This might be the dystopian story of the ultimate result of the current climate changes some folk need to read. We know that they won't, but it's a nice thought. The story is set in both 2017 and 2041. It does not travel through that time period. It is both years, shuffled together, connected by water and location.
In 2017, people are cutting up a glacier to create Ancient Ice for wealthy Arabs purely as a money making venture. The Arabs can make their own ice. They just want to be able to watch ice older than human thought melt in their glasses. Such is the problem with wealth, but that isn't the focus of the story. A girl who grew up near the afflicted glacier protests the further degradation in her older years. She had watched the river fed by the glacier be twisted and moved from its bed by commercial interests. This is just, for her, the last straw.
In 2041, fresh water is in short supply. The air is dry and the landscape burns. People flee the fires, becoming climate refugees. As the fires advance, refugee centers are abandoned. People move North, into lands no one there wants them in. Life is smelly and hard.
While I enjoyed the story, I am not pleased with the constant shifting back and forth between the times. At the start of each chapter, I was removed from the story I had been in and dumped into another. That required me to go back and try to remember where I had left my characters. I do not think that made the story more interesting, or the reveal more surprising. I was just annoyed. I may, if I ever reread this book, just read the alternate chapters together, getting Signe's story complete and then David's.
In 2017, people are cutting up a glacier to create Ancient Ice for wealthy Arabs purely as a money making venture. The Arabs can make their own ice. They just want to be able to watch ice older than human thought melt in their glasses. Such is the problem with wealth, but that isn't the focus of the story. A girl who grew up near the afflicted glacier protests the further degradation in her older years. She had watched the river fed by the glacier be twisted and moved from its bed by commercial interests. This is just, for her, the last straw.
In 2041, fresh water is in short supply. The air is dry and the landscape burns. People flee the fires, becoming climate refugees. As the fires advance, refugee centers are abandoned. People move North, into lands no one there wants them in. Life is smelly and hard.
While I enjoyed the story, I am not pleased with the constant shifting back and forth between the times. At the start of each chapter, I was removed from the story I had been in and dumped into another. That required me to go back and try to remember where I had left my characters. I do not think that made the story more interesting, or the reveal more surprising. I was just annoyed. I may, if I ever reread this book, just read the alternate chapters together, getting Signe's story complete and then David's.