In June 2020, SF Canada member Nina Munteanu released her fourteenth book, cli-fi eco-novel A Diary in the Age of Water (Inanna Publications).
A Diary in the Age of Water follows the climate-induced journey of Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to water.
Centuries from now, in a dying boreal forest in what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, yearns for Earth’s past—the Age of Water, before the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity. Looking for answers and plagued by vivid dreams of this holocaust, Kyo discovers the diary of Lynna, a limnologist from a time just prior to the destruction. The diary spans a 20-year period in the mid-20th century and describes a planet in the grip of severe water scarcity. Lynna, in her work for a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water, witnesses and records the disturbing events that will soon lead to humanity’s demise.
A Diary in the Age of Water received a silver award from Literary Titan for a book that “expertly delivers complex characters, intricate worlds, and thought provoking themes. The ease with which the story is told is a reflection of the author’s talent in exercising fluent, powerful, and appropriate language.”–Literary Titan
“Evoking Ursula LeGuin’s unflinching humane and moral authority, Nina Munteanu takes us into the lives of four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. In a diary that entwines acute scientific observation with poignant personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Particularly harrowing are the neighbourhood water betrayals, along with Lynna’s deliberately dehydrated appearance meant to deflect attention from her own clandestine water collection.”—LYNN HUTCHINSON LEE, multimedia artist, author, and playwright
“Lyrical and dystopian, ‘A Diary in the Age of Water’ is as much an ode to water as it is a cautionary tale about the dire implications of climate change.”—FOREWORD CLARION 5-STAR REVIEW
“In poetic prose with sober factual basis, Munteanu transmutes a harrowing dystopia into a transcendentalist origin myth. An original cautionary tale that combines a family drama with an environmental treatise.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“An exceptional and thought-provoking dystopian fiction.”—LITERARY TITAN
’A Diary’ is a brilliant story…Munteanu writes with fