In the Spring issue of Ecology & Action, Mary Woodbury, author and publisher of Dragonfly.eco, lists some of her favourite Eco-Fiction that Inspires Action. Among them is Nina Munteanu’s eco-novel “A Diary in the Age of Water.”
“Fiction exploring humanity’s impacts on nature is becoming more popular. It has the distinct ability to creatively engage and appeal to readers’ emotions. In fact, it can stir environmental action. A survey I took last year showed that 88% of its participants were inspired to act after reading ecological fiction.
Principled by real science and exalting our planet’s beauty, these stories are works of art. They live within classic modes of fiction exploring the human condition, but also integrate the wild. They can be referred to as “rewilded stories.” The following Canadian titles are some of my favourites in this genre.”
MARY WOODBURY
Dirt road to Long Lake in a misty light rain in early spring, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
I appeared recently on the Sustainably Geeky Podcast Episode 33 “Making a Splash” to talk with host Jennifer Hetzel about all things to do with water, from physics and chemistry to geography and politics. We discussed what a limnologist does (like zoom around lakes in a jet boat and collect water samples, among other things).
Here is their blurb about the episode:
“Water you waiting for? This month we talk with limnologist and cli-fi author Nina Munteanu about the water cycle and how human activity affects it. Nina discusses the importance of water in all its forms, and its affect on global warming.”
Click below to listen:
Jackson Creek in early winter high flow, ON (photo and dry brush rendering by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
In my recent eco-novel A Diary in the Age of Water the limnologist Lynna makes the following entry in her diary in 2057:
Last night after supper, Hilde and I went for a walk along Shaw to Christie Pits, where I used to play as a kid. She wanted to show me the magnificent aurora borealis that had been streaming dramatically for the past several weeks. When I was a kid, auroras this far south were unheard of. Now they are common. The night sky was clear, and we enjoyed the fresh spring air as we ambled down Shaw Street. We parked ourselves on the damp grass among other spectators of the colourful night sky and watched the dancing light show.
It was mesmerizing: ribbons of mostly green and pink light rippled as if tugged by a mischievous wind. They danced with a kind of life that brought me back to my childhood. Northern lights happen when the magnetic field of our planet is disturbed by the solar wind. As the particles slide along the contours of the Earth’s magnetosphere, they glow as they lose their energy. The particles energize the air molecules enough to make them glow in various colours, depending on the composition of the gases.
Earth’s magnetic field is generated and maintained by an ocean of superheated, swirling metal around a solid iron core. These act like a dynamo to create electrical currents, which, in turn, create our magnetic field. But our magnetic field is weakening, and a flip is imminent. In the past two hundred years, the field has weakened by fifteen percent. That’s why we’re seeing these auroras in Toronto. A weaker field creates more auroras. They’ve become common here, particularly during the winter and spring months. Nasa predicts that the field could be gone in five hundred years or less and then take another two hundred years to rebuild.
The field will first become more complex and might show more than two magnetic poles—playing havoc with our navigation systems and God knows what else—until it is entirely gone. Then it will presumably build and align in the opposite direction. When the magnetic field goes, so will our shield against radiation. First, the ozone layer—our shield against ultraviolet rays—will be stripped away, and then the atmosphere may lose other key elements and grow thinner. Will we end up like Mars 4.2 billion years ago, when severe solar storms stole its very atmosphere and evaporated all its water?
Mars once had a strong magnetic field like Earth. But then Mars cooled and its conducting geodynamo stopped rotating. In the absence of the protective field, the solar wind surged in and excited the ions in the upper Martian atmosphere to an escape velocity. The solar wind just swept the air away. The surface pressure of the Martian atmosphere dwindled from one thousand millibars to six millibars. Mars lost about the same atmosphere that Earth has today.
