Eunhae Han’s Reviews > Afterglow: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors > Status Update

11. “Children of the Monsoon” — by X

South Asian climate refugees rebuild cities designed around flooding cycles instead of resisting them.
The future city thrives because it works with water, not against it.

10. “The Last Forest Choir” — by X

Trees genetically modified to survive heat waves communicate through sound.
A forest ranger becomes the last human who can interpret their music — the story of Earth’s pain and resilience.

7. “Afterflow” — by X (title story)

Set centuries after ecological collapse, humanity lives in small river-based communities.
Technology exists, but harmony with ecosystems governs all choices.
A historian records the mistakes of the old world so future children will never repeat them.

6. “Ancestor Wind” — by X

An Indigenous futurist story where ancestral spirits ride the wind to warn the living of coming storms.
A teenage girl learns she is the last wind-listener — able to interpret these messages — and must guide her people through the new climate era.

5. “The Seed Keepers” — by X

After industrial farming collapses, underground seed libraries preserve extinct crops.
A young archivist risks everything to protect a cache of seeds that could restore food sovereignty.

4. “Carbon Ghosts” — by X

The dead do not rest.
They appear as “carbon ghosts” — figures formed from pollution particles, haunting the industries that killed them.
A corporate executive is forced to confront the people his company displaced and poisoned.

3. “The Salt Mothers” — by X

In a coastal world swallowed by rising oceans, women build floating salt-harvesting communities.
Salt becomes currency, medicine, and ritual.
A daughter must decide whether to leave this fragile ocean culture for the mainland’s false security.

“The Great Drought” — by X

A multi-generation story following a rural family after water sources disappear.
The grandmother remembers rivers that once existed; the granddaughter grows up never seeing rain.
The family becomes water stewards, guarding a remaining spring from corporate theft.
The story explores grief, memory, and what it means to inherit a wounded land.