DNF @30%

I was interested in the premise,but I don't like anything the author chose to do with it. It's really boring and hard to care about anything happening.

Camp Zero is a very realistic picture of what the next 30 to 50 years may end up looking like. Climate change won't stop the wheel of capitalism, and those who cannot afford to move will probably be left to perish.

I can't say I enjoyed it, since it's full of unlikeable characters whose greed (in many different forms) contributes to their own destruction, but I did find a lot of value in reading it. I haven't read such a realistic take on dystopian fiction in a long time.

The three narratives in this story run on parallel lines to start, White Alice seeming especially ethereal and sacred, until everything comes crashing together in quite a unique way. Sterling also crafts some very vivid imagery that I'm sure will stick with me for a long time to come.

3.5 stars. The exact events leading up to this future Earth aren't spelled out, only given in generalities. In some books, this gives the impression that the author didn't bother to do the math, but this feels like a realistic extension of current events. Best readalikes for this may not be climate futures but instead will match to the slightly-vague world-building: [book:A Psalm for the Wild-Built|40864002] and [book:The Cybernetic Tea Shop|28421799] come to mind.

Mini-spoiler? [spoiler] It's not clear until nearly the end that one of the character groups' narration isn't taking place in real time but is up to two decades behind the contemporary timeline of the rest of the book. I'm not sure what the author was trying to achieve by keeping this hidden or confused. [/spoiler]

Realistic, plausible characters with some foibles. Try suggesting to readers who "don't read sci-fi, OnLy LiTeRaTuRe."

I loved the concept of this book and was really hoping to enjoy it. This book is told from three points of view. For me, I found the pov of White Alice (the elite group of women soldiers) the most interesting. I also liked getting to know Rose. I wish there was more backstory and explanations for certain things-especially in the beginning of the book. I found myself getting confused at times with the multiple characters and plot lines so it was hard for me to want to keep going. I know this book will be loved by some so I’m rating as a solid 3/5.

Camp Zero weaves three different narratives together to tell the story of a dystopian near future where climate change and unchecked greed have wreaked havoc on the planet. I enjoyed the braided narrative and especially loved the voice of Rose, whose determination to protect her mother and make her way in the world was very compelling. I thought this book did an excellent job of painting a vivid portrait of a world that seems very plausible. All of the small details were well thought out and interesting.

Where the novel faltered, in my opinion, was the ending. I didn’t feel like the book offered enough closure, especially with the White Alice plot. It certainly raised many important questions about survival, climate change, and responsibility, but I wasn’t ultimately sure what the author wanted us to take away. That said, it was an enjoyable read and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for any other books the author writes.


Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

Oh. My. GOD.
I absolutely adored this book. This is definitely one of my favorites of all time.
The concept is incredibly interesting. I've read books about speculative climate change futures, but none were as unique and interesting as this one. It felt so different, but also real - I fully believed that this future was a possible thing.
Our main character is also incredibly interesting and I really loved the diverse conversations she had within the story: getting into the career she had, her life with her mother who was an immigrant, how the world changed right in front of her eyes. It was so truthful and felt so raw and honest with this overarching mystery and circumstance going on.
There was also some side plots that I thought were incredibly interesting and well done in integrating them well.
I cannot stop talking to my friends about this book and I HIGHLY recommend it to EVERYONE. Just read it, please.
Thank you so much NetGalley for the ARC. I can't wait to buy a physical copy.

This was a very good book on a future where climate change has wrecked havoc on the Earth. Rose has agreed to a job in a very remote northern location, he job consists of being a 'comfort' woman for workers that are building a town/city. The area has been devastated by oil extraction in the past and when oil was banned the people that lived there left. Rose and her group of comfort women life in an abandoned mall and they are visited nightly by the managers of the build, each manager takes on woman and sticks with her. Rose ends up with the designer/architect of the build, which she's happy with because Rose is there with an ulterior motive. We also get the POV of Grant, he was hired as a teacher to educate the workers, and from a group of women who inhabit an abandoned radar station and who raid oil from the dig site. The backstory of each group and why they ended up in the far north is described, Rose came from the Floating City, built for wealthy inhabitants to escape the excessive heat, Grant has also left the Floating City, his father helped build it, and the woman who inhabit the radar station are ex military there to prove they can live in an extreme environment. Bleak at times, and the ending is somewhat open, but still a very good book and I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Atria Books for the ARC.

I will start this off with saying that I am a huge fan of dystopian novels so I was very excited for this one and it did not disappoint! When I read it was about climate change survivors in a near future, it made me anxious because that seems
so real and scary and intrigued and I’m so glad I read this one! The characters are great, the story has a lot going on and it’s reminiscent to me of the Water Wars, but polar opposite (pun intended). Great read and overall, well done by the author!

Dystopian novels are not usually my thing, but I’m so glad I took a chance on this one! I don’t want to give spoilers, so I’ll just say it was very immersive with quite a few twists. Extremely enjoyable read!

A prescient and thrilling look at class, privilege, and gender in the impending climate apocalypse – as resource wars, climate refugees, and persistent natural disasters are a reality for much of the world today.

