Tomorrow's Parties: Life in the Anthropocene

by Jonathan Strahan (Editor)

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.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Current Affairs

232 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2022

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read several of MIT Press's science fiction short story series 'Twelve Tomorrows' (for example, the original Twelve Tomorrows book and Make Shift), and this is probably the best of the lot.

The stories here are described as featuring 'life in the Anthropocene'. Strictly, this is just the era when humans have had a significant impact on the environment, but has mostly been taken as life following catastrophic climate change. Despite this dystopian context, the idea (hence the 'parties' of the title) was to 'take rational optimism as a moral imperative, or at least a pragmatic alternative to despair.'
I'm not sure that rational optimism is the prevailing emotion, but there are a couple of excellent stories here, plus two more that have superb ideas, despite being heavily flawed. There are probably only two clunkers, one of which was so boring I had to give up on - but that's par for the course in an SF story collection.

The real standouts for me were Daryl Gregory's Once Upon a Future in the West and Saad Z. Hossain's The Ferryman. The first, set in a wildfire-dominated American West beautifully ties together a number of apparently unconnected threads (though I did slightly worried that the writer would be sued by Tom Hanks) and portrays an all too imaginable dystopian future. The Ferryman has a very different setting - Bangladesh or India - and explores an area of existence that is all too often ignored. It also has a truly surprising ending.

The two stories I mentioned with superb ideas despite flaws in the plots were the first two in the book, Drone Pilates of Silicon Valley by Meg Elison and Down and Out in Exile Park by Tade Thompson. Both have fascinating tech/bio-tech components to the story. The first is beautifully engaging, while the second has a wonderfully imaginative setting. What let both down for me was their naive political stance, broadly along the lines of 'capitalism evil; anarchy is the way forward'.

At one point, Down and Out had me laughing out loud when Thompson envisages a parliament where any citizen can speak, surely a recipe for drowning in nothing ever being decided - it made me wonder if he's ever actually been to a meeting involving normal people. What's particularly amusing is that we are told 'Competence means you get listened to and your opinion is weighted in your area of expertise.' But how in an anarchist society can you possibly measure expertise? (There's also an inconsistency where we are told 'anybody over sixteen can attend, comment, and vote' but later quotes 'a vocal fifteen-year-old' in the parliament - but then it is anarchy...)

Something I was a bit disappointed by was that there are only ten stories here, some far too long. It would have been good to have had more of a mix of length and a few more stories. That whole 'twelve tomorrows' framework is a bit restrictive anyway, but also it's a shame that two of the slots were wasted with an interview and the somewhat pretentious justification of the artist involved - these could have been ancillary to a full twelve stories.

Overall, though, a suitably imaginative and thought-provoking collection to show why this is such a good idea from MIT Press.

[Jacob Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from the cool cover art, I picked this up largely because I saw Greg Egan and Sarah Gailey had contributed stories. Egan's "Crisis Actors" is very different from what I expected, but interesting: it follows a climate denier who's trying to advance himself within an extremist organization. Gailey's "When the Tide Rises" centers on an undersea company town - it's dismal, but does make the idea of being able to live underwater sound alluring.

The most thought-provoking entry is probably Malka Older's "Legion", in which women worldwide use a decentralized surveillance network to catch and stop harassment and abuse. In response to concerns of misuse, they note that "[a]ny action taken by our community is likewise recorded and available", and that the platform has "no incitement ... no rallying speeches or instructions on how to make bombs or anything. Just witnesses. Witnesses who sometimes arrive to witness personally... If they arrive to find the crime continuing ... of course they will try to stop that harm from being perpetrated". It's an unusually utopian take on panopticon.

One of the characters in Daryl Gregory's "Once Upon a Future in the West" is a beleaguered member of the dwindling and hated meat industry. The story mentions in passing that raising cattle for beef requires paying a "suffering tax". That sounds simultaneously like a good idea (it would probably reduce the number of farm animals raised in cruel conditions) and absolutely mortifying (imagine your society explicitly acknowledging that something is exploitative, but saying you can do it anyway for the right price).

My favorite quote comes frrom Chen Qiufan's "Do You Hear the Fungi Sing" (translated by Emily Jin):

She realized in surprise that what she deemed as autonomous and subjective feelings were merely slaves of her surroundings. Melancholy, excitement, depression, zest . . . all of her emotions, no matter how trivial or subtle, were firmly connected to the macrocosm and the microcosm. Enmeshed with one another and with the rest of the cosmos, they were constantly convecting, radiating, conducting, volatilizing, disseminating from the surface of the Earth to the stratosphere, then all the way to the vast, deep space.

Saad Z. Hossain's "The Ferryman" touches on a plausible part of future-history that's perhaps underexplored in sci-fi: a time when technology has made immortality widely, but not universally, accessible.

Tade Thompson's "Down and Out in Exile Park" imagines a sort of anarchist society living on an island of plastic garbage near Lagos. They rely on hormones secreted by a genetically anomalous woman named Olokun to help them get along.

In Justina Robson's "I Give You the Moon", people earn credits to buy rewards - like a trip to the moon - by doing socially useful work. Unlike money, the credits can't be traded. This seems like the sort thing that sounds utopian to people because they associate money with evil, but to me it sounds dystopian - a worldwide collusion to put firm limits on what each person is allowed to experience and achieve. My other favorite quote comes from that story, though:

The past was another world from which this one was born. An inadequate parent, but the only one.

[David Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

It reminded me a bit of AI2041 although where that felt the need to break out the theories from the fictional stories; this collection hits harder due to it being able to get the point across with just the short stories highlighting the issues/technology.

KSR interview - keeping this separate from the stories. For anyone who follows KSR there’s nothing in here you haven’t probably read in other interviews but, as usual, the man is still very on point with his analysis of the world and the types of changes we’ll need to make over the next 20-50 years

Here are my rankings of all ten stories from most engaging to least:

(note: all of the stories have the backdrop of the coming climate crisis so didn’t call that out below)

When The Tide Rises - underwater farming & body modification

Once Upon a Future in the West - inflection point of when AI makes most jobs obsolete and everything has been privatized

The Ferryman - climate change & technology induced caste systems/using VR as a way to jury-rig an afterlife

Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley - hunting drone deliveries & the dissolution of workers rights

Down & Out at Exile Park - are micro anarcho-socialist societies feasible

Crisis Actors - gig economy disaster relief

I Give You The Moon - cleaning & exploring the world after most of the population has died off

Do You Hear The Fungi Sing? - algorithmic resource allocation vs smaller self sufficient communities

Legion - decentralized mass surveillance to monitor and punish criminals in the act

After the Storm - disaster displaced communities and their attempt to negate future damage

[Yev · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s Science over Capitalism: Kim Stanley Robinson and the Imperative of Hope - James Bradley and Kim Stanley Robinson
This interview begins with a discussion of climate change, then shifts to a general discussion of what needs to be done to save humanity. KSR greatly prefers reform, but doesn't rule out that violent revolution may be necessary, despite noting that it has usually led to worse outcomes.

Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley - Meg Elison
A wealthy boy and his friends pirate aerial drone deliveries, which accidentally leads to him developing class consciousness.
Meh

Down and Out in Exile Park - Tade Thompson
Sometime roughly around the turn of the 22nd century, mega-islets mostly made of plastic float around the ocean and have autonomous communities on them. Exile Park is anchored of coast of Lagos, Nigeria. There are no laws, crime, or other mainland problems or institutions. Everyone is docile, but that method has begun to fail.
Meh

Once Upon a Future in the West - Daryl Gregory
This story is told through three connected perspectives, The Country Doctor, The Cowboy, and The Prospector and Gambler. They show off a highly dramatic and moderately implausible near future that made for a fun read, though it was too silly at times. The doctor who is meant to be virtual only is compelled to make a house call. The Cowboy is a truck driver delivering a cow for processing, meat is now a social taboo. The Prospector and Gambler go all-in on a risky reputational trade.
Ok

Crisis Actors - Greg Egan
His father has been taken in by a cure-all supplements scam and refuses to see the truth. He knows that he could never be fooled and always knows the truth. That's why he's going to expose the Big Lie.
Meh

When the Tide Rises - Sarah Gailey
The unnamed and undescribed protagonist lives underwater, as living topside isn't viable for them. Soon they will have saved enough to undergo bodily modification to indefinitely be able to stay outside the company town dome unaided. Elsewhere, there's Rising Tide, heroes to the people and terrorists to the company. All must decide whose side they're on.
Enjoyable

I Give You the Moon - Justina Robson
I don't know if I've ever read such a hopeful and optimistic post-collapse future full of compassion and empathy. A father and son in Namibia work with remote robots to improve water quality and generally improve the environment. The son dreams of vikings and the father is content with his life, though he'd like to share with it a woman. A woman dreams of going to the moon and being with the father.
An excerpt: "They said history must be known so it wasn't repeated, but what was there to fight about without it?"
Highly Enjoyable

Do You Hear the Fungi Sing? - Chen Qiufan
Su Su and her boss have been sent to install a hypercortex node in an extremely remote village hidden within a mountain forest where the villagers live in harmony with fungi. Su Su begins to wonder if she should leave modern society to be one with the fungi.
Ok

Legion - Malka Older
A talk show host interviews a member of Legion, a distributed surveillance app. The Legion community watches at all times to see whether any crimes, or even microaggressions, are being committed against any of its members. When that happens, a member is will come to their defense, or be their retribution.
Meh

The Ferryman - Saad Z. Hossain
This story takes place in the same universe as most of the author's other stories and novels.
Varga ferries the dead to the morgue and is in the lowest caste. The bereaved resent his presence, but someone has to do it. The only ones who die these days are those who are too poor to afford immortality, or at least life extension. Those are few and far between, as are people in general, as most died when Earth became nearly uninhabitable aside from a few cities with a lifesaving technology.
Ok

After the Storm - James Bradley
The daily life of a girl in Australia on a co-op working to restore the coast. Australia seems to have collapsed due to climate change.
Ok

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4 stars.

I picked this up to read some climate fiction stories as inspiration for a university writing assignment, and, of course, I didn't end up finishing it until well after class was done. It's a great collection though, and shows a variety of different takes on what the future might look like. It was interesting to see where ideas on certain topics both overlapped and differed.

Honestly, my primary takeaway is that I should endeavour to read more sci-fi in the future.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of stories based around the Anthropocene and the way people have adapted to it, for good or bad. The book starts with an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, who has written several books on the subject, and his views and thoughts on the Anthropocene. The stories I found interested in the anthology are by Meg Elison, Tade Thompson, Daryl Gregory, Greg Egan, Chen Qiufan and Saad Z. Hossain.

- "Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley" by Meg Elison: in a future where drones deliver almost everything, a group of teens do some piracy by bringing down an occasional drone and taking its cargo. But that would lead to the desire to help those whose lives have become constrained by the done manufacturer.

- "Down and Out in Exile Park" by Tade Thompson: a family of researchers are pulled into an unusual populated island made up of plastic near the border of Nigeria that nobody wishes to claim. That allows the island (Exile Park) to experiment with its own form of democratic governance without a formal state. The researchers discover the unusual person at the centre of the experiment, whose death may mean its end. Things are not helped by the discovery of possible sabotage.

- "Once Upon a Future in the West" by Daryl Gregory: a story, told from various viewpoints, of life in a California where wildfires are common and people mostly avoid meat. A medic and her daughter seek out a patient, while a gambler hopes to make a killing on the stock market. Meanwhile, a surreptitious cattle meat delivery goes wrong and ends up being involved in a dramatic meat scene of another kind: or maybe not.

- "Crisis Actors" by Greg Egan: a man, convinced that the world is involved in a huge conspiracy to manufacture a crisis around global warming, goes 'undercover' as a member of a team helping a Pacific island prepare and recover from a typhoon. His job is to expose the crisis actors that he is sure would use the typhoon as an excuse to dramatize a catastrophe. What he does, or does not, discover might make you wonder about the true motives of the covert organization that he appears to be a part of.

- "When the Tide Rises" by Sarah Gailey: an underwater worker works hard at getting enough credits from her company to fund her desires to be modified for a life underwater. But it does not seem to be working. Then a fellow worker quietly suggest leaving the company for another underwater option, and now she has to decide what to do.

- "I Give You the Moon" by Justina Robson: in a future where telepresence can bring you anywhere, a boy in Africa desires to journey like the Vikings once did.

- "Do You Hear the Fungi Sing?" by Chen Qiufan, translated by Emily Jin: a fascinating story about two people sent to an isolated mountain village in order to connect the village to a developing artificial sensory network. But as the girl assigned to finish the connection discover, the village already has a natural sensory network, and it is interested to know what she has to offer.

- "Legion" by Malka Older: a rambling story set as a confrontational live face-to-face interview with a Nobel Peace Prize winner for a technology known as "Legion". As the interview proceeds, it is gradually revealed, but it is only towards the end does Legion's chilling people to monitor people's behaviour shown.

- "The Ferryman" by Saad Z. Hossain: Set in a future where immortality is practical via brain and life enhancements, the elite have moved off world while the poor still have to make a living, earning credits. But if the enhancements occasionally fail and the person died, it falls on one 'ferryman' from an untouchable caste to deal with the bodies. When a widower then demands to see the body of her husband, it exposes the actions of the ferryman who has been trying to give the dead a new kind of immortality.

- "After the Storm" by James Bradley: a teenage girl lives with her grandmother, whom she doesn't like. While waiting for the return of her father, she does community work, helping to build up shore defences, like planting mangroves, against the rising tide. But life, both physical and personal, is still hard for her as she has to battle a coming storm as well as the storms in her personal life.

[Sue Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley by Meg Elison. A wealthy teenager learns about inequality from his friend. Good.
Down and Out in Exile Park by Tade Thomson. A community if social outcasts build a thriving home on a floating island of plastic detritus. OK
Once Upon a Future in the West by Daryl Gregory. California wildfires cause trouble for some residents. Good.
Crisis Actors by Greg Egan. A climate change denier saboteur goes undercover to try and undermine a hurricane disaster support group and ends up doing good in spite of himself. Good
When the Tide Rises by Sarah Gailey. The tribulations of working for a kelp harvesting company. OK - a bit clunky.
I Give You the Moon by Justina Robson. Rather slow story about cleaning up the Namibian coastline and giving others their dreams. OK
Do You Hear the Fungi Sing by Chen Qiufan. Irritating story of a young women attempting to complete a tech project to monitor and control environmental impacts who encounters a group if nature worshippers. Dull - dnf.
Legion by Malka Older. Women create a monitoring system to observe and support each other and deter attacks. Excellent.
The Ferryman by Saad Z Hossain. In a community where brain implants and enhancements are ubiquitous a low-caste body collector learns how to make the dead of poor families live in a virtual world. Good
After the Storm by James Bradley. Dull teen-angst set against sea-level rises that menace southern Australia. OK

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomorrow's Parties: Life in the Anthropocene, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is an excellent anthology examining what life might be like in the recent, climate-disaster-haunted near-future.

It starts off with an interview about utopia, hope, and future with Kim Stanley Robinson, and then dives into 10 stories by authors including Meg Elison, Tade Thompson, Sarah Gailey, and more. My favorite story of all of them was "Legion" by Malka Older, which I've nominated for the Hugo Awards—the execution is superb in this story about how surveillance could be turned to the use of the oppressed to create a community of safety and scare the violent into non-action. I also adored "Down and Out in Exile Park" by Tade Thompson, a story about the possibility of utopia on a floating island of plastics off Lagos; and "Do You Hear the Fungi Sing" by Chen Qiufan, translated by Emily Jin, a queer tale of fungal networks and change.

All around, these stories dive into the utopias and dystopias, the resistance and complicities, that might result from our man-made disasters. The collection has everything—from mermaids to drone delivery to a cannibal Tom Hanks.

Content warnings for violence, ableism.

[Jarek Kopeć · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these stories are really great. All are inspiring to do something about climate and injustice.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great collection! Anthologies like this are always hit and miss for me, but there wasn't a bad story in the set.

[Nick Choi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was good, some questions on the choice of some of the stories, but the good outweighed the bad.

[Sunnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been in a mood for solarpunk and other types of speculative fiction on humanity’s future and this really hit the spot. This collection of 10 short stories explore ways that humans navigate through climate change, construct alternative social and political structures, and create/implement new technologies. While the setting of many of these stories is quite dystopian, hope and joy were the core emotions they were built around so I didn’t find any depressing to read.

