The Pono Way

A refugee crisis tests a utopian island community to its limits.

In 2050, the United States of America finally crumbled. Jake Weintraub’s family fled the burned-out ruins of Chicago for the safety of the artificial island steading of Pono. Now grown, Jake works as an independent journalist, but the horrors of the Chicago River Riots still haunt him.

As Pono watches, safe in the Pacific Ocean, the West Coast nation of Cascadia collapses under a further series of catastrophes. Thousands of desperate refugees arrive on Pono’s shores – homeless, stateless, and hungry.

Jake throws himself into covering their story, even as their suffering evokes memories of his own trauma and flight. Can Pono, a carefully constructed island society, accept this influx of strangers? Or will this crisis tear Ponoan society apart?