Bøger af John Klock

The climate became damaged beyond repair, and not everyone wanted to live in it. Like everything else, the altered meteorologic conditions, known as the Shift, created a society of protected enclaves, and sociopaths surviving out in the charred remains of western North America. The temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest were dying, and scientists rushed to grow trees that could survive in this new semi-arid environment. They scavenged the western forests for the hardiest seeds and grew them in a massive nursery complex. During that time, something amazing happened, the trees began to send signals to humans, and scientists rushed to decipher them. Were they omens? A great evolutionary leap forward? No one was quite certain. Extinction loomed. Perhaps the arbors recognized that Homo sapiens were not only their nemesis, but their last hope. Millions of years of evolutionary history gave way and the trees revealed their secrets. The magnitude of this communication changed everything. The anti-science armies would have none of it; they moved across the West like a locust swarm, convinced of their divine mission. They destroyed the last vestiges of learning including the research institutes and the universities. The Shift created societal upheaval, and inflicted deep scars on the landscape, but there was a flicker of hope...the trees.

In the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, years of drought and war have devastated the land. The waters have dried up, the crops have withered, and the Taliban and other mercenaries have moved in. There are no easy answers and survival now depends on how a few select individuals can rally their people. Deep in the highlands of Nooristan, the shaman Marjanah, a woman with an indomitable will, faces down the foreign mercenaries and employs her healing powers to protect her people. Downstream in the Kunar Valley, a former mujahedeen freedom fighter is entrusted to rebuild a bombed out irrigation infrastructure to keep his community from starvation. Finally, out into the parched desert, there is an impoverished village on the brink. Here a resourceful water manager, the mirab, struggles to keep the precious ground water flowing all the while fighting to keep the Taliban shadow government from closing the schools.

Across the west, a decade of drought has devastated the water supplies, social institutions have collapsed, and people are on the move. Wild fires burn constantly, creating a "shadow wind" that darkens the landscape for years and the countryside has become sans lumière. For years on end, thousands of refugees pour into the territory of Oregon, searching for an illusory sanctuary. Amidst these tragic conditions, a nativist insurgent group called the Pacific Crest Liberation Front captures key water supplies in the Cascade Range. Now, a weakened state authority struggles to regain control of its water. In this pre-apocalyptic setting, two families set out in search of a better life. A mother and her synesthetic daughter from Reno migrate north to find a place of spirit, where citizens have banded together to restore communities and bring back the arts. A second family, uprooted from the parched agricultural fields of California, struggles to reunite with their loved ones. The migrants yearn for something more than just survival. They want to experience the joy of being human again, to feel, and to love. For those vigilant émigrés, interpreting the clues of the road is crucial to survival. In Oregon, the exiles went searching, a few found what they were looking for.