Novel Ecologies: Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech

Carruth’s (environmental media, art, and research, Princeton Univ.; Global Appetites: American Power and the Literature of Food) highly theoretical new book, which is also BISAC’ed as literary criticism/semiotics and theory, articulates and explores a tension between two senses of the word “novel”: novelty, read in this book, as the new ecologies posited by a techno-utopian view of a green future, along with the novel as a storytelling vehicle. The book opens with the detritus of the industrial age in the United States. Carruth argues that much of how society frames and proposes to address the planet’s ongoing environmental catastrophes is simply a continuation of that capitalism-powered industrial juggernaut, masked by remote server farms and the sleek Tomorrowland aesthetic of today’s high-tech corporate campuses. This isn’t a new idea—Carruth’s study is rich with references—but it serves to highlight her presentation of works of fiction, poetry, visual art, and music that encourage human imagination of a different future. Fans of Jeff VanderMeer, Becky Chambers, and Octavia Butler will appreciate the chapters focusing on these authors’ works.