Star's Reach: A Novel Of The Deindustrial Future Paperback – April 19, 2014

This is one of the best global warming fiction books I have read.It is set in what is left of the United States a couple of hundred years in the future. All the fossil fuel is burnt, all the ice is gone, sea levels are much higher, and there is not much left of modern technology.People walk long distances to travel, or ride horses if they are rich.The main character Trey is a “ruinman”, which is the profession of going into old buildings and trying to find scraps left over from the collapse of civilization. Mostly metal.And the story is a quest for “Star’s Reach”, which is the most famous ruin yet not found by anybody. Every ruinman’s big dream is to get a piece of this dig.Eventually Trey finds the Star’s Reach. And he finds that humans have successfully communicated with multiple alien races too far away to ever actually visit, or have them visit Earth.One interesting point was that in those communications, some of the aliens mentioned the “usual mistake”, which seems to be burning all the fossil fuel. And some of the alien civilizations are even worse off than humanity as a consequence of that usual mistake.The humans are not off too bad. They disapprove of burning fossil fuel (there is a scene where someone is buried alive for burning some natural gas). But their society is functioning. People can walk the roads without being robbed. The ruinmen are organized in guilds and have excellent relations with each other. People have a great time every year when the rains start falling, with lots of parties.One of the characters wants to make sure that the old errors are not repeated. And much of society is wired against the ways of the old civilization.I am not quite sure that there is a need for that. If all the fossil fuel is burned, it will take millions of years to form again, and it will be impossible to repeat the “usual mistake”, even if there were no objections.All in all, this is a rather optimistic view of the future after the carbon party is over.The story proceeds in a non-linear way. The order of pages and the order of things happening in the story is not the same. It jumps all over the time line. It is as if the author, who holds the title of “archdruid”, was writing the book in the order of the things he wanted most to write, and didn’t bother to change the order back to a linear progression once he was done with that.But that worked rather well for me with this book.

Greer shares an epic tale of a future world not too different than our current. We have suffered a departure from our own destiny. There is no escape from the consequence of taking more than we need and there is no solution beyond our cognizant awareness. May we have the wisdom to tell a new story.

Star's Reach is set in a post-disaster world, but unlike any other I have encountered. Although much has changed over time, the reader is given clues to recognize the original names, places and institutions. This is no dystopian future, but a portrait, carefully constructed of a world built on the bones of an older world. Even though there are no illustrations, it almost seems that there are photographs accompanying every scene. I feel that I know this place and I can see it in my mind. It seems like a glimpse into a true future, strange and beautiful.I find myself making connections with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. There is a quest, a band of comrades and a need to deal with power and evil. But the tale can only work out its meaning against the background of a fully realized world. As 'Middle Earth' has been described as the main character of Tolkien's trilogy, I would say that the same is true for the world of Star's Reach.

Like everything Greer writes, this novel of the "deindustrial future" is thoughtful, delightfully readable, and more complex than it initially appears. The story's narrator, a professional scavenger in a future North America reduced to poverty by fossil fuel depletion and climate change, finds a clue to the location of a place, long considered a mere legend, where the government of the former United States communicated with aliens. Fascinated, he dedicates himself to searching for it, crisscrossing half the continent, collaborating with half a dozen interesting characters, and through them getting accidentally involved in national politics. Without spoilers: the outcome of the quest is quite satisfying but not at all the trite sci-fi resolution a different author might have given us. While the protagonist expresses his voice in straightforward, simple language appropriate to a young man of considerable intelligence but limited education, the overall plot structure is complex, nonlinear and carefully planned, often giving teasers about momentous past events then making the reader wait several chapters to find out what happened.The projection of what eastern America might look like environmentally and economically in a couple of centuries is interesting and mostly plausible, if jazzed up a bit for the sake of fiction. The successor culture Greer creates for the story is poor compared to ours and hardly utopian, but also not dystopian. It includes what might be called a "neo-neopagan" environmental consciousness embraced by the entire public (which is perhaps too much to hope for on that timescale) and significant roles for women in politics and what's left of academia (in contrast to the apparent assumption of some male declinist writers that as soon as times get tough, women will go cheerfully back to total subordination). The book is highly recommended.

As a huge fan of Greer's prodigious output of non-fiction writings, I approached Star's Reach with some trepidation. Polemical fiction is hard to pull off successfully, as at least one other writer from the peak oil scene has proved in the last few years. Happily, the hard-earned fruits of JMG's apprenticeship in SF writing are well in evidence in this novel. Greer weaves many of his non-fiction themes - the universal arc of civilisation, retreat from fossil-fuelled unsustainability, thaumaturgy, apocalyptical thinking - skilfully into the narrative, largely resisting the temptation to let one of his characters go off on a projected rant.You don't have to be an American to enjoy connecting today's place names with the ones they've morphed into in 400 years' time, and there is some wry humour when it comes to the bits of today's culture that manage to survive into entirely different times; think of Morris Dancing in our own age.Thoroughly recommended.

Having read a few of John Michael Greer's non fiction books I had a good idea of the context, however, that didn't take any novelty away from the story.The book is set 500 years in the future, after fossil fuels have run out. Unfortunately for those on the earth technology has not come up with a solution, and humanity has to live with a much more basic lifestyle, more in keeping with the past, but not completely without technology.The story follows a character called Trey who seeks to find Stars Reach, which may or may not, allow humanity to progress once again by communicating with other species in space.Its a good page turner, and well written. Well above the average and somewhat unconventional in its context.

A very thoughtful read on a possible future.I enjoyed it immensely.

Amazing book, I was hooked from the start. Skillfully blends in the practical realities of a post industrial world with scifi adventure.

purchased this book for my Son-in-law as his request for Xmas, delivery was fast and he liked it a lot.