Emergency Skin

, #3

epub, 33 pages

English language

Published by Amazon Original Stories.

5 stars (1 review)

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.

An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out eons ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.

N. K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting

1 edition

Get out of here, billionaires!

5 stars

Em português → sol2070.in/2023/07/Conto-Emergency-Skin,-N.K.-Jemisin

Science fiction author N.K. Jemisin had been on my to-read list for a while, because her awards, her inclusivity, and because of her portrayal of sociopolitical issues like racism.

Listening to a podcast by Annalee Newitz - author of "The Terraformers" - there is a reference to a short story by Jemisin, as being the best response to Ayn Rand's so influential right-wing libertarianism.

That story is "Emergency Skin". I picked up the audio version (in English, an hour long). It was my first time with this format and I loved it - perhaps because of the competence of the voice actor.

It is a dystopia (which becomes utopia) quite relevant in these times. In a very distant future, the class of billionaires and oligarchs in general flees to another planet, due to the socio-environmental collapse on Earth, abandoning to die the 99% of the population …