Mars is our destiny; it’s just a question of when. We’re all batteries, running dry. I considered this probable fate for Earth as we watched the exquisite example of our changing magnetic field. But I didn’t share it with Hilde, who watched with her mouth open in rapt wonder. If she’s lucky, she will experience no more of this progression than these amazing auroras. The weakening magnetic field and the associated loss of protection and atmosphere won’t happen for a while. I hope. —A Diary in the Age of Water
Earth’s magnetic field
In a 2019 article in New Atlas, David Szondy tells us that “North isn’t quite where it was after the Earth’s north geomagnetic pole made an unexpected sprint across arctic Canada.” Apparently the magnetic pole is moving faster than predicted. The shift is caused by a push/pull between two patches of magnetic field—one under Canada and another under Siberia. The Canadian one appears to be weakening…
Every few hundred thousand years our magnetic field reverses—with the magnetic north switching places with the magnetic south. The last major geomagnetic reversal occurred 780,000 years ago. Between the full geomagnetic reversals—which can last up to 10,000 years—shorter disruptions occur. These are called geomagnetic excursions and are short-lived, involving temporary changes to the magnetic field that last from a few hundred to a few thousand years. The most recent recorded geomagnetic excursion is called the Laschamps Excursion some 42,000 years ago.
“The Laschamps Excursion was the last time the magnetic poles flipped,” explains Chris Turney, one of the lead scientists of a study reported in Science. “They swapped places for about 800 years before changing their minds and swapping back again.”
Although scientists have known about these magnetic pole events, they have not clearly understood their impacts on life and the environment. A study published in the journal Science reported on a recent discovery in New Zealand of an ancient kauri tree, that not only confirmed the time of the magnetic collapse, but shed some light on the dramatic period of environmental change, particularly in the time leading up to the few hundred years the Earth’s magnetic field was reversed. These included a depleted ozone layer, higher levels of ultraviolet radiation, and increased atmospheric ionization, all coalescing about 42,000 years ago in the Laschamps Excursion. “Early humans around the world would have seen amazing auroras, shimmering veils and sheets across the sky,” says Alan Cooper, one of the lead scientists. “It must have seemed like the end of days.”
Ancient Kauri tree unearthed in New Zealand (image by New Atlas)
The researchers also speculated that the magnetic field disruption led to an influx of cave art, driven by the need to seek shelter from the increase in ultraviolet rays—particularly during solar flares. The researchers also suggested that the event prompted the extinction of several megafauna in Australia and the end for Neanderthals—whose extinction occurred around 42,000 years ago.
Cooper points to the current movements of the north magnetic pole across the Northern Hemisphere as a potential warning sign of an impending event.
“This speed – alongside the weakening of Earth’s magnetic field by around nine per cent in the past 170 years – could indicate an upcoming reversal,” says Cooper. “If a similar event happened today, the consequences would be huge for modern society. Incoming cosmic radiation would destroy our electric power grids and satellite networks.”
Alan Cooper
Terraforming Mars (images by NASA)
Making Mars Inhabitable By Re-establishing its Magnetic Field
“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said NASA’s John Grunsfeld.”This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water – albeit briny – is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”
That was step one. Mars was once just like Earth, with a thick atmosphere and lots of water.
In a 2017 article in Science Alert, Peter Dockrill reported that “NASA wants to launch a giant magnetic field to make Mars habitable.” This bold plan was to give Mars its atmosphere back and make it habitable for future generations of human colonists consists of launching a giant magnetic shield into space to protect Mars from solar winds. With the shield in place, scientists argued that we could restore the atmosphere and terraform the Martian environment so that liquid water flows on the surface again. Mars once had a thick atmosphere like Earth currently has.
In 2018 NASA concluded: “Our results suggest that there is not enough CO2 (carbon dioxide) remaining on Mars to provide significant greenhouse warming were the gas to be put into the atmosphere; in addition, most of the CO2 gas is not accessible and could not be readily mobilized. As a result, terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology.”
Then in 2019, Harvard scientists proposed a way around the problem of insufficient CO2 for greenhouse warming. They proposed that by “covering certain areas of the Martian surface with a thin layer of silica aerogel, namely areas with large amounts of water ice, enough sunlight will come through for warming and combine with natural heating processes beneath the surface to create a potentially habitable environment.”
The study demonstrated through experiments and modelling that under Martian environmental conditions, a 2–3 cm-thick layer of silica aerogel would simultaneously transmit sufficient visible light for photosynthesis, block hazardous ultraviolet radiation and raise temperatures underneath it permanently to above the melting point of water, without the need for any internal heat source.
“Once temperatures were adequate, the gases released from the ice in the lakes and regolith (soil) would build up to form a pressurized atmosphere under the aerogel layer. If successful up to that point, microbes and plant life could theoretically survive. “Placing silica aerogel shields over sufficiently ice-rich regions of the Martian surface could therefore allow photosynthetic life to survive there with minimal subsequent intervention,” the scientists suggested. This photosynthetic life would go on to produce oxygen for pickier Earth dwellers to utilize,” reports Dacia J. Ferris of Teslarati.
p.s. I’m sure I’m not the only one who sees the irony of this situation: Mars has insufficient CO2to warm its atmosphere, when Earth suffers from an excess of this greenhouse-warming gas. While going to Mars is one of my dreams (quite unrealizable for me; but I’m allowed to dream, no?), I still harbor an unsettling feeling that comes with the uncertainty about our prowess and respect in this endeavor. We haven’t exactly been successful in controlling our own runaway global warming or other degradation of our living ecosystems. Read Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles to get my meaning.
“Watch those disposable coffee cups!”
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
I was recently interviewed by Matt Nappo on Minddog TV in New York, where we talked about the science and magic of water, climate change and how to not become cynical, the process of writing, what scares us and what takes us through it into great storytelling.
Here’s the interview:
Matt Nappo interviews limnologist and clifi author Nina Munteanu on minddog TV
Cattails oversee the snowy plain of the iced-over Trent Canal, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
“In this bonus episode, we continue our conversation with limnologist and cli-fi author Nina Munteanu. We discuss her book A Diary in the Age of Water and what led her to write this dystopian tale of a future that revolves around water scarcity. Nina’s background as a limnologist gives her a unique perspective on the challenges that await us if we do not address climate change.”
Click below to listen:
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain—Leonardo daVinci
You pause at the front door of the eco-house that you and your partner designed in Vancouver’s Point Grey and pull up the collar of your jacket. The air is fresh with the promise of snow and you smile with thoughts of spring skiing at Whistler.
You glance at the time display on your Smart Glasses. You’ve decided to forego the WaveGate and walk to the café; you have plenty of time to walk through the hilly forested streets, with a view of English Bay. You want to check out the refurbished solar-house on Locarno Cresent that your company helped design. Based on a living model of Biomimicry, the house is the latest iteration of your company’s “symbiosis” model of 100% sustainability, in which people live in a cooperative and synergistic partnership with their environment. The house is an intelligent organic facility with self-cleaning floors and walls; heated, fueled and lit by organisms in a commensal relationship. Everything works on a natural cycle of harmonious renewal and natural evolution. You smile, rather self-pleased. It has taken you a few years to convince the city council to accept this new model in community design. Now, it’s happening everywhere.
It’s April 12, 2074. A special day. And a special year. The year of the wooden horse in the Chinese calendar. Also called the green horse, it’s associated with spring, growth and vitality. The horse symbolizes nobility, class speed and perseverance. Horse energy is pure unbridled spirit. Playful, wild and independent, the horse has a refined instinct that flows through action and movement. Together, these symbols promise both chaos and great opportunity. And transformation.
The year of the wooden horse only occurs every sixty years. And sixty years ago today your mom turned sixty. You release a boyish grin at what you intend to do in celebration. On that day, sixty years ago, she celebrated her sixtieth birthday with the release of Natural Selection, her collection of speculative short stories about human evolution, AI, genetic manipulation, transhumanism, and the human-‘machine’ interface. She also celebrated the local printing of Metaverse, the third book of her space detective trilogy, The Splintered Universe. It was the second book to be printed by Toronto Public Library’s newly acquired Espresso Book Machine; one of only two EBMs in Toronto at the time.
A smile slants across your face as you remember what libraries and bookstores used to look like then. Both were struggling with a changing paradigm of reading, writing and publishing. Many of the older folk feared that books—print books, particularly—were going extinct as more exciting channels of communication like videos, interactive games and instant social networking took over. Of course, that didn’t happen. “Story” and “storytelling” were simply evolving and the paradigm shift simply embraced a new model that incorporated more diverse expression. You remember conversations with your mom about Chapters-Indigo, whose face changed from a bookstore to a gift store and tchotchke filled more and more of the storefront. As large bookstores struggled to dominate, the EBM—like its lithe mammal cousins in the Cenozoic Era—created a new niche for itself: the book ATM.
The size of a Smart Car, the EBM could fit nicely in a stylish café, housing and dispensing—Tardis-style—many more books than its diminutive size. In 2014, the EBM carried over eight million titles, including commercial books and out-of print gems. That number has tripled as virtually every publisher embraced the Book ATM model to sell books.
You inhale the tantalizing aroma of freshly ground and brewed coffee before you reach Zardoz Café. The retro-style café is a converted Edwardian-style house with high arched windows and a living roof overlooked by tall sycamore trees. You climb the stairs and enter the café. Its 2020’s style interior that your company helped design is decorated in earthy tones, avant-garde art, a forest of dracaenas and ferns and a stepped creek, complete with goldfish and crayfish. A shiny brass Elektra Belle Epoque espresso maker sits at the bar, bestowing the finest fair trade coffee.
Your sweeping gaze notes several people at the small round tables, enjoying good coffee and conversation; your special guest hasn’t arrived yet. You spot the WaveGate at the back, resembling an old English pay phone. Next to it sits the EBM. Eager to do your deed before your guest arrives, you sidle to the coffee bar and catch Grace’s eye. She smiles; you’re a regular. You touch her wrist with your watch and the data passes onto her embedded interface. She taps her hand to process the book order—she insists that you not pay—then she makes your double-shot espresso—the old-fashioned way. As she grinds and taps and runs the machine, you and she chat about skiing this spring. Just as Grace hands you a perfect crema-topped espresso, the WaveGate shimmers briefly and then its door opens like an accordian.
Your mom emerges from the “tardis”, smartly dressed in an early-century blazer and skirt, and grinning like an urchin. She resembles the seventeenth Doctor a bit, you decide—the first female Doctor Who, finally! Somehow—you don’t know how she does it—her old-fashioned style manages to embrace “retro-cool”. She’s arrived from Switzerland, where she is house and cat-sitting for good friends in Gruyeres. From there she still commutes—Tardis-style—as sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto, where she maintains a tiny book-festooned office.
“Kevy!” she squeals like a girl, obviously happy to see you. You don’t cringe; you’ve grown accustomed to the ripples of interest your mom’s unalloyed enthusiasm usually creates.
“Happy birthday, Mom!” You seize her in a hug. “I’m glad you made it for your 120th birthday.” Traveling the WaveGate suits her, you consider.
“I like the tardis better than you, I think,” she says, smiling sideways at you with knowing. She’s right; you prefer the old-fashioned way of traveling, without having to reconfigure your molecules from one place to another. In fact, you prefer the old-fashioned way of doing a lot of things, you decide with an inner smile.
“I have a surprise for you, Mom,” you say with a knowing grin. Your mom likes surprises. Her eyes light up and she beams at you. You glance at Grace with a conspiratorial look. She takes the cue and starts the EBM.
“Over here,” you say, steering your mom toward the EBM, already humming like an old tomcat getting its chin scratched. Your mom bends down to watch the pages spew out of the paper holder and stack neatly in a tray, then get snatched by robotic fingers as a colour cover is created then laid below, ready to envelope the book interior. After the gluing and binding, the robots trim the book on three sides then summarily send it sliding out a chute on the side.
Your mom has guessed what the book is; but she still squeals with glee when she sees it. It’s Metaverse, of course; the book she first had printed on the EBM in Toronto’s Public Library sixty years ago on her birthday.
“I just thought you’d like another book,” you say with a laugh. Like she needs another book. But this one’s special; it’s sixty years old today. Just like she was, sixty years ago—today. You pull out your PAL and point at your mom, as she seizes the perfectly bound book. “Let me take your picture!”
She poses with the book, looking like a kid with candy. You check the image and laugh. “There it is. You don’t look a year over sixty!” You grin at your 120-year old mother.
“And you don’t look a day over twenty-three!” she teases back. You give her a slanted smile. You’re eighty-three. Beaming, she goes on, “I remember doing this exact thing sixty years ago in Toronto! Those same feelings of overwhelming gratitude and wonder are still there,” she confides. “I remember telling the CBC reporter who covered the EBM launch that it felt like a birthing.” She throws me a crooked grin. “Only the labour was on the computer instead of in the hospital!”
Visibly pleased and touched, she snatches me in a bear hug.
