After she and fellow colonists crash land on the hostile jungle planet of Mega, rebel-scientist Izumi, widower and hermit, boldly sets out against orders on a hunch that may ultimately save her fellow survivors—but may also risk all. As the other colonists take stock, Izumi—obsessed with discovery and the need to save lives—plunges into the dangerous forest, which harbors answers, not only to their freshwater problem, but ultimately to the nature of the universe itself. Mega was a goldilocks planet—it had saltwater and supported life—but the planet also possessed magnetic-electro-gravitational anomalies and a gravitational field that didn’t match its size and mass. The synchronous dance of its global electromagnetic field suggested self-organization to Izumi, who slowly pieced together Mega’s secrets: from its “honeycomb” pools to the six-legged uber-predators and jungle infrasounds—somehow all connected to the water. Still haunted by the meaningless death of her family back on Mars, Izumi’s intrepid search for life becomes a metaphoric and existential journey of the heart that explores how we connect and communicate—with one another and the universe—a journey intimately connected with water.
Fingal’s Cave by Nina Munteanu is the first story in the Megan Survival Anthology by Reality Skimming Press. The story is available as an ebook here. The print anthology is available here.
Nina was interviewed by Ellen Mitchell of Reality Skimming Press on writing Fingal’s Cave.
On the connection between ecology and science fiction, Nina says:
The science of ecology studies relationships. It looks at how things relate to one another. Ecology is the study of communities and ecosystems and how these interact—often in a global setting. Science fiction writing explores the interaction of humanity with some larger phenomenon involving science. Robert J. Sawyer calls it the fiction of the large. Large ideas, large circumstance, large impact. Both ecology and science fiction explore consequence in a big way. Ecology—like “setting” and “world”—manifests and integrates in story theme more than some of the hard sciences, which may contribute more to a story’s premise or plot. This is because, while most sciences study the nature and behaviour of “phenomena”, ecology examines the consequences of the relationship of these phenomena and the impact of their behaviours on each other and the rest of the world. It is in this arena that science fiction becomes great: when it explores relationship and consequence.
On the significance and importance of optimism in science fiction, Nina says:
Optimistic SF is the antithesis of pointless SF. The reason I define it that way is because I believe many would box the term too tightly, equating it to “happy ending” or the equivalent of “and they all lived happily ever after.” Others may even include a certain requisite language and tone, and subject matter that must be excluded to make it optimistic.
For me, it is enough that the story resolves and has a point to it; that the reader is able—even if the hero isn’t—to see a way out into the light. The story itself need not be “optimistic”; but the reader is fulfilled somehow. I suppose one could elucidate Optimistic SF through the “Hero’s Journey Myth”, a plot approach that describes the metaphoric journey of a character or set of characters toward some destiny that involves change and learning. Ultimately, for a story to be worthwhile, it must have a point to it. Otherwise, it’s just “reality TV”.
You can read the entire interview with Nina Munteanu by Ellen Mitchell of Reality Skimming Press here.
Fingal’s Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The cave is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns in a Paleocene lava flow (similar to the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland). Its entrance is a large archway filled by the sea. The eerie sounds made by the echoes of waves in the cave, give it the atmosphere of a natural cathedral. Known for its natural acoustics, the cave is named after the hero of an epic poem by 18th century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson. Fingal means “white stranger”.
p.s. Dragon Soul Press has recently included “Fingal’s Cave” in their 2021 anthology “Space Bound.”
Fingal’s Cave was reprinted in 2023 on the online magazine Metastellar Speculative Fiction and Beyond.
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist, limnologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. 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 Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit 
Reiterating Jim Tovey’s earlier comment on the water treatment plant as its own sculpture-art, Munteanu celebrated the location and the nature of the exhibit: “When technology, art and ecology are celebrated together, you get magic.”
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist, limnologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit 
In December 2017, “Water”, the first of Reality Skimming Press’s Optimistic Sci-Fi Series was released in Vancouver, BC. I was invited to be one of the editors for the anthology, given my passion for and experience with water.
