America, 2049: Summer temperatures are intolerably high, the fossil fuel industry has shut down, and humans are implanted with a 'Flick' at birth, which allows them to remain perpetually online. The wealthy live in the newly created Floating City off the coast, while people on the mainland struggle to get by. For Rose, a job as a hostess in the city's elite club feels like her best hope for a better future.
At a Cold War-era research station, a group of highly trained women with the code name White Alice are engaged in climate surveillance. But the terms of their employment become increasingly uncertain.
And in a former oil town in northern Canada called Dominion Lake, a camp is being built-Camp Zero. A rare source of fresh, clean air and cooler temperatures, it will be the beginning of a new community and a new way of life. Grant believes it will be the perfect place to atone for his family's dark legacy.
Everyone has an agenda. So who can you trust? Could falling in love be most the radical act of all?
Thrilling, immersive and disturbingly prescient, Camp Zero is about the world we've built and where we go from here.
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Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling is published by John Murray on 30 March 2023. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review.
I was intrigued by the blurb for this book when it arrived. There does seem to be a few climate change, dystopian thrillers being published at the moment, and whilst this is an imagined future, the issues raised within the story are very real. We all know about climate change, and what we've done to our planet. We all suspect what is in store in the future, in Camp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling has created a world of nightmares .... but maybe it is the future?
Camp Zero is situated in the very far north of America. It is a place that is cold, and needs to be, because the rest of the world has become far too hot to survive in. Camp Zero is a place that the creators hope will become a sanctuary, but for the people already living there, it's not a perfect home.
Told via three perspectives; there's Rose, a woman who has moved to Camp Zero to provide 'company and entertainment' for the male workers, along with a group of other women. However, Rose knows more about the Camp and it's creator than anyone else realises.
There are the women at White Alice - all professional and none of them named apart from their leader Sal. White Alice is a climate research station, far far North, and the women all have duties to perform and reports to relay back to base.
Finally, one main male narrator. Grant is young man from a wealthy family who is desperate to shake off the reputation of his forefathers. He wants to succeed in life in his own name, he doesn't want his wealth to define him. He's taken a job as a teacher in the Camp.
None of the narrators are who they seem to be, and whilst the voices are mainly female, it is still a man's world in Camp Zero. There are shades of The Handmaid's Tale to this story, with the women giving up their given names, taking an alias and providing services to the men.
It's a tough book to review, and at times it is a tough one to read. The surroundings are isolated and bleak and the pace of the story moves from very slow, to absolute racing.
This is a book full of lyrical and at times, quite beautiful writing, about a subject that is often terrifying and also very dark. Ultimately, a tale of survival and female strength, but also a violent and stark look at our potential future.
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Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she teaches literature and writing at Berkley College of Music.
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