“This is the best present a mom could get from her son. Thanks for remembering. It’s been an incredible ride and it’s all been worth it.”
“Join me in a coffee; then I have a house to show you…” you say, smiling with pride.
The Espresso Book Machine
Many bookstores, libraries, and universities around the world are hosting the Espresso Book Machine® (EBM) by On Demand Books LLC (and associated with Lightning-Ingram). The EBM makes millions of titles available via the EspressNet® software and produces quality paperbacks in minutes at point of sale. The EBM is not a print-on-demand solution, but a powerful new digital-to-print channel that eliminates lost sales due to out-of-stock inventory or the hassle of returns.
Advantages:
Readers: millions of books, multiple languages, made on demand for you.
Bookstores, Libraries and other Retailers: sell (or lend) more titles without the extra inventory; capture the growing self-publishing market.
Publishers: the EBM offers an additional sales channel and greater visibility to a publisher’s titles. It also avoids out-of-stocks and eliminates returns.
Authors: earn additional income otherwise lost through the used-book market.
Old maple tree in Jackson Creek Park in December snow, ON (photo and dry brush rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu was recently on The Douglas Coleman Show where she and Douglas talked about writing, being scared of water, the sub-genre of eco-fiction and what Canada might have been like if the white settlers hadn’t come.
Here’s the show:
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
I recently appeared on Episode #142 of award-winning “Sample Chapter Podcast” where I had a wonderful interview with Jason Meuschke and read a sample chapter from my recent eco-novel “A Diary in the Age of Water.”
Jason and I talked about the writing process; what makes good and compelling fiction; creating realistic and interesting characters with flaws–like my flawed detective Rhea Hawke in The Splintered Universe Trilogy‘ writing eco-fiction in which environment can be a character; the “what ifs” in historical fiction and where we get our ideas (The Last Summoner came to me in a dream and later through a single image).
Episode 142 is here with a truly delightful author from Canada, Nina Munteanu. In the episode, Nina and Jason discuss character flaws, having the environment be a character in our prose, the “what ifs” in historical fiction, the writer’s “wavelengths”, and much more all before enjoying a magical chapter reading. Enjoy!
Here’s the podcast:
First snow in Thompson Creek marsh, ON (photo by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Author and reviewer Lee Hall recently compiled their list of the twenty best books they read in 2020. Says Lee:
It’s hard to believe that we’ve got to this point but we have. For all the words you could use to describe the dumpster fire that is and was 2020 I am going to use the word grateful.
Grateful for the authors who have provided me with not only an escape through their wonderful works but grateful to them for providing a vital centre pillar of content for this blog – reviews. Some of these creators have become friends and important connections in the world of online authoring for me. This post is dedicated to them and the best books I have read this year.
While the criteria of ‘best books’ is derived mainly from my own personal taste it is also influenced by how many views the review got on here along with my admiration for the author. These works are an extension of some wonderful personalities who make up an incredible community.
A truly important once in a generation read that flows like a wild river right through your imagination and heart…– Quote from my review
I’m being 100% serious when I say ‘A Diary in the Age of Water’ is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. For what it stands for is truly a statement towards our own damning of this beautiful planet and our most precious resource – water. Canadian Author Nina Munteanu has put together a masterful look at where we could possibly end up if we don’t act. This one was another Reedsy Discovery find and thus totally justified my joining of the platform well and truly!
LEE HALL
Country road in winter, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu’s cli-fi eco-novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” just released in summer of 2020 received several favourable reviews from Kirkus Reviews, The Winnipeg Free Press, and TheMiramichi Reader. The speculative novel about four generations of woman and their unique relationship with water was recently awarded the Literary Titan Award for a book that “expertly delivers complex characters, intricate worlds, and thought provoking themes. The ease with which the story is told is a reflection of the author’s talent in exercising fluent, powerful, and appropriate language.”
