Deb Olin Unferth

I'd call it a psychedelic work of genius.

Finally, Earth 7, a cli-fi masterpiece by Deb Olin Unferth.

It begins with a scientist named Rosemary Stein, who's taking her five-year-old daughter with her to live under the sea in a settlement of acrylic pods.

Beyond miserable in her lonely childhood, Dylan eventually makes an online friend, Z, who lives on Mars.

All three of these books demonstrate the impressive ambition and scope of speculative fiction and also include the careful observation of human nature and domestic drama we readers look for in literary novels.

I'm sold.

The books are Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel, Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun, and Earth 7 by Deb Olin Unferth.

For the Weekly Reader, I'm Lisa Morgan.

Now, what really does hope look like when all hope for humanity appears to be lost? Can a robot love even when it might not know what love is? or if it's even a robot at all.

These are the questions at the heart of Deb Olin Unferth's novel, Earth 7, published by Dawn Books.

What I loved about Deb's novel, however, is its inventive world building, taking us into the cosmos, its exploration of human and non-human relationships, and capacity for both fear and wonder for what the future might hold for us humans, and animals too.

Deb has quite the CV.

I'm not going to say what it is.

by Julie Bunton, and Earth 7 by Deb Olin.

And first, those are two of my very favorite books of the year, and they just need so much more love.

But I'm not mad about these, you know.