User Profile

This review was first published at BriefEcology.com

Show me someone who says they've found a place on Earth with no life and I'll show you a liar. That is, at least according to Alex Riley's upcoming book, Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places, which I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy of. Riley's expansive look at the extreme conditions under which many extraordinary species live, and even thrive, reveals the diversity and ingenuity of life on Earth.

It's clear that Riley did the homework here. Traveling across the globe to interview over one hundred scientists, visiting their labs, and learning about their work are things only someone truly dedicated to the science of biology would undertake. And it shows up in the pages of Super Natural. The book is thoroughly researched and yet still widely accessible to non-experts, breaking down extreme conditions into categories of sustenance, environmental conditions, and radiation (solar and otherwise). Riley explores the biological details that allow life to survive in the harshest environments on the planet, while keeping the narrative grounded in the journey of investigative research and the context of what it all means.

One pattern that struck me while reading was the pervasiveness of life. It's virtually impossible to find a place on Earth that isn't inhabited. At the deepest floors of the sea, where there's often no light, little oxygen, sometimes even minimal water due to salt concentrations, there's life. In scorching deserts with scarce moisture, there's life. In the radioactive remnants of the Chernobyl disaster, there's life. Not only is there life in these places, but a diversity of life adapted to thrive in places where most species can't even exist.

If space abhors a vacuum, so too does biology. Ecological niche theory describes how organisms, and broader taxonomic groups, respond to their physical environments. It also entails the degree and characteristics of how organisms interact with each other. Prevailing theory suggests that if a niche exists, life will fill it. Riley's work collects a vast amount of research that strongly supports this notion, but in my opinion, it also suggests something more.

Life strives. Life multiplies and diversifies, seeking out and and inhabiting new places. In fact, through the responses and interactions with surrounding environments, organisms often create new niches which can then be subsequently filled by new forms of life. There's an agency latent within the diversity of life, and this agency creates the potential for life to evolve.

Of course, it would be impossible to discuss the ecology of life in Earth's harshest conditions without mentioning the fact that those conditions are changing. Riley has an interesting perspective on the fact that our planet's climate is changing. While recognizing the threat of global climate change, Super Natural argues that life's resilience and creativity are reasons to be hopeful. All the evidence suggests that life is likely very difficult to eradicate from the planet. Although the same cannot be said for human life, specifically.

In fact, I think this is Super Natural's shortcoming. Riley neither identifies the economic drivers of global climate change and environmental degradation, nor addresses the full ramifications. For life to remain diverse, and thus resilient, the conditions under which it exists must also be diverse. But capitalism is homogenizing our planet: blanketing it in evermore CO2, removing its forests, paving its countrysides, covering it with industrial agriculture, and polluting every surface with plastic. These factors, I believe, present much greater risks to life on Earth than Riley permits.

Nonetheless, I think Super Natural is a testament to everything about life's existence that's crucial to protect. The secrets to how some of these organisms survive under enormous pressure may hold untapped potential to improve human life. And even if not, our existence is simply richer because of theirs. For that reason, I enjoyed reading this one.

This review was first published at BriefEcology.com

The landlords have unearthed something terrible in Toronto. Andrew F. Sullivan's novel, The Marigold, is a moldy condemnation of the rot that sits at the heart of urban capitalism.

In The Marigold's near-future Toronto, wealth inequality skyrockets in tandem with the city's skyscrapers that are built by a macabre, capitalist cult. Each new tower of suites demands a sacrifice to the gods of growth, but in their lust the cult unleashes a new kind of growth from underground. Or perhaps the growth wasn't so much unleashed as it was summoned by the quest for unceasing profits built on the literal backs of city's residents.

Sullivan blends a literary prose with a pulpy plot. The result is a layered (if overly long, at times) view of how capitalism exploits tenants, gig workers, the homeless, and even the land itself, until there's no part of the city the rot hasn't touched. Sullivan brilliantly reveals how the conspiracy of capitalism is no conspiracy at all, operating in broad daylight and co-opting everyone into its spread just to survive.

The Marigold has horror, sci-fi, metaphor, satire, and a fungus-filled critique of modern capitalism. It's absolutely worth a read.

This review was first published at BriefEcology.com

It was a strange ride. The book's prose didn't immediately grip me, but as more and more strangeness crept into the story, I got hooked.

Lumberjack takes place in the early 1900s, as a historical fiction narrative that follows a mysterious and deeply flawed character named Neville Gibbons. Neville desires to be a lumberjack, but more than that, he desires to be a "real" man, a man worthy of other men's respect. He carries an axe with him everywhere, which he names and which serves as a mocking symbol of his internalized inadequacy, a projection of the kind of man he desperately wants to be.

Neville haphazardly finds himself employed by J. Sterling Morton, progenitor to the Morton Salt Company. More relevantly, Morton was also the founder of Arbor Day, and his son, Joy, founded the Morton Arboretum (irrelevant side note: I almost worked at The Morton Arboretum before taking my current job at Penn State).

Unfortunately, Morton's estate, Arbor Lodge, has become plagued by some kind of supernatural creature that he wants to eliminate, and he thinks Neville is the man for the job. Although the plot details are almost secondary to the novella's themes.

