Tim Winton has the Juice

“Juice … is a work of dystopian fiction, which is a sub-genre of science fiction. You heard that right: Tim Winton has written a science fiction novel. Moreover, he has embraced many of the genre’s conventions. It is exciting to see a writer of Winton’s longevity doing something new. His attempt to break new ground will be reason enough for many readers to pick up this book.

Climate change and the future

The novel is set hundreds of years in the future. Climate change has rendered large parts of the globe uninhabitable. The narrator lives with his mother in a remote outpost halfway up Australia’s west coast, where it is too hot to go outside during the day, so most activities are conducted during the night or early morning. In the summer, they must live underground for months at a time.

Much of what we would regard as modern technology has been erased by the collapse of civilisation, for reasons now mostly forgotten. However, the narrator learns that some of the powerful families from the 21st century have retained this technology and used it to retreat into hidden fortresses. He joins a resistance movement with the mission to wipe these families from the earth.”

— from Per Henningsgaard Tim Winton goes cli-fi – his dystopian novel Juice breaks new ground to face the climate emergency