All the stories were heavy on concept and light on character but I didn’t mind it, surprisingly! The world building and themes was interesting enough to keep me entertained throughout, despite a lack of strong character voices or development. I definitely would have found stuff like this boring a couple years ago so it’s cool to see how my taste grows.

Fave stories:
- Do You Hear the Fungi Sing?
- The Ferryman
- Once Upon a Future in the West

[Claire Holroyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Editor Jonathan Strahan did an excellent job rounding up big names in science fiction from around the globe in this collection dedicated to the speculation of how humanity might survive in the Anthropocene. Out of ten stories, my special favorites are:

“The Ferryman” by Saad Z. Hossain, Bangladeshi
“Once Upon a Future in the West” by Daryl Gregory, American
“Down and Out in Exile Park” by Tade Thompson, British-born to Nigerian parents
“Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley” by Meg Elison, American

[Mark White · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag as these collections often are, some good, some not so much and some not really SF at all. That said there's a line in the introduction that informs my thinking: as prediction, SF is always wrong. As a metaphor for our time, it is always right. So think about the subject and what it tells us about the concerns of the authors.

Taking the stories individually:
DRONE PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY - A child of the wealthy uses his skills and position to hijak drone deliveries, but then redirects his efforts (thanks to a romance with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks) to assist the corporate wage slaves who are exploited by the system. Criticism of Amazon et al?

DOWN AND OUT IN EXILE PARK - Garbage raft (a la Snowcrash) as a utopia. There's a character emitting happy pheromones they think is keeping it all together but this turns out to be irrelevant. Politically naive, you try getting anything done when anyone can speak.

ONCE UPON A FUTURE IN THE WEST - This retro title features characters trapped by a bushfire then rescued by a stolen car. The doctor (owner of the car) making virtual house calls resonates with the tele-consultations we had to endure during COVID. Her dedication to her patients in spite of the restrictions placed on her by the health system (and lack of a car) is every-day heroic. Perhaps the most interesting SF aspect is her daughter hacking the self driving car to take it to the rescue. The profession / gender / sexuality of the rescued is interesting if it matters to you but background, not germane to the story.

CRISIS ACTORS - I liked this one, cleverly subverting the conspiracy theorists. Set in the present day when conspiracists are such a drag on the efforts of everyone else to improve things, this is perhaps a strategy we should implement now.

WHEN THE TIDE RISES - Another tale of corporate wage slaves, in this case divers working on a kelp farm (we assume not normal seaweed). Sometimes the only way to improve your lot is to take a leap into the unknown, but who is brave enough for that? Not bad.

I GIVE YOU THE MOON - Dreamy tale of a utopian future where the basics of life appear to be a given and people work on environmental and social projects to earn 'credits' for luxuries or experiences (exotic holidays being the case in point). Nice to see someone with a cheery outlook and a story about people who care for each other.

DO YOU HEAR THE FUNGI SING? - The old concept of intelligence in the massive, forest spanning fungal networks. The last isolated village in China is in this case the last point of contact with the network that allows humans to exist on sufferance. An outside agent goes native in the idyllic, bucolic setting. It has been done better in Hothouse, Omnivore and many others. This one left me flat. Translated from the Chinese original, perhaps it has lost something in the language or cultural assumptions.

LEGION - An interview with the inventor of a phone app for peer to peer surveillance as a way to prevent or punish offenders provides an interesting alternative to the usual fears of the surveillance state. It depends on everyone getting on board with it so there's a huge social change required that I can't see happening but that's what stories are for. The TV interviewer is, too late to be truly effective in the story, revealed to be one of the perpetrators the app is designed to discourage.

THE FERRYMAN - Set in Bangladesh and thus subject to the cultural norms, this is the story of a collector of bodies (untouchable cast) who discovers a grisly way to a sort of immortality. He becomes a beneficiary of his own discovery when he is killed by a classic torch wielding mob of peasants. I've seen mobs like this in so many Indian novels. Are people in the region particularly prone to mob violence or is it just a popular conceit? I'm not sure which would be worse.