Set during the turn of the future mid-century in Canada's far North, we follow three groups who find their fates increasingly linked to one another. Rose and her fellow escorts, who find a kind of sisterhood in their circumstances. The "Diggers", reminiscent of the "man-camps" in oil and resource extraction in present-day Canada. A group of female elite soldiers who hold the American vanguard in the far North.

In this climate-threatened world, the wealthy are shielded from fires, floods, droughts, and hurricanes. The high-tech Floating City keeps them safe, while those in search of adventure travel to sail amidst the melting ice caps. Keeping the Floating City ticking like clockwork is a rotating door of janitors, cleaners, nannies, manual labourers, and sex workers, most of whom who live on the devastated mainland.

Rose gets a chance to take on a potentially dangerous job to ensure her mother's safety and comfort. As she journeys to the far North, she is drawn into a complex web of conspiracy, government and corporate malfeasance. Part sci-fi page-turner, part climate alarm, this is a timely and ambitious novel for our world.

This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Climate change has completely altered the way Americans live in the near future. If one has the money to live in the floating city, life will be much easier, but most do not and regularly suffer mother nature’s wrath. Rose is raised on the mainland with her Korean immigrant mother, but eventually leaves seeking a better life in the floating city. When a devastating hurricane tears their home from its foundation, Rose’s mother is suddenly without a home and a job, as the cabins surrounding hers provided rental income. Rose’s job in the floating city is not exactly one her mother would approve of, and her new boss gives her a task to spy on an architect named Graham off site at a community he has invested in, in exchange for housing for her and her mother. This opportunity couldn’t come at a better time.

At Dominion Lake in the remote north, across the border into Canada, an Graham is building his dream community, where some wealthy Americans are hoping to lay claim to a new utopia. Grant, a recent addition, is fleeing his family and their prominent name in hopes of helping build this new paradise and live a more honest life. He hopes to educate the citizens of this new community in the ideals he learned from studying literature and poetry at Walden. Rose arrives to find very little of this community is actually built, and try’s to figure out what she will report. Rumors also float around about a group of women group living off the grid in an abandoned climate station not too far away. Nothing is quite as it seems is this deserted oil town come utopia.

Told from multiple points of view we slowly figure out what’s happening in Dominion Lake, who White Alice is, about Grant’s troubled history, and why Rose is actually sent to the site. This tale is gritty and raw, illustrating what humans will do to survive when the odds are against them. If you are hoping for an uplifting story, this is not it. Camp Zero puts human nature on full display when society is falling apart.

Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books, and of course Michelle Min Sterling for the advanced copy of the book. Camp Zero comes out on April 4th. All opinions are my own.

The writing is tight and pointed, which I really appreciate. It's really fast paced. The cover is stunning, too!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC.

Camp Zero is one of those novels that presents ideas/stories that are so far from normal thought that you just get drawn into it. Especially when done well! The characters and stories are layered and weave together so seamlessly. The relevant themes grab you and don't let you go until you put some thought into them.

This was a fascinating read. A cross between Station Eleven and American War comes close to describing it. The year is 2049, the environmental apocalypse is underway. Those who can afford it are living in floating cities off major ports, using renewable energy. Those who can't are working in those cities and living the best they can outside of them.

In Canada's far north, the visionary architect who built the cities is dreaming of a new kind of community. A small support team is with him, including two of the novel's narrators: Rose, a sex worker sent to spy on the architect and Grant, a hopelessly naive English teacher, who thinks he's going to help start a new university campus.

A parallel narrative brings in the residents of White Alice, an all woman research team trying to survive in a far northern weather station. They, too, are trying to create a new sort of community, one that largely exists without men.

Eventually, the two storylines merge in surprising ways. This is masterfully written, tragic and beautiful. Rose and the women of White Alice will stay with you for a long time. The men will remain peripheral, as I think they are meant to.

4 stars from me. #AvivaAndFriendsRecos #Bookstagram
#Thanks to @netgalley and @atriabooks for the e-arc. @michelleminsterling
1d

This was a great read. The future postulated here is entirely plausible. Great storyline with wonderfully developed characters. Thank to so much for the ARC

In a future where climate catastrophes have made most of the United States dangerous and barely habitable, a young woman, Rose, infiltrates a secluded northern Canadian settlement to secure future housing for herself and her mother. As a paid sexual companion for the utopian settlement’s founder, she is charged with keeping tabs on him for her true client–one of this world’s most powerful men, who has his own designs on the Far North. Also at this settlement is a young man, Grant, the scion of a wealthy and powerful family, who is trying to escape his family’s influence and make a life of his own. Interwoven with these two is a group of mysterious women soldiers–White Alice–living in their own insular settlement.

The novel is told in alternating points of view, Rose’s perspective interwoven with Grant’s and White Alice’s. It begins slowly, focusing on Rose’s relationships with the other prostitutes there to serve high-ranking men in the camp, Grant’s discovery that this is not the university teaching position he thought he’d secured, and White Alice’s coming together as a collective of women. However, the tension gradually ratchets up as we learn more about the characters’ histories and true desires. Eventually, the three narratives come together in an explosive, destructive climax.

This is an ideal book for readers who like climate fiction and stories of women’s solidarity and community–and also those who enjoy braided suspense thrillers premised on big social issues.

The writing is spare and simple but effective. You can feel the physicality of the North and its effect on the characters. The cold, the dark, and the snow are visceral presences–as is the bleakness of the landscape and occasional beauty in the stark Arctic landscape. Rose’s prostitution is described in such matter-of-fact prose that it becomes completely ordinary and, in fact, almost devoid of sexuality. Like everything else in the world around it, it is subject to the privations of a world ruined by climate change: Rose and her sister prostitutes live in the back of an abandoned mall. One of their special days involves the discovery of an unpillaged store. You can feel the leftover tawdry glamor of the old capitalist excesses (and the contrasting harshness of their current lives) in the way they rummage through bins for “five-packs of ankle socks and cotton underwear, swatches of eye shadow and pots of pearly lip-gloss… sequined crop tops, neon leggings, and mini dresses for work; and thick socks, thermal underwear, and outerwear for their daily walks outside.”

Overall, this is a suspenseful novel that illuminates the ugly effects of power, patriarchy, and capitalism run amok–while questioning easy assumptions about solidarity and utopia. It manages to be both bleak, in the world it captures, and beautiful–in the moments of human connection it captures, and in the humanity and insight revealed in its climactic final moments.

This gripping eco-thriller takes place in remote, snowy northern Canada, where climate change has brought to the South unbearable heat and storms and pioneers seek a new frontier for escape. Two separate groups find themselves in the same isolated lands: an all-female team of military scientists manning an old Cold War station to verify climate change’s pace and a building site led by a visionary architect who wants to construct a community of geo-disk homes for the wealthy to buy. It's 2049, and in addition to a ravaged planet, the fossil fuel industry has collapsed, and everyone gets at birth an internet-connected device that provides endless info as well as entertainment. The Flick also it turns out may have destructive potential.

Architect Meyer hopes to design future homes for climate refugees, but his Camp Zero is woven with ugly undercurrents from the downtrodden, oppressed group of former oil workers he’s hired to be “Diggers” to beautiful prostitutes he’s flown in to see to the needs of the camp’s managers and named the “Blooms.” The smartest and loveliest of the Blooms, Rose, comes from a gorgeous Floating City that has been built for the uberwealthy in Boston Harbor, and has been spent by her wealthy client to spy on and encourage Meyer in his efforts. The bribe: to gain her Korean mom escape from a refugee camp to come to the Floating City as well as citizenship in the city for Rose. Meyer himself is riddled with doubt and looming depression about the potential futility of his work. Then there’s Grant, a recent grad from the Walden school, a clear stand-in for Harvard, who seeks to escape his oppressively wealthy and controlling family. Added into the mix is a mysterious man known as The Barber, a local who seems to have a secret agenda of his own.

Meanwhile in the military camp where the women have taken the code name White Angel, the team wrestles with isolation, survival, and the potential threat of the military cutting off all assistance. The group bonds into a close net community, and feminism rules the day.

The plot starts off slowly, as if the icy cold and endless snow has slowed things down, until all hell breaks loose. The two groups intersect, mysteries and spies get revealed, and you find yourself spellbound at how possible this dystopian future could be for us all.


Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

If you liked Station Eleven, you will like this too. That is not to say this book is a copycat novel, but the themes and style appealed to me in the same way Station Eleven did.

The climate crisis is in full bloom, and much of North America is hot and miserable. An assortment of people now live in small settlements in Canada trying to learn a new way to live.

Much of the old power structure remains—tech bros have the power and money, women are still treated as second class citizens. But now there is a chance for these things to change.

Sterling does an excellent job of creating a sense of mystery without losing the familiarity of every day life, so the dystopian world feels very real. She has a poetic touch, and I thought about the book for days after I finished it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Atria for the chance to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Going into this, I had heard comparisons to Emily St. John Mandel, and I believe the author fully delivered. The comp was perfect and I really enjoyed this one. The book is set in the near future, as the world is quickly becoming uninhabitable for humans. The story weaves through three separate narratives, which eventually overlap, and each character brings an extremely unique experience to the story. I particularly liked the writer's invention of "the Flick," which is a small chip that is implanted in humans upon birth, meant to offer a new way for people to be linked and coexist in their social media feeds. However, we come to learn that the Flick is actually a data-harvesting surveillance tool. I imagine this book will become a TV series or film in the very near future. Thank you Net Galley for the early copy.

My first dip into climate fiction! Those aspects of the novel are some of those that I enjoyed best, as the 2050s future seemed all to possibly realistic (of course the wealthy are still the one's benefiting and getting by!)

Camp Zero has been compared to Station Eleven which is partially apt in it's woven storylines. The part where that comparison falls apart for me is with the ending & with it's characters. Other than Rose, I didn't feel that we really got into the mind and psyche of the other characters.

Overall - a 3.5 star read that really ramped up in the second half!