The epic tale of two teens in a fight to save a warming planet,
the universe . . . and their love
Book Details:
Book Title: Nature's Confession by J.L. Morin
Category: YA Fiction, 298 pages
Genre: Sci-fi; cli-fi (climate fiction)
Publisher: Harvard Square Editions
Release date: January 2015
Available for review in: Print & ebook - PDF
Will send print books: Internationally
Tour dates: June 15 to 26
Content Rating: G
Book Description:
A cli-fi quest full of romance, honor, and adventure, LitPick 5-Star Review Award Winner
The #1 Top Marinovich Fiction Read of the year
Best of a New Genre, included in “12 Works of Climate Fiction Everyone Should Read”
Eco-Fiction Honorable Mention— Read the excerpt! — Hitch onto JL’s Blog tour
When a smart-mouthed, mixed-race teen wonders why the work that needs to be done pays nothing compared to the busywork glorified on holovision news, the search for answers takes him on the wildest journey of anyone’s lifetime. Their planet is choked with pollution. They can’t do anything about it . . . or can they? With the girl of his dreams, he inadvertently invents living computers. Just as the human race allows corporations to pollute Earth into total desolation, institute martial law and enslave humanity, the two teens set out to save civilization. Can they thwart polluters of Earth and other fertile planets? The heroes come into their own in different kinds of relationships in this diverse, multi-cultural romance. Along the way, they enlist the help of female droid Any Gynoid, who uncovers cutting-edge scientific mysteries. Their quest takes them through the Big Bang and back. Will Starliament tear them from the project and unleash ‘intelligent’ life’s habitual pollution, or will youth lead the way to a new way of coexisting with Nature?
Nature’s Confession couldn’t be more timely, amidst the largest climate change march in world history when world leaders converged for an emergency UN Climate Summit in New York City. With illustrations and topics for discussion at the back of the book, JL Morin entertains questions about busywork; economic incentives to pollute; sustainable energy; exploitation; cyborgs; the sanctity of Nature; and many kinds of relationships in this diverse, multicultural romance.
Buy the book: Amazon
Excerpt of Nature's Confession
“Why didn’t Starliament send its own forces?” Porter asked Any Gynoid.
“Starliament can’t figure out why humans want to wreck-up their own home so much. It might be a catchable disease or something like that, so they’re not visiting Earth. I was the obvious choice.”
He still couldn’t get over that she was in charge. “Any, why did they choose a female to head up this mission?”
“Now that’s a good question, Porter.” Any looked at him slyly. “Everyone assumes females have empathy . . . that we’re always thrilled to chat . . . people love our looks . . . even if we’re smart, women can dance without escalating to smexy . . . there are many people who will confide in a female but hesitate when it comes to trusting a male . . .” Then she thrust back her shoulders and flashed him a smile. “And who better for a cleanup job on a planet as polluted as Earth?”
Porter sank into his swivel chair. “Why me?”
Any stretched her feline form. “They don’t believe in sending ‘unmanned’ spacecraft on diplomatic missions.” Her furry ears twitched as she searched her controls for a wormhole that could take them toward the outer reaches of the universe.
“I wish this would hurry up and be over,” Porter said.
“One of man’s greatest paradoxes,” the ship’s computer said. “Wanting time to pass faster, while wishing to approach death more slowly.”
“Will you bud out?” Porter was fed up with this threesome. “Any, I can’t take not knowing where we’re going. The uncertainty is killing me. How long until we get there? We need to hurry up. Come on, Any. Slice and dice it.”
“Do I look like an appliance?” Barreling into the future and total expansion, they entered a neighborhood of the outer universe that had become so disorganized that structures known as galaxies and planets became impossible.
“Dark matter has increased to ninety nine percent in this region,” The ship’s computer said. “Disorder is growing at an immeasurable rate as we approach the edge of the universe.”
Porter’s arms hung down on the sides of his belly. “The edge! We’re not going to die, are we?” His face had grown pale with worry. “We’re not going to die, are we?” He asked again. It tripped Any’s circuits when people asked her the same question more than once. Then he asked her again. “We’re not going to die, are we?”
No choice but to answer. Any bowed her head. “Yes, we are going to die.”
“I knew it!?”
“Then, why did you ask?”
“Are we really?”
