Michael Barnes
This novella was the second half of a story 'The future is Blue' and the duo was written for a Cli-fi anthology. This slice of life in this post-apocalyptic scenario set in our future taking place on Garbagetown, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch made significantly larger. This massive pile of garbage drifts through the ocean, with humans claiming different pieces of it for their own territories—Candle Hole, Electric City, Pill Hill, Winditch, Matchstick Forest. The small parts of how people live on Garbagetown were fascinating—how wedding customs would change, how they ate, how they get their names -walking without washing or changing until someone who doesn't know them calls out to them, usually after seeing some titled piece of garbage that they have on their person hence our narrator 'Tetley' Abednego.
The world building in intriguing with areas named after they types of waste Candle Hole, Electric City, Pill Hill, Winditch, Matchstick Forest. Our Tetley Abednego owes much to Voltaire's Candide (as dies the whole style of the story itself) by funny, cynical, insightful, emotional, and it all coalesces perfectly. She is both an optimist and a realist, and it never conflicts. She’s fiercely protective of Garbagetown, even though it’s never treated her well. She was largely neglected as a child, but her decision at the end of the short story The Future is Blue means that she wakes up every day to new slurs painted on her door. Anyone in Garbagetown is legally allowed to abuse her, though not kill her. Which I found really hard going and I was grateful the story moved on. Tetley is revealed later in the story to have taken the action on behalf of the residents of Garbagetown as they would have all ended worse off. Tetley But she hates us and our generation is referred throughout the book as Fuckwits (the people who wasted all of the resources), and what we did to our future.
Tetley's deep optimism is neatly contained in her conversation
‘… the kind of hope I have isn’t just greed by its maiden name. The kind of hope I have doesn’t begin and end with demanding everything go back to the way it was when it can’t, it can’t ever, that’s not how time works, and it’s not how oceans work either … I have hope for Garbagetown …’
This novella was the second half of a story 'The future is Blue' and the duo was written for a Cli-fi anthology. This slice of life in this post-apocalyptic scenario set in our future taking place on Garbagetown, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch made significantly larger. This massive pile of garbage drifts through the ocean, with humans claiming different pieces of it for their own territories—Candle Hole, Electric City, Pill Hill, Winditch, Matchstick Forest. The small parts of how people live on Garbagetown were fascinating—how wedding customs would change, how they ate, how they get their names -walking without washing or changing until someone who doesn't know them calls out to them, usually after seeing some titled piece of garbage that they have on their person hence our narrator 'Tetley' Abednego.
The world building in intriguing with areas named after they types of waste Candle Hole, Electric City, Pill Hill, Winditch, Matchstick Forest. Our Tetley Abednego owes much to Voltaire's Candide (as dies the whole style of the story itself) by funny, cynical, insightful, emotional, and it all coalesces perfectly. She is both an optimist and a realist, and it never conflicts. She’s fiercely protective of Garbagetown, even though it’s never treated her well. She was largely neglected as a child, but her decision at the end of the short story The Future is Blue means that she wakes up every day to new slurs painted on her door. Anyone in Garbagetown is legally allowed to abuse her, though not kill her. Which I found really hard going and I was grateful the story moved on. Tetley is revealed later in the story to have taken the action on behalf of the residents of Garbagetown as they would have all ended worse off. Tetley But she hates us and our generation is referred throughout the book as Fuckwits (the people who wasted all of the resources), and what we did to our future.
Tetley's deep optimism is neatly contained in her conversation
‘… the kind of hope I have isn’t just greed by its maiden name. The kind of hope I have doesn’t begin and end with demanding everything go back to the way it was when it can’t, it can’t ever, that’s not how time works, and it’s not how oceans work either … I have hope for Garbagetown …’