AFTER THE STORM - Girl trying to get in with the popular boys gets drunk, taken advantage of, embarrassing video gets posted on socials, she gets caught out in a storm, finds shelter in the home of the good guy. The storm and the characters' social setting is supposedly aggravated by climate change but saying that doesn't make this a SF story. It could all have happened without that at almost any time in history. It's really just about young people, bad choices and bad behaviour.

Leaving aside the fantasies, the main concerns expressed by these authors appear to be exploitation of workers and climate collapse, with a side helping of mainly gender based abuse. I understand the concerns, but I'm glad some of them have at least envisioned a way forward to a brighter future.

[Paul Fagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I'd give this a 4.5.
There were a bunch of really great authors and I loved the near-ish future theme dealing with post-climate catastrophe perspectives. I think Strahan's collections specialize in finding writers who know how to write great characters and fascinating worlds, and don't get bogged down in the concept so much as let the wider concept sink into the enthralling stories of people being people. That's why I keep coming back to his collections.

I think my only hesitation from 5-stars is that a few of the stories didn't land for me, and sadly Kim Stanley Robinson's intro reads as already out of date (though he was spot-on when he concluded "The 2020s are going to be wild."). I don't think anyone predicted that between 2021 and 2025, the developed world would just decide to collectively stop caring about climate change (and that we'd slide back on so many social changes too), so many of the stories have aged somewhat poorly already, but because the concept is almost never the hinge point of the story, that rarely seems to actually matter.

Here's my mini review of each of the stories:
Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley, Meg Elison (4): Fun story of angsty teens taking down the man, bit by bit. Good practical advice?
Down and Out in Exile Park, Tade Thompson (4.5): Inventive, unsettling, plays with Fantasy. Awesome vibes, weirder than expected.
Once Upon a Future in the West, Daryl Gregory (5): Funny, gripping, unpredictable, memorable. Love Gregory, though super-eco militant civilians have sadly not in the near future.
Crisis Actors, Greg Bear (5): Fantastic perspective, brilliant concept, poignant story. Adding Bear books to my to-read list now.
When the Tide Rises, Sarah Gailey (4): Great idea, great characters. Felt the tech and water situations were a bit much, liked the cliff-hanger but still wish there was a bit more.
I Give you the Moon, Justina Robson (5): Shout out to when a short story gets you choked up. Just an amazing character story, and probably the epitome of the idea that the world can be a lot, but being a good person can mean everything.
Do You Hear the Fungi Sing, Chen Qiufan (5): Beautiful and vivid. I was transported and fell in love with the setting and culture. The relationship was also very touching. I could have spent 400 pages in that fungal forest.
Legion, Malka Older (3): A good concept, without doubt, but that was the entirety of the story, and I felt the repercussions of a world with this concept was not fleshed out well even though that seemed like the whole point of the story. The only story where the characters let me down.
The Ferryman, Saad Hossain (4.5): Brilliant idea, executed to perfection, and a fun and propulsive read. Added to my to-read list. Kind of missed the point of the collection though tbh, but good enough that it didn't matter.
After the Storm, James Bradley (4.5): Excellent character study - possibly the best for character depth. The story itself wasn't ground breaking, but I don't think that was the point. Looking out for this writer.

The whole collection is pretty tight. I love a short story collection without any surprise mammoth stories picked in the middle. Anyone looking for good writers they connect with in Sci-fi could do a lot worse than a collection like this.

