “Lust States,” and Rylla, a Dustie recruited to an elite Lush university, must balance uncovering the university’s secrets with fitting in with her new classmates.

The worldbuilding was a bit rushed, though it was easy to get the hang of. I would have liked to spend more time in the Dust States since most of the plot unfolded at Wingates University in the Lush States. This does make the juxtaposition sharper, though, and makes it more realistic that Rylla starts to grow comfortable and forget her origins.
At times, Rylla’s character irritated me. For a college student from a marginalized region in a climate apocalypse, she seemed very naive, especially about other people’s moral grayness. I was especially frustrated with her relationship choices, though I tend to have that issue with YA romances.

The selling point of Kern’s novel is its realism. Kern’s commentary addresses a wide range of possibilities, from political corruption to unethical technological advances and rationed food and water, paired with the pressure placed on young generations to provide solutions to all of the above. I could relate to this sentiment, and I imagine that other young readers will feel the same.

Seeds for the Swarm could benefit from a slower plot with deeper character development, but it covers pressing issues from multiple perspectives and leaves ample room for improvement.

[David Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A realistic look into a possible future.
Born in the Dust region, the part of the country where climate change has left the land drought stricken and where water is rationed and the people are poor, Rylla's hopes for her future lies with her ability to go to college. Rylla's headstrong and determined and when she learns there are plans to dam the only river left where she lives, she gives an impassioned speech which gives her unwanted notoriety when a remix of her speech goes viral giving her the moniker of "the ass is hope" girl. It also brought her to the attention of the Dean of Students at Wingate's University who offers Rylla the opportunity she's worked all her life for. Once there at Wingates she meets other young people who only want to save the world. She soon learns though that things might not all be what they seem when she discovers the professors might have ulterior motives and are hiding secrets from the students. What follows is a high tech journey filled with challenges Rylla never could have imagined.

Although the intended audience of this, the first book of a trilogy, are young adults, I, as an aging adult thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters and world building are exemplary and believable. The technical aspects of the novel are handled well and easily understandable while leaving you a little more educated without feeling lectured to. Rylla is a typical teenager who is relatable and fun to hang out with. The gender affirming descriptions of the characters is topical and what young adults are dealing with today. There is a mystery to be solved and while the ending is satisfying it leaves you wanting more. I can't wait for the next book to come out!

Thank you to the author and Stelliform Press for the digital copy for me to read, review and enjoy.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit, this book is INCREDIBLE. It's both a brilliant social commentary and a thrilling adventure, and it manages to be both dystopian in a chillingly plausible way and hopeful at the same time. I can't wait to read the next book in the series!

[Alex Townley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeds for the Swarm by Sim Kern - 5 stars!

Just finished this fantastic, dystopian near-future environmentalist teen fiction by Kern, and it's really left an impression on me. With an honest, relevant look at climate, capitalism, and ethics, it wouldn't usually sit in my preferred genres, but Sim Kern has become an auto-buy author for me after this!

Bits I like:
- well-developed, diverse cast across Global Majority and LGBTQIA+ spectrums, with the MC having a realistic journey of learning and respecting those different from her
- strong ethical and philosophical explorations of a world past the point of no return, and what humanity may need to do to avoid mass extinction
- exciting, varied plot, filled with great character development, clever inventions, deep conversations and realistic human reactions
- excellent world-building, with a stark contrast between the "Dust" and the "Lush" states, their fight for water and technology, and the clear parallels between our world now, and how it could be in just a handful of decades

Bits I liked less:
- nothing really! I'd just put in some content warnings for drug use, abuse, mis-gendering, some violence, and just a thought that some themes could be distressing for certain readers, so to read with your well-being in mind.

I really loved this book and I can't wait for the next volume! Thank you to Booksirens
and Sim Kern for the chance to read this wonderful ARC! I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily and honestly.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am truly floored. It was a slow start,but once the plot kept going I could not put it down. I felt all the characters were well developed and I appreciate seeing them change over time. My suggestion actually would be to include some imagery of the different locations and characters, graphic novel style. I had a rich inner image when I was reading, but it especially would go with some of the specific types of tech mentioned in this story.

I didn't anticipate a few of the twists and turns near the end so I appreciate that it wasly fully predictable. I feel really connected to the characters, and I'm invested in their futures. I was really sad to see when I finally got to the end, I just want to keep going and figure out how they will work through this

In terms of the writing, again I think there's more room to be able to clearly identify some of the tech/terms that exist in this books universe because near the conflict towards the end, I had a very difficult time visualizing exactly what was happening, what people were wearing, and how people were getting around.

I do love the ways the author wove in this dystopian future in a way that feels very real. I can see these issues playing out in reality which heightened the anxiety as we discovered secrets that the instruction was keeping.

Overall, I'm anxiously anticipating the other 2 novels. Well done .

**I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.**

[mikayla mae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dystopian sci-fi story that bridges the gap between our current climate change and the not so far off future. Rylla, Theo and all the other characters don’t act like teens in a science fiction novel, they act like real teenagers, and it was easy to feel like I was right in the room with them.

The worldbuilding, description and details were all so well written, and I read this book in only a few days. I was hooked, and now I can’t wait for the world to know about this story as well. There are so few books like this, and it’s so important to share them all.

I will say that there are quite a few topics that aren’t too appropriate for a younger audience, but depending on what people are reading, it should be fine.

Thank you to NetGalley, Stelliform Press and the author for allowing me to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This came out at the start of this month, and have to admit, this is an incredibly strong first novel. This manages to blend the first time college experience with climate dystopia really well, and set up the future stakes for the rest of the trilogy. I think that Mx. Kern ended up leaning in a bit too hard to the drug addiction aspect of this in terms of a crutch for the plot, but that's honestly my only real criticism of this. I actually like that we end this unsure as to who Rylla should trust. Definitely worth paging through, and I'll be interested in the rest of the series, as well as the rest of Mx. Kern's books to this point.

