An unsolved crime from the past returns to haunt a small town just beginning to resurrect itself from its own death.
It’s the archetypal struggle of small Southern towns—how to move on, and what to keep from the wreckage of its past. A new company comes in; its CEO gets the chance to emerge from his own dark place; the town quietly resents it, but accepts the salvation it may bring.
Ranse Moore, whose family historically gave the town its name, has discovered the meaning of penance and hubris and has come to realize he’s done all he can and has to move on, too.
And Sara, a “local celebrity”, an artist and teacher raising a teenaged daughter on her own, recognizes that not all “bombs” are real, that some do their damage and clear a new way forward. For her, the hardest part of dealing with the destruction will be figuring out if she can let go of the men in her life who have controlled decisions she has to make on her own.
A country where everything’s regulated by what’s “ethical.”
Where growing old, or not, can be negotiated, depending on what you’re willing to give up.
Having children is by regulation; being frugal earns you the right to petition for a vehicle of your own; and actual currency is just for collectors.
It’s a time when antibiotics have been overused to the point of worthlessness. New ones are always rushed out, with insufficient thought about side effects.
Roadways are programmed to steer you safely away from possible dangers. Wild creatures know this and have adapted to avoid the electronic programming that vehicles cannot.
And then a minimal hurricane arrives, and insurgents who have been waiting, doing their own secret experiments, take the opportunity to wreak havoc on the area it affects.
The family matriarch dies, leaving her estate to her heirs—contingent on whether they can show they’re something more than merely greedy. But will the provisions her lawyers worked out hold up in court?
All those things, and monuments over empty graves; a woman who attends any funeral she finds out about; a relative who may or may not be responsible for a cousin’s death—all are to be recorded in Maggie’s files, since she’s inherited the role of “family historian,” somewhat against her will.
But what actually constitutes “family”?
She ponders this as on the fading of her long marriage, and as she and her cousin Berry speculate on how the relatives will be spending their inheritance….
A brilliant but arrogant meteorologist, pilot, and occasional Hurricane Hunter.
His twin sister, a bitter, acid-tongued nuclear physicist on the verge of a breakthrough.
Their other sister, an anxious, needling, passive-aggressive, very politically connected right-wing mom.
Her daughter, a progressive activist acutely aware of the flaws in everyone and everything—except herself and her circle.
And one unprecedented storm.
In the near future, climate change has continued unabated, and the media landscape makes it harder than ever to solve problems. Podcasts, streaming, and social media have triumphed utterly, and anyone can be a self-appointed “expert.” People’s attention spans are negligible, half of America sees science as a threat, and populist demagogues have vast audiences. In this world, the sound bite is everything.
When Leonard, the world’s first observed hypercane, forms and threatens the Gulf Coast, can Americans put their differences and distractions aside just this once? Or is it already too late to do anything but laugh bitterly as Earth forces humanity to accept its long-overdue “inheritance”?
The Inheritors: A Climate Fable is a biting, timely satire of anti-intellectualism. It is also rigorously researched climate fiction by an atmospheric scientist and an exploration of generational trauma in families.
Keywords: climate fiction; climate change; social satire; hurricane; hypercane; environmental fiction; science fiction; political fiction; disaster; satire; weather fiction; global warming; near future; dark comedy