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

9,3 Having just put together a collection of SF-stories about climate change myself (in Dutch: 'Welkom in de broeikaswereld') of course this was a collection I was interested in. The brief here was a bit narrower in scope, that is: they all deal with the (relatively) near future and involve 'rational optimism' to show how humans even in truly dystopian situations, work together as communities to navigate towards a liveable future, using new technologies like AI and networking, building alternative social and political structures and cleaning up or restoring what previous generations let go to waste. The cover illustration is an example, being explained in the back as being a 'wind walker' someone who walks out with sensory equipment in order to predict storms so their communities can prepare to survive them. These stories mostly could be shared under 'solarpunk' - but not necessarily 'hopepunk'. I found them all high in quality, but editor Jonathan Strahan has often shown to have excellent taste, and also surprising and rich in ideas - even if the collection has a relatively narrow scope.
There were no stories that I did not like at all, and my criticism if I have any is pretty superficial. E.g. I found the story 'Do You Hear The Fungi Sing?' by Chen Qiufan a bit too much drawn out, the language a tiny bit flowery, but that may be a cultural difference as this one is translated from Chinese. 'The Ferryman' by Saad Z. Hossais was grim and well thought out, but I thought there was a lot of explanation required, so that the story would have been better expanded to novella or novel length. 'After The Storm' by James Bradly I thought a bit slight, focusing on teenage melodrama (which is fine), I just wanted more of an SF-nal twist instead of just a character study.
But those are my only criticisms. I thouroughly enjoyed the parallel story lines in 'Once Upon A Future In The West', featuring the last cowboy in a forest fire ravaged California and Tom Hanks involved in canibalism ... Hard SF-heavyweight Greg Egan goes 'soft SF' in 'Crisis Actors', which had a great (implied) pay off! I like under water stories, so I loved the dystopian 'When the Tide Rises'. The righteous anger in 'Legion' was deserved, with a community effort tackling often accepted violence. I also enjoyed reading the interview with Kim Stanley Robinson - who looks back on his predictions in novels like 'The Ministry for the Future' and how COVID has shown that communities can come together quickly to affect worldwide change. He does think the societal change needed to combat climate change will come sooner rather than later.
All in all a great collection for all lovers of SF short fiction, especially those interested in climate fiction. Recommended!

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure why exactly but I just didn't love these. They were all fine but nothing really stands out as great.

Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley by Meg Ellison: a rich kid starts stealing caches from delivery drones owned by his dad and learns about inequality from a friend. Kind of wholesome but also very simplistic, 3/5.

Down and Out in Exile Park by Tade Thompson: islands made of plastic become anarchist utopias. Interesting idea, and the scene with the guy hiding in the background of the daughter's camera photo is genuinely creepy. 4/5

Once Upon a Future in the West by Daryl Gregory: way too much going on here. Fire tornado? Futuristic gambling? Tom Hanks is a cannibal? 2/5

Crisis Actors by Greg Egan: a climate change denier volunteers at what he thinks is a "fake" hurricane in Vanuatu. This one also felt a bit simplistic on the part of the main character but it was an interesting idea. 3/5

When the Tide Rises by Sarah Gailey: underwater kelp farmers are basically indentured servants trying to save up to become mermaids. Aesthetics are great in this one and the dread of the money worries feels very real. 4/5

I Give you the Moon by Justina Robson: a kid who wants to be a modern-day Viking and his dad who is lonely. Kind of boring to be honest, 2/5.

Do You Hear the Fungi Sing? by Chen Quifan: tech network vs fungal network, who would win? This one was my favorite in the collection, great juxtaposition of the future of technology with the future of nature. 5/5

Legion by Malka Older: invention of a video-based technology that crowdsources keeping an eye on each other, to prevent violence against women. I like the idea but it felt overly simplistic. 3/5

The Ferryman by Saad Z Hossain: when the rich can buy immortality, what does death look like for the poor? I liked this one, 4/5

After the Storm by James Bradley: connection and disconnection in struggling South Australia. This was alright but I didn't feel much connection to the plot or to the characters, 3/5.

[MH · Rating 3 out of 5]

An anthology of life during climate change stories. Perfectly good, with no stinkers, but its not a New Legends or a Starlight One. It opens with a very interesting interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, which sets the tone. Daryl Gregory's "Once Upon A Future In The West" (suburban life while California burns down) is the standout; other strong stories include Meg Elison's "Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley" (teenagers do crime), Tade Thompson's "Down and Out in Exile Park" (anarchists live on a floating mountain of plastic), Justina Robson's "I Give You the Moon" (teenager has big dreams in coastal Namibia) and James Bradley's "After the Storm" (teenager has bad time in small-town Australia as it drowns). There's a lot of casual capitalist horror in these stories (surveillance, the company store, worker barracks, debt slavery), and a lot of hope too, people explicitly saying "we have to make things better". Which is the takeaway message: it is up to us to change this, and choose our future.

[Superst4r · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked a lot of the stories in this book. The interview with Kim Stanley Robinson was probably my favorite part of the book. My favorite stories were the offshore commune mystery, the one with tom hanks, and the rural fungal community.

