My Summer Lair Chapter #190: What Would You Do If Faced With An Extinction Level Event?
Here’s a striking image that lends itself to easy metaphor: The Effort, a sci-fi novel by Claire Holroyde begins with an 8 kilometer dark comet UD3 emerging from a blind spot hurtling towards Earth.
We never saw it coming…so as the novel unfolds humans have one year left before it hits. As the citizens of Earth grapple with the devastating news a group of scientists and nerds gather together in a Defense Effort (get it?) to avoid doom, disaster and death.
Super compelling; The NY Times listed The Effort in New & Noteworthy and I agree. It offers a number of perspectives as each member in the cast has their own hopes, setbacks and classic existential despair from a polar icebreaker to South America and lots more remarkable locations.
And sure this is a science-fiction novel and yeah it is a near-future novel but doesn’t that image also reflect our tepid responses to the environment? It’s our blind spot…often we fail to operate with a sense of urgency; with maximum effort recognizing it’s a crisis.
At least in this novel they have a clear timeframe: 1 year or else…extinction. Just like the dinosaurs.
Perhaps it’s human nature…we know we shouldn’t smoke or eat at McDonalds; we should sleep more and let friends know we appreciate them and love them and yet for all the common knowledge of all the things we should be doing and the things we’re not doing…we keep rolling on; not aware of our blind spots.
What are we overlooking?
What obvious signs have we ignored?
Like we’ve all watched Deep Impact, Armageddon and similar blockbusters offering up the same flimsy hopeful message: when the pressing issue is at hand we are galvanized.
There’s a lot going on; which is impressive considering The Effort is Clair’s debut novel. So here she is talking and exploring all these themes with me; making her debut on My Summer Lair as I give this sci-fi novel The Effort…the old college try.
Claire Holroyde @ W • T • F
Host & Photography Sammy Younan
Recorded: Wednesday January 26, 2022 at 7pm
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