“While bringing attention to the current politicization of climate change, the story maintains important underlying themes like family, love, forgiveness, and the complexity of the human soul. The author has gone to great lengths to show that there are different layers to each character, none fully evil nor fully good. A Diary in the Age of Water is an exceptional and thought-provoking dystopian fiction.” —LITERARY TITAN (4-star)
“In Canadian ecologist Munteanu’s novel, a child in a world of climate disaster discovers hidden truths about the past in a mysterious journal. In a story set centuries in the future, a young girl with four arms named Kyo lives on the last vestige of a planet damaged by climate crisis, water scarcity, and a cataclysm brought on by semi-divine figures called the Water Twins. Kyo comes across the 21st-century journal of a limnologist named Lynna; over two decades, the journal’s author details Earth’s fate with scientific observations on the harm wrought by corporate greed, as well as her own personal struggles raising a child in a world of catastrophe and authoritarianism. She’s a deeply relatable and tragically flawed character who’s wracked by doubt, fear, and cynicism—a stark contrast to her fierce environmentalist mother, Una, and her spiritual, idealistic daughter, Hildegard. What unites them all is the study of water: its intrinsic properties, its mysteries, and ultimately its necessity to the planet. In poetic prose (“We’re going down in a kind of slow violence”) with sober factual basis, Munteanu transmutes a harrowing dystopia into a transcendentalist origin myth…the author asks uncomfortable questions and explores the effects of one generation’s actions upon the next as they ripple outward like a stone dropped in a pond. A sobering and original cautionary tale that combines a family drama with an environmental treatise.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Futuristic novel awash with water warnings”
“An engaging epistolary novel. An ecologist and environmental activist herself, Munteanu has no difficulty voicing a fully formed literary character who is both scientifically literate enough to understand how quickly human society is entering its final ebb, and humane enough to mourn the fullness of this tragedy.
The prose here is beautiful and purposeful in the tradition of environmentally and socially minded novelists such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Atwood… It comes down to water: ice sheets, rain and drought, the loss of water tables and the collapse of marine ecologies in an acidifying ocean. The pulse and rhythm of life on this planet is water. Its death throes, too, can be read in the flow of water.
Munteanu has produced something which joins George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, Le Guin and Atwood, a warning of the direction we are heading that will be valuable even if we manage to avert disaster.” —Joel Boyce, WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
“A Diary in the Age of Water commands reader interest on a number of levels…a chilling but believable portrayal of what might happen as fresh water becomes scarcer… Munteanu’s novel provides a cautionary note for what might happen if we fail to pay attention to this precious resource.” —Lisa Timpf, MIRAMICHI READER
Short Synopsis
A Diary in the Age of Water follows the climate-induced journey of the Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to her world and to water. Water plays both metaphoric and literal roles in this allegorical tale of humanity’s final journey from home—where male sterility, heat-shock proteins, horizontal gene transfer, and virgin-births rule a changing world of water securitization through ambitious environmental manipulation (e.g., resurrecting the US Army Corps of Engineers 1960s NAWAPA/CeNAWP plan to create the 800 km long Rocky Mountain Trench reservoir and divert most of northern Canada’s water to the USA—drowning a fifth of BC).
Told in far-future and near-future frames, the central part of the story is a diary by a limnologist, whose personal account creates a terrifying realism to the geo-political tension of water securitization, plague containment, and police oppression—the diary spans from 2045 to 2064 (when the diarist disappears herself).
The cli-fi novel begins centuries from now in the dying northern boreal forest with young KYO, a blue water nymph with multiple arms who dreams of the past and of being a normal human. She is on her way to the library to memorize a textbook on the Age of Water and there discovers a piece of her past from that age when The Water Twins destroyed the world. Kyo discovers a diary by a limnologist (who happens to be the mother of one of the Twins). Intrigued, Kyo drops the textbook and reads the diary. The diary, by cynical limnologist LYNNA, describes a near-future Toronto in the grips of severe water scarcity. The gritty memoir describes Toronto in a time when China owns the USA and the USA owns Canada, and aggressively mines its water. While lamenting the greed and destructive nature of her race, Lynna self-servingly helps murder three people; she also gives birth to rebel daughter HILDA (one of the Water Twins) who destroys her world through water and gives virgin-birth to the next stage in human evolution: a mutant who becomes one of the Disappeared who returns centuries later in a dying world as the water keeper Kyo.
“A Diary in the Age of Water” explores identity and our concept of what is “normal”—as a nation and an individual—in a world that is rapidly and incomprehensibly changing.
Poplar trees in northern Ontario in fall (photograph by Nina Munteanu
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 