Harare Review of Books

352 pages.

First published on August 15, 2023 (Atria Books)

Fiction/climate.

It’s hard to stop thinking about the climate crisis now: Maui, Bangladesh, Malawi, China… and the list keeps growing. Wildfires, floods, landslides, extreme heat. No surprise then that there’s so much climate fiction coming out, and that so much new fiction has references to climate change (if you don’t like to think of cli-fi as its own genre).

The Great Transition is one of the former, a book wholly focussed on the climate crisis that’s set in a future where We the People are winning the battle against climate criminals—the oligarchs who are driving us all off the climate cliff—and against climate change, because the world has finally got to zero emissions. The novel dares us to imagine a future where workers and ordinary people have retaken control of political power and of huge multinational companies, where these companies are run as co-ops; a world where there are “Half-Earth” agreements to protect the planet’s biomes, and only Indigenous people can live in those areas where nature is protected and thrives; where a small family is torn apart by the basic question of when we can be sure enough has been done to ensure the future.

Nick Fuller Googins turns what could easily be an insufferable, preachy novel in the hands of another author—you know who—into an aching story of loss and connection in the face of a shattered world, where the aforementioned small family may break, but where a kind of brutal hope remains for humankind’s future. I can’t imagine the world Googins has built, and that hurts; I cannot be as hopeful as this novel is for our climate future; I don’t believe ordinary people can win against the capitalists who are so bent on winning everything at the expense of everything and everyone else. But for the hours I spent immersed in the novel, Googins just about made me a believer, made me hopeful a way could be found, even as he told this thrilling, action-filled story with a tender heart.

The narrative is superbly split between the points of view of Larch, the loving father and confused husband, and his daughter Emi, a typical teenager with a mother who seems unreasonably harsh. There are undeniably cool, militant climate rebels (so like real life). Emi’s mother, Kristina, is hard, but understandably so. The future is full of new tech, but is recognisable. And the story at the heart of the story, about a family trying to survive unimaginable pressures, is beautifully executed.

The Great Transition is excellent, and highly recommended. Thank you to Edelweiss and to Atria Books for this DRC.

Suggested companion reads:

• Denial x Jon Raymond also explores the idea of climate criminals, and is very relevant.
• The Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires x Douglas Rushkoff, an account of what some of today’s climate criminals are up to.
• Unleashed x Cai Emmons (ARC) — out tomorrow! for an interesting story about California’s wildlife season.
• The Displacements x Bruce Holsinger, another excellent novel about a family and climate change.

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