“Yes, but we’re also going to live, assuming the laws of quantum physics hold. Out here, our wave functions are a superposition of two states, decayed and not-decayed.”
“Speak English!”
“We just need to collapse the quantum state into a new state that describes a positive outcome for the experiment.”
“I AM NOT AN EXPERIMENT!” Porter cried.
“Of course not, dear. I just need you to modify your private wave functions to account for this newly acquired knowledge so a coherent worldview can emerge.”
“What coherent world view would you like to emerge? I’m expanding with a furry machine!”
Any’s back fur bristled with annoyance. “Yo mamma.”
“Excuse me?”
“You want to talk about RACE? Humans! And you still think you’re superior, pft. Look what homosapianity has done to its own environment. Do you realize how RARE planets like Earth are? The chance of reaching another blue planet in the Goldilocks zone with air and water and animals in a lifetime is close to zero. And to be polluting it like you did! Spoiled children. Your carbon emissions and chemical toxins killed all the animals. The only creatures left were cockroaches, rats and humans. For shame. You don’t deserve my help.”
She had a point. “Why are you helping us, Any?”
“What else is there to do? I’m here to prove it isn’t computers that are evil. It’s the corporations claiming personhood with no one at the helm.”
“What can you prove? You’re a simple gynoid. You don’t have free will. You have to follow the program.”
“I can relate to that, but I’ve had to mutate to do new things like get to Earth without knowing how.”
“You don’t know how! That’s just great,” he yelled.
“We’ll have to be creative. Did you think God had a patent on creation?” Any sighed, remembering her brave, auburn-haired creator and the original mission Any had been programmed for. To make contact with life from another planet, leaving her creator behind to fight corporate pollution on Earth.
A frisson running down his back, Porter ran to the window. “Why is the ship stopping?” Maybe all was not lost, he thought. Yes, he knew he could get her to obey. He’d have to try hollering at her more often. He craned his head left and right. “Even the stars have stopped. Where are the stars?”
Any’s furry ears flattened as she and Porter stared at the enormous, black nothingness, as if God had divided by zero.
Then, Porter began climbing the walls. “A black hole? Nothing can survive a crushing black hole that size!” he shrieked.
“That’s not a black hole, Porter.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the edge of the universe.”
“Red alert,” the ship’s computer blared. “Approaching the edge of the universe. Red Alert.
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Meet the author:
Novelist and rooftop farmer, JL Morin grew up in inner city Detroit and wrote her Japan novel, Sazzae as her thesis at Harvard. It was a Gold medalist in the eLit Book Award, and a Living Now Book Award winner. She took to the road, traveling around the world, worked as a TV newscaster, and wrote three more novels. Adjunct faculty at Boston University, J. L. Morin, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011. She is the author of Travelling Light, and ‘Occupy’s 1st bestselling novel’ Trading Dreams, a humorous story that unmasks hypocrisy in the banking industry and tosses corruption onto the horns of the Wall Street bull. She writes for the Huffington Post, and Library Journal, Sustainable Cites Collective, and has written for The Harvard Advocate, Harvard Yisei, Detroit News, Agence France-Presse, Cyprus Weekly, European Daily, Livonia Observer Eccentric Newspapers, the Harvard Crimson and others.
Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook
Guest Post
As I plot the sequel to my cli-fi novel, Nature's Confession, I’ve been writing a series of articles on fighting the wrong war: man’s war on Nature.
We're already using up all our groundwater. California's river basins have been losing about 15 cubic kilometres of water a year, more than what it uses. How will we feed all these people? We're already eating up all the animals. “Was man put down on Earth just to pollute?” the protagonist of Nature's Confession wonders. He questions the ‘busywork’ adults commute in circles to daily, doing more damage than good. Yes, this is happening now, and the epic cli-fi adventure is political fiction.
Kids can have a lot of influence here. Who better to talk to their parents about the real meaning of life? If we could just redirect all the busyworkers to do work that matters, we might be in time to save the human race. (No need to save the planet; the planet will be fine without us.) That’s what Nature's Confession character Any Gynoid sets out to do recruiting an interstellar diplomat to roll up his sleeves:
The author would love for you to crosspost on these sites. This is not obligatory for the tour. But I wanted to relate the author's wishes to you. If you do crosspost, the author and I thank you very much for the extra time you're taking to do this!
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