The editorial book review site, Reader Views, just published their review of Over Brooklyn Hills. As they say in that old Life cereal commercial, “Mikey—he likes it!”, with the book getting a five-star rating.

 

 

The start of the review nails it: “Over Brooklyn Hills is a story of people and climate.”

I mean, this sounds simple, but the reason I love seeing this sentence start the review is that my literary climate fiction series isn’t about some post-climate apocalypse but about how people today and in the near future live with climate change, with the emphasis on how people live. Too often climate fiction turns fantastic, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Our very real struggle with climate change is hard enough for people to identify with, which in turn makes taking meaningful action in our troubled Anthropocene that much harder for many of us to pursue. We must pursue effective change that will help moderate the severity of climate change consequences; this is essential if there’s much chance to keep our world safe… or safer, anyway.

The review continues this way:

It’s the third book in David Guenette’s future-based The Steep Climes Quartet. This installment centers around two different plot lines: the lives of some of the notable citizens of Great Barrington, a small town in the Berkshires; and the missions of an ecoterrorist. The overarching theme is the politics of climate change, and that theme receives detailed discussion. The weather is a character by itself, with a severe heat wave and a tornado driving some of the main action in Great Barrington.

In terms of the political overtones, Guenette has taken the events and legislation of the last half-decade and extrapolated them through to their plausible outcome by 2035. Likewise, current technological hardware and software have been advanced ten years. Political and tech nerds will be at home with all the plentiful details in those areas.