The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
In literature, nothing dates like tomorrow. The hypothetical readers of the late 21st century may look back on the Armageddon fixation of some of today’s dystopic fiction with an indulgent smile. But they may also be struck by how much of the political and physical landscape they recognise.
That the radically altered world on the horizon has already been envisaged by science presents a challenge to fiction writers conjuring humankind’s future: in an era of melting ice caps and military contingency plans, the issue is no longer what we can imagine; it is what we can’t.
