A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - A PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER BEST OF
THE YEAR
"Woven together out of the strands of myth, science fiction, and
ecological warning, Matt Bell's Appleseed is as urgent as it is
audacious." --Kelly Link, Pulitzer Prize finalist and national
bestselling author of Get in Trouble
A "breathtaking novel of ideas unlike anything you've ever read"
(Esquire) from Young Lions Fiction Award-finalist Matt Bell, a
breakout book that explores climate change, manifest destiny, humanity's
unchecked exploitation of natural resources, and the small but powerful
magic contained within every single apple.
In eighteenth-century Ohio, two brothers travel into the wooded
frontier, planting apple orchards from which they plan to profit in the
years to come. As they remake the wilderness in their own image,
planning for a future of settlement and civilization, the long-held
bonds and secrets between the two will be tested, fractured and
broken--and possibly healed.
Fifty years from now, in the second half of the twenty-first century,
climate change has ravaged the Earth. Having invested early in genetic
engineering and food science, one company now owns all the world's
resources. But a growing resistance is working to redistribute both land
and power--and in a pivotal moment for the future of humanity, one of
the company's original founders will return to headquarters, intending
to destroy what he helped build.
A thousand years in the future, North America is covered by a massive
sheet of ice. One lonely sentient being inhabits a tech station on top
of the glacier--and in a daring and seemingly impossible quest, sets out
to follow a homing beacon across the continent in the hopes of
discovering the last remnant of civilization.
Hugely ambitious in scope and theme, Appleseed is the breakout novel
from a writer "as self-assured as he is audacious" (NPR) who "may well
have invented the pulse-pounding novel of ideas" (Jess Walter). Part
speculative epic, part tech thriller, part reinvented fairy tale,
Appleseed is an unforgettable meditation on climate change; corporate,
civic, and familial responsibility; manifest destiny; and the myths and
legends that sustain us all.
