Member-only story
The Lost Cause prologue part IV
“Commies, agitators, traitors, and climate bed wetters.”
I’m coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.
My next novel is The Lost Cause, a rollicking solarpunk adventure about defending the Green New Deal from seagoing anarcho-capitalist wreckers and white nationalist militias; Bill McKibben called it “a chronicle of mutual aid that is politically perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful”:
The book comes out on Nov 14 from Tor Books and Head of Zeus, and I’m running a Kickstarter campaign to pre-sell the ebook, hardcover and (especially) the audiobook (Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks, so this is the only way to get them into readers’ hands); you can back it now:
To whet your appetite, I’m serializing the book’s prologue, which really kicks things off:
Here’s part one:
And part two:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/07/met-cute-ugly/#part-ii
And part three:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#lost-cause-prologue
And now, part four:
* * *
A couple of my friends were working on an AP science project — they’d made an enzyme they thought would break down polyethylene at room temperature — and I’d promised that I’d help them after school. Walking home past Verdugo Park, I ran into some more friends sitting in the grass and chatting, so I sat with them, watching the kids on the playground and the dog-walkers and the swordfighting class boffing each other with foam swords, and hours slipped by.
By the time I headed home, the sun was low and the day was finally starting to cool off. I remembered that I’d forgotten to pull the blinds before going out and imagined how hot and stuffy the house would be. Maybe Gramps had gotten back early enough to lower them. Otherwise, I…
