up and coming

The long list for the Guardian's First Book Award includes Steven Amsterdam's episodic novel Things We Didn't See Coming, which considers 'how we might retain our humanity in a future ruled by environmental and technological catastrophe'. The novel was published this month in the UK. The Sunday Times praised its 'mordant humour'. Extract here.

Amsterdam explains his approach:

For the narrator, the trouble isn’t the plague. The trouble is that he’s got this irresponsible girlfriend. The trouble isn’t the floodwaters. The trouble is where is he going to eat? Where is he going to sleep? When is he going to get laid?

(See also climelit, trueclime and climefiction, more climelit, still more climelit, tween verbs and vanishing act.)