Camp Zero
A Novel
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4.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
A TODAY SHOW READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK
"Thrilling. . . . This remarkable debut delivers its big ideas with suspense, endlessly surprising twists, and abundant heart." —Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers
In a near-future northern settlement, a handful of climate change survivors find their fates intertwined in this mesmerizing and transportive novel in the vein of Station Eleven and The Power.
America, 2049: Summer temperatures are intolerably high, the fossil fuel industry has shut down, and humans are implanted with a ‘Flick’ at birth, which allows them to remain perpetually online. The top echelons of society live in Floating Cities off the coast, while people on the mainland struggle to survive. For Rose, working as a hostess in the city’s elite club feels like her best hope for a better future.
When a high-profile client offers Rose a job as an escort at a fledgling company in northern Canada called Camp Zero—a source of fresh, clean air and cool temperatures—in return for a home for her displaced mother and herself, she accepts it. But in the north, all is not as it seems.
Through skillfully entwined perspectives, including a young professor longing to escape his wealthy family and a group of highly trained women engaged in climate surveillance at a Cold War era research station, the fate of the Camp and its inhabitants comes into stunning relief. Atmospheric, original, and utterly gripping, Camp Zero interrogates the seductive and chilling notion of a utopia; asks who and what will survive as global tensions rise; and imagines how love may sustain us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sterling's stunning debut offers a glimpse into a climate change–ravaged future in which resources diminish quickly and new frontiers are hard to find. In desolate northern Canada, the enigmatic architect Meyer is building a settlement that promises hope for climate refugees. A group of escorts called the Blooms are flown into the build-site to be a sliver of beauty in the snowy wasteland. Among them is Rose, who hails from the Floating City, a luxurious, man-made metropolis that floats in Boston Harbor. She was secretly sent by a high-profile client to investigate the camp in exchange for an easier life for her Korean immigrant mother, but setbacks, mysteries, and a captivating man called the Barber hinder her progress with her mission. Meanwhile, Grant, who signed on to the project to extricate himself from both his wealthy family's long shadow and a relationship that left him heartbroken, learns from the Diggers he's been hired to teach that construction may well be futile. Nearby in a leftover Cold War station, a group of female experts in climate research grow from colleagues to friends to lovers as they unravel the cryptic mysteries of the team of men assigned to the same station before them. Sterling's future is close enough to the present to be entirely recognizable, underlining this cleverly constructed climate fiction mystery with palpable terror: this world feels like one many readers could see within their lifetimes. This should earn a place on shelves alongside Station Eleven and Annihilation.
