Welling­ton writ­ers increas­ing­ly (and entire­ly jus­ti­fi­ably) are view­ing the ongo­ing cli­mate dis­as­ter as a rich source of mate­r­i­al for cre­at­ing intrigu­ing, imag­i­na­tive spec­u­la­tive fic­tion. Based in future worlds where human­i­ty has failed to stop a cat­a­stroph­ic, civ­i­liza­tion-alter­ing change in the cli­mate sys­tem, these sto­ries of what might be, if we don’t sort our shit out, right now.

Recent­ly, Kirsten McDougal­l’s third nov­el She’s a Killer has delved into the near-future world of ‘wealthugees’ escap­ing cli­mate calami­ty by escap­ing to NZ. Lawrence Pratch­et­t’s The Burn­ing Riv­er came out a cou­ple of years back, and is set in a more dis­tant time, when the world has heat­ed up to the point where civ­i­liza­tion has col­lapsed and wild-fires run ram­pant across the land. There’s also the likes of Andi C. Buchanan’s and Patri­cia Grace’s short sto­ries On the Right Track and The Unre­mem­bered, and Tim Jones’ novel­la Where We Land (and prob­a­bly a bunch more that I’ve missed or over­looked).

Join­ing the ranks of Welling­ton-based cli-fi authors is Jil­lian Web­ster with her debut nov­el – The Weight of a Thou­sand Oceans. This sto­ry set is at the Lawrence Pratch­ett end of the spec­u­la­tive pen­du­lum: the world is hot­ter and our tech­no­log­i­cal, wired civil­i­sa­tion has col­lapsed over a peri­od of time now referred to as “The End” A great­ly reduced pop­u­la­tion ekes out a sub­sis­tence liv­ing on the remain­ing bits of land that haven’t been inun­dat­ed by sea-lev­el rise.

Our pro­tag­o­nist is Maia, a young woman who lives with her grand­fa­ther in a hut in the South­ern Islands (both the North and South Islands have been arch­i­pel­a­gos unto them­selves, their sin­gle land­mass­es turn­ing into many as the ris­ing sea sep­a­rat­ed regions from each oth­er, result­ing in the North­ern and South­ern Islands). It would be a fair bet that none of NZ’s coastal cities or towns have sur­vived this inun­da­tion. It was nice know­ing ye, Welling­ton.

Maia’s grand­fa­ther is unwell, his depen­den­cy on pain-killing mar­i­jua­na increas­ing as he becomes frail­er with each pass­ing week. Maia’s future is thus a top­ic of much dis­cus­sion – liv­ing a alone isn’t real­ly an option, but her grand­fa­ther’s sug­ges­tion that she move to live with one of the North­ern Tribes leaves Maia cold. She wants to explore, to ven­ture out into the wider world, and per­haps go to the dis­tant Old Arc­tic Cir­cle, where it’s rumoured that civil­i­sa­tion is being rekin­dled.

While all this is going on, Maia is hav­ing dreams and strange visions that hint at … some­thing? That she’s suf­fer­ing night­mares and hal­lu­ci­na­tions. Or is there more to it? (Hope­ful­ly not too much of a spoil­er: there’s a lot more to it).

Maia is fan­tas­tic pro­tag­o­nist, all the things you want when a book is so heav­i­ly focused on a spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter: thought­ful, strong-willed, curi­ous, but thank­ful­ly not a full-fledged Mary Sue. She has moments of self-doubt, of fear, and times when she makes dubi­ous spur-of-the moment deci­sions that (just about lit­er­al­ly) plunge her into deep trou­ble.

Once Maia’s made up her mind as to what she wants to do, the sto­ry starts to rol­lick along. There’s pirates, sunken cities and star­tling rev­e­la­tions. There’s more mys­te­ri­ous visions and dreams. There’s a giant garbage patch in the sea (which is, depress­ing­ly, already a real thing, but great­ly expand­ed in this sto­ry, and which plays a piv­otal role).

A float­ing garbage patch

In these mid­dle and lat­ter sec­tions of the book, Maia also expe­ri­ences her first of love and sex. I did­n’t do any real back­ground read­ing on the book or author before delv­ing into the book and it was inter­est­ing read­ing it with­out any con­text as to what the tar­get audi­ence might be. It feels a lit­tle young adul­ty, but could well slot into the (hip-new-thing) cat­e­go­ry of new adult. Or just some stan­dard “grown-up’ cli-fi. But also, labels, pffft.

(Also, a shout out to the book design­er, Mur­phy Rae. “Don’t judge a book by its cov­er” is the cliche, but we all do, of course, and the imagery and designs of this book and its sequel The Burn of a Thou­sand Suns are gor­geous. The mes­meris­ing long-ten­ta­cled jel­ly­fish that adorns the cov­er of Thou­sand Oceans is bright and allur­ing, con­trast­ed against a back­ground of dark ocean water, con­vey­ing a sim­i­lar dichoto­my of beau­ty and just-below-the-sur­face dan­ger that is reflect­ed in Maia’s own char­ac­ter.)

Where that mix of poten­tial pow­er and youth­ful naivete will lead Maia becomes a ques­tion for the future, as her ini­tial plans are derailed by the new emo­tion­al ties forged over the course of her adven­tures. Good news, then, that the sequel (the afore­men­tioned The Burn of a Thou­sand Suns) is already avail­able, with the third instal­ment planned for 2002. Either semi-binge now and wait for the denoue­ment when it arrives (arrgh! it’s like wait­ing for new Suc­ces­sion episodes!), or wait for that third vol­ume to drop and read in one long bliss­ful rhap­sody.

There’s adven­ture, romance, tragedy, mys­tery and, yes, there’s sex. If they tick your box­es, this a book (and series) for you.

And, good news for you, read­er, we have copies of both the first two books in the For­got­ten Ones series to give away! Just flick an email to giveaways@wellingtonista.com with the sub­ject “for­got­ten ones give­away” and we’ll put you in the draw. (And we promise won’t add you to any mail­ing list, or any­thing.)

If you don’t win, you can pur­chase the books online from Mighty Ape.

And find out more about Jil­lian on her web­site.