It took me almost 2 years to finally finish this book. It might’ve been bc some stories weren’t as strong.

When I read short story collections I like to use them to find authors I would like to read. This collection was a little disappointing. I don’t like how James Bradley writes his girl lead. I can’t really put a finger on why…. I think there was just a sentence where he said “she knew she was being a b*tch” for like being short spoken with a new worker at a coop. Which is like not rlly a big deal? And it makes me feel like he either thinks women who don’t show him utmost attention are B words. He is also, unfortunately, the only author in which I found something I want to read from.

Alsoooooo I feel like ending with his story was a misstep. His story ends with so much uncertainty in the face of danger and no real growth. I feel like, especially after talking about hope as an imperative in the intro interview, it is a rather bleak ending.

Idk maybe I like it….

Idk Idk

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting collection of stories. I went into it thinking that climate change and life in its present and aftermath would be the subject of the stories, but instead it was the setting of the stories. People are people, and they will have the same joys and sorrows and conflicts and problems in this new world that’s coming, but the changes the world is undergoing and will undergo, and the adaptations we make to live and survive and hopefully thrive in it Will change the way we relate to each other and to our surroundings and to the world, and that makes for some really interesting possibilities for the stories we tell them how we tell them. This was an interesting glimpse into those possibilities.

[Houlcroft · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a strength in the ideas presented by the various authors of what is possibly the best and most cohesive of the Twelve Tomorrows series so far, and this strength extends to the people that live in these imagined futures too. No bleak dystopias, but an overwhelming optimism and drive to survive in the aftermath of global environmental destruction as humanity moves forward and beyond this.

My favourite stories were Once Upon A Future in the West, Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley and Legion.

Best served with a mouthful of real, genuine beef, none of this lab grown nonsense, some fresh cut kelp and whatever you can steal from a delivery drone.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an anthology of life after climate change wreaks its effects upon the earth. Most of it is centered in the US, but some stories are elsewhere (like Australia and China).

The stories are mainly those of adaptation to the changes rather than trying to mitigate the changes, although there some examples of 'clean up' of the environment. Replanting mangrove stands feature in a couple of the stories.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fairly uneven collection. I read this for Tade Thompson's story, Out of Exile, and still finding myself thinking about the world he created. The setting and characters would translate well into a novella or book. Drone Pilates of Silicon Valley by Meg Elison was really good too. The rest of the stories I can't even recall after finishing this book two weeks ago, which is not a great sign.

[Teevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short collection was so much fun! I loved how every story explored the ways in which humans have (and can) drastically change their environment, but rather than depicting dystopian futures and robot overlords, the focus of each story is more on the use of tech by humans in (often) beneficial ways

[Kinsey Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories were all fascinating, set in future worlds where a warming earth plays a large role in how humanity has adapted. Most of them dealt somewhat in human relationships of various kinds and had relatable characters. Some were more bizarre than others, but overall it was an enjoyable collection and not a difficult read.

[Kay Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of (mostly) near future or a bit further ahead imaginings of life after climate collapse. Some are dystopian, some more hopeful. None of the stories revolve around magical silver bullet solutions to our current woes, although a few mention hopeful technologies. Interesting and well told but if you're looking for happy hope punk stories, this isn't it.

[MJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall depressing but that's because we're at the beginning of the anthropocene and these stories are about being well into the anthropocene. And folks ARE coping. Artwork by Sean Bradley is excellent and worth you time to look at his website.

[Tarwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. Let down by a childishly written first story. It's confusing because the author seems to know what they're doing. Maybe they meant it this way?

A collection of little vinettes of near future possibility.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Average: 4.4 ⭐️
5 ⭐️ reads from this collection:
- Once Upon a Future in the West by Daryl Gregory
- When the Tide Rises by Sarah Gailey
- Do You Hear the Fungi Sing? by Chen Qiufan (translated by Emily Jin)
- Legion by Malka Older
- The Ferryman by Saad Z. Hossain

[Jesse Claflin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love sci-fi short stories. My favorites in this collection were:

Down and Out in Exile Park by Tade Thompson
Once Upon a Future in the West by Daryl Gregory
When the Tide Rises by Sarah Gailey
The Ferryman by Saad Z. Hossain