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An end-of-the-world love story, an epic full of pathos and humor, asking what can be saved of our planet.
Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.
Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love―or any love―seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts―and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?
By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a "soul globule" and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers.
"[R]emarkable...Unferth shines in her ability to craft relatable characters in extraordinary circumstances, and the novel remains accessible even as it explores deep ontological questions about the nature of life. This is profound." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[P]rofound, funny, alarming, and imbued with love and sorrow for our lost world. A quirky, bold, and endearing masterpiece of climate fiction." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Unferth follows her madcap present-day econovel, Barn 8, with a crystalline, poetic, witty, and haunting post-depopulation tale of loss, adaptation, unexpected beauty, and surpassing love. Every moment is enrapturing, every twist heart-seizing in this keenly imagined, ravishing, and profound celebration of life in extremis." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Earth 7 begins where most love stories would give up: with the world already gone. In the tradition of Ursula K. Le Guin, Unferth uses the machinery of speculative fiction to ask the oldest questions... . A heart-cracking, mind-expanding, and exhilarating novel." ―Jonathan Miles, author of Eradication
This information about Earth 7 was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Nick Berard
Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's.
Name Pronunciation
Deb Olin Unferth: OH-lin UN-furth
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