ORPHANS OF CANLAND

In Vitale’s debut SF novel set in an ecologically ravaged future California, a 12-year-old boy begins to realize his privileged status has blinded him to cruelties in his community.

It’s 2088, decades after a series of mid-21st-century natural disasters known as the Evanescence, which was fueled, in part, by government-directed fracking. This displaced the heartland population, and more refugees came from coastal cities ravaged by earthquakes and flooding. Conflicts between various groups, including Christian fundamentalists and radical environmental activists, finally brought down society. In its place arose WORLD (or Worldwide Objective: Restoration Longevity Dominion), an authoritarian program led by a shadowy billionaire. Habitable communities known as “Parts” are strictly regimented to maximize efficiency and rehabilitation. Canland, located at the former site of California’s Manzanar internment camp, is supposedly one of the better Parts, practicing desert reclamation and low-impact living—but it’s also the site of suicides and rampant substance abuse. Tristan Weekes, born without the ability to feel pain, has been used by his father, a WORLD scientist, as an experimental test subject. His mother leads Canland’s propaganda programs, and his brother, Dylan, is a criminal hacker trying to locate their father, who has been away for over a year. Over the course of the novel, Tristan (who narrates largely via journaling) begins to comprehend the serpents in Canland’s Eden. He exists in a state of limited emotion, exhibiting moments of borderline genius; however, because he has no physical discomfort or fear to deepen his outlook, readers will find him a distorted lens through which to view Vitale’s fictional world. Cautionary novels in the SF subgenre known as cli-fi are numerous, piling on details of disaster and woe. However, Vitale unusually focuses on the psychology of survivors in this novel—strivers and idealogues rationalizing their guilt, debating humanity’s role within (or without) nature, and confronting family betrayals. As a result, it’s a complicated, rich, and challenging work. It’s particularly discomfiting how characters who seem to be taking good, sustainable actions also show themselves to be serving a sinister dystopia.

An impressive debut that goes beneath surface issues of climate-apocalypse fiction.