In the years that followed, Reality Skimming Press published several works, including the “Megan Survival” Anthology for which I wrote a short story, “
Hi-Sci-Fi Radio (a podcast radio show out of CJSF 90.1FM in Burnaby, British Columbia) interviewed Nina Munteanu about the paradoxes of her eco-thriller 
“In his introduction to this all-original set of (at times barely) futuristic tales, Meyer warns readers, “[The] imaginings of today could well become the cold, hard facts of tomorrow.” Meyer (Testing the Elements) has gathered an eclectic variety of eco-fictions from some of Canada’s top genre writers, each of which, he writes, reminds readers that “the world is speaking to us and that it is our duty, if not a covenant, to listen to what it has to say.” In these pages, scientists work desperately against human ignorance, pockets of civilization fight to balance morality and survival, and corporations cruelly control access to basic needs such as water. The most affecting tale, Wendy Bone’s “Abdul,” is also the least futuristic, an emotional story that touchingly contrasts Western guilt against the life of a captive orangutan. The anthology may be inescapably dark, but it is a necessary read, a clarion call to take action rather than, as a character in Seán Virgo’s “My Atlantis” describes it, “waiting unknowingly for the plague, the hive collapse, the entropic thunderbolt.” Luckily, it’s also vastly entertaining. It appears there’s nothing like catastrophe to bring the best out in authors in describing the worst of humankind.”
She imagines its coolness gliding down her throat. Wet with a lingering aftertaste of fish and mud. She imagines its deep voice resonating through her in primal notes; echoes from when the dinosaurs quenched their throats in the Triassic swamps.
A limnologist (lake ecosystem biologist) by trade, Munteanu recognizes the incredible way that water shapes life and brings attention to the fact that water connects us to each other just as water connects with other water, forming bonds. She evokes in the reader a sense of reverence for water and an awareness that the same water that flows through our bodies have flowed through the bodies of our ancestors, cycling through life since the first life forms coalesced.
“Water covers every aspect of this science fiction story that pits the vulnerable citizen against the evil multinational corporation in a dystopian Canada sometime in our future. Water is presented in its multiplicity of facets: in the science behind its composition, in its history, in it’s symbolic nature and different physical states; water is a giver and taker of life, and is the form in which the friendship of protagonists Hilda and Hanna functions. Water is also magic and the ultimate righter of wrongs committed to it and to a humanity it gives life to. Within this framework, Munteanu spins a thought-provoking tale that projects where our headlong pursuit of profit may one day lead us to, and how nature will ultimately, with a little human coaxing, be the only one to correct the balance.”—Shane Joseph, Canadian author of Fringe Dwellers
love; a story to read, not only to deal with the possible but, above all, to understand that the time still available for “love” might be less than what you believe.”—Simone Casavecchia, 
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit 
“Water, Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity” (NYU Press) by Jeremy Schmidt is an intellectual history of America’s water management philosophy. Debates over how human impacts on the planet, writes 
“A River Captured: The Columbia River Treaty and Catastrophic Change” (RMB Books) By Eileen Delehanty Pearkes reviews key historical events that preceded the Treaty, including the Depression-era construction of Grand Coulee Dam in central Washington, a project that resulted in the extirpation of prolific runs of chinook, coho and sockeye into B.C. Prompted by concerns over the 1948 flood, American and Canadian political leaders began to focus their policy energy on governing the flow of the snow-charged Columbia to suit agricultural and industrial interests. 
“Border Flows: A Century of the Canadian-American Water Relationship” (University of Calgary Press), Lynne Heasley and Daniel Macfarlane, editors, explore and discuss Canada-U.S. governance. 
“New York 2140” (Orbit) by Kim Stanley Robinson is a novel set in New York City following major sea level rises due to climate change. 
“The Death and Life of the Great Lakes” (WW Norton & Company Inc. Press) by Dan Egan is a frank discussion of the threat under which the five Great Lakes currently suffer. This book, writes 
“Downstream: reimagining water” (Wilfred Laurier University Press) by Dorothy Christian & Rita Wong “brings together artists, writers, scientists, scholars, environmentalists, and activists who understand that our shared human need for clean water is crucial to building peace and good relationships with one another and the planet. This book explores the key roles that culture, arts, and the humanities play in supporting healthy water-based ecology and provides local, global, and Indigenous perspectives on water that help to guide our societies in a time of global warming. The contributions range from practical to visionary, and each of the four sections closes with a poem to encourage personal freedom along with collective care,” writes 
Water Canada
Nina Munteanu Writing Coach 