[Kat M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this, it was a great start to a science fiction series. It does everything that I was hoping for and I was hooked so I read and finished this quickly. Sim Kern has a great writing style and I look forward to reading more.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Bertie (LuminosityLibrary) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes this book felt a little bit chaotic, there's a lot packed in here. I loved all of the discussion of eco talking points but the framing of it as learning taking place within a university occasionally made it feel a bit dry. The build up to the next book was great though and I'm really excited to read it.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, thank you to Stelliform Press and Sim Kern for the ARC!

There were parts of this I did genuinely enjoy and thought were well done. The divide around scientific advancement was shown really well here - the variety in opinions around science and technology were interesting. I am a scientist so I've seen a lot of these perspectives in real life, and the way they were portrayed here was good. There were valid points on all sides.

Rylla’s mom was interesting. I have met people very much like her, and I could feel myself reacting to the things she said at times. I like when a book captures a mentality so well.

The setting is interesting, the tech seems neat, and the concept of "the world is doomed" is reasonable. The general themes in this book are solid - climate change is bad, humans are doing harm to the planet, science can be used to help or to harm, rich people that hoard things are bad, diversity is important, etc. These are important topics that need to be addressed, though some of these things could have been a little less heavy handed.

Most of the gripes I have with the plot or characterization in this book could be solved in the sequels, as this is the first book in a trilogy.

My big issues with this are mostly with pacing and development of characters / relationships.

When it comes to pacing - the beginning was difficult to get into as you're dropped into a world with new sci-fi terminology and little explanation. Once things started to "click" I had an easier time with this book, but more than once there is a change of scenery, a new cast of characters, and a new set of cultural norms. I felt some of the pieces of this book could have used more time and others things could have been cut.

Rylla's relationships, whether romantic or platonic, developed too quickly. I couldn't figure out why her romantic interests were into her or why she was into them, which made the relationships feel forced. I am not a fan of instalove, and I feel that's what we got here. I couldn't understand why she continued to interact with certain characters or why she cared about them after they had been cruel to her and her friends.

The cast of characters introduced was too large for me to attach to them, as most side characters don't get a lot of page time between worldbuilding, plot, and the few more main characters besides Rylla. I felt like the platonic bonds between characters were forced at times, as these characters don't seem to truly try to understand each other's perspectives. I'm assuming this will be remedied in future books, as this is a trilogy.

I generally enjoy "unlikeable" characters but I found myself frustrated with Rylla more than anything. Her choices often didn't make sense to me, but I can chalk that up to the fact that she's a teenager and in a completely new world. That didn't make her any less frustrating to me.

The inclusion of diversity was excellent but the dialogue around it felt stilted and awkward at multiple points. I did like how much variety was in our main cast, but I wish it had been incorporated more smoothly. I did NOT like how addiction was handled here. That part could have been taken out entirely and the time spent on that subplot could have been used for further development of any of the other subplots.

All in all: I think this is an interesting concept and world, I loved the diversity in characters, I liked a lot of the major concepts here... but I didn't care for the pacing and I genuinely disliked a few plot points (including the addiction storyline and some of the ending). I am interested in seeing where this series goes in a sequel and I will give the next book a shot!

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve followed Sim Kern on Twitter for a while, and so when they put an open call out for ARCs of Seeds of the Swarm last year, I jumped at the chance. What a perfect companion piece to Annalee Newitz’s The Terraformers. Climate change fiction (or cli-fi), is a hot topic, and Sim handles it marvelously.

Sassparylla “Rylla” McCracken lives in The Dust, a dried-out portion of the United States devastated by manmade climate disasters. Specifically, Rylla and her mom live in a trailer house in Texas, near what remains of the Guadalupe River outside of Austin. Rylla is a high school senior, attending virtual classes and spending her free time studying the insects and other wildlife that are managing to survive in the harsh, dry climate. When she learns that a new piece of corporate legislation is aiming to dam up what’s left of the river, Rylla begs her brother Tyler for a ride to the state capitol, where she delivers an impassioned speech to the apathetic legislature.

Thanks to a video edit of her speech at the capitol going viral, Rylla is approached by representatives from Wingates University, a school located deep in the Lush States where water and other resources are still abundant. Before she knows it, Rylla is whisked away to Michigan, where she is quickly overwhelmed by how different of a world her classmates come from. Rylla is placed in the Humanities department at Wingates, where she is tasked with studying the behaviors that lead to the current state of the world. She also befriends a group of engineering students working on different types of new technologies that they believe can save the planet and the human race.

After a trip through the campus transport system goes wrong, the existence of a secret series of laboratories deep beneath Wingates is uncovered. Soon, Rylla and her classmates finds themselves caught up in a conspiracy of nanotechnology, bioengineering, and political intrigue that could very readily lead to a new civil war, with Rylla’s mother and brother stranded in The Dust. As if just going to college and juggling a social life and homework wasn’t stressful enough…

Seeds of the Swarm is a brilliant piece of climate-focused science fiction, taking an unflinching look at what our world could look like in a few short decades. Rylla is a delightfully and frustratingly human protagonist, reminding me of many of my own college friends (though we didn’t have world-ending tech at our fingertips). Her struggles to fit in among her fellows at school are fantastically well-rendered and realistic. Kern’s vision of the near-future manages to still stay hopeful, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Seeds of the Swarm is available from Stelliform Books on Wednesday, March 1st. Get it from your library or bookstore of choice, and enjoy.

My utmost thanks to Sim and to Ren Hutchings at Stelliform Books for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

This review originally appeared here: https://swordsoftheancients.com/2023/...