Throughout the narrative, Engebretson explores how ideas about nature get mixed in with racism, masculinity, and religious crusading. The Indigenous nature of the American West is "savage" to Neville, and can only be "tamed" by Great Men like Morton. His psychosexual needs–to cut down trees, to gain Morton's approval, and to prove his father wrong–ultimately fuel his manic delusions of grandeur, driving him to commit some truly horrific acts.

Lumberjack is imaginative, weird, and at times, darkly humorous. If you're looking for a quick read that creatively blends historical fiction, eco-fiction, and weird fiction, it's worth picking up.

This review was first published at BriefEcology.com

I don't think I've read anything quite like it. The plot centers a character named Kirmen, in a future society that lives in environmental domes that block a destructive wind that sweeps the planet, following a vague environmental catastrophe. Humans are losing their ability to reproduce, and Kirmen is one of the youngest members of society. He's also a genetic experiment, undergoing some kind of metamorphosis that will presumably allow him to live outside of the domes.

What's interesting about the story is that although it has all the traditional sci-fi tropes (post-apocalyptic setting, genetic/environmental engineering, etc.) it's at the same time very much a personal story about Kirmen's experiences, his relationships, and his changes. Jurado uses these narrative techniques to explore big questions about what it means to be human, and what "human nature" is.

Chlorophilia weaves between past and present, introducing a nostalgia for the nature that’s on the verge of disappearing. It's a story about loss, both personal and ecological, and is another short and worthwhile read.

This review was first published at BriefEcology.com

When an ominous rain cloud forms over the rural house of Scott and his family, the literal and metaphorical deteriorations that come with it reveal the fractures of Scott's past and current family. The narrative of Downpour is a continuous, unbroken timeline from the moment the storm arrives to its final culmination. The entire story takes place over a matter of hours and it never leaves the setting of the rural farmhouse, and in this way, Hawkins traps the reader in the rain with his characters.

As the storm worsens, the rain's unnatural effects begin to emerge. What appears is fungal-like, an invasive, tendrilous entity that seems to dissolve and/or remake everything it touches. It bears similarities to what Dawn Keetely calls tentacular ecohorror, in her essay on ecohorror and tree agency. Whatever is in the rain entangles the characters, mixing their human nature with an unknown and non-human nature, with unknown and non-human agency. The effect is an uncanny, unknowable version of nature that is both within and external.

Downpour is both slow and fast. It's dark, and the story only descends into more bleakness as it goes, until, like the fungal growth in the rain, it spirals in on itself and blooms into something strange and horrifically fascinating. It's a compelling read, but not one for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This review was first published at BriefEcology.com

First, I'll start with what I enjoyed. The book's premise drew me in, with a story that's centered around the last zoo in operation, which is located on Alcatraz Island, set against the backdrop of a near-future dystopia. In this near future, a combination of climate change and disease has killed off the majority of the planet's life (presumably, but more on that shortly), and the zoo on Alcatraz host last remaining individuals of many species. It's an incredibly intriguing concept to explore the–literally–existential dread of extinction, the ways that human fates are tied up with those of other species, and the ways that our current systems create these issues.

But The Island of Last Things is not about any of that. The plot focuses on the friendship of two zookeepers (Camille and Sailor) who have somewhat contradictory personalities. Which isn't necessarily a criticism by itself. It's perfectly reasonable to foreground a more personal story against the apocalyptic background, which is (I think) what Sloley was attempting. The book does not, however, accomplish that task. At least not in my opinion.

The biggest issue I have with this book is that it seems to contain a current of misanthropy under the surface. Camille and Sailor (and pretty much all the other zookeepers, to the extent that any of them appear on the page) have an overwhelming, almost fanatical obsession with animals, which at times overlaps with their ambivalence or outright disdain for other human beings.

One of the background elements of the book is that the zoo is subject to attacks from political activists who (quite understandably) object to the outrageous expenditure of money to keep a few animals alive and comfortable while humanity starves and suffocates in a deteriorating environment. The characters occasionally discuss this, referring to them as terrorists or otherwise unstable people. At one point in the novel, Camille (a somehow naively cynical person who believes strongly in preserving the status quo) laments that while she understands the plight of these people who are suffering, she simply doesn't think about it much because she doesn't have to see it. She only cares about animals because that’s what she sees.

This misanthropy allows the characters to casually dismiss the structural problems that created the very conditions that underly both human and animal suffering. They pay some thin lip service to "late stage capitalism", without ever interrogating that thought more closely, or doing anything about it. In fact, the extent of the book's "radical action" is Sailor's (the "action" person) idea to free animals from the zoo into the wild. Setting aside the fact that the whole reason the animals are in the zoo in the first place is that the rest of their species died in the wild, the ultimate conclusion of this plan is somehow even more nonsensical. But I won't spoil it for those who do want to read the book.

If I'm being harsh it's because I believe these ideas to be very harmful in their inability to offer a critique of our current system, instead succumbing to a bleak fatalism in the acceptance that nothing can be done, and therefore only solace is to escape into an internal world of numbness and submission.

There are other issues I had with the book too. Thinly developed characters, inconsistent plot elements, and a length that could have been cut down substantially all frequently took me out of the reading. Perhaps the most telling part of the novel was when Sailor implores Camille to "imagine a better world", the irony being that there is clearly not a better world on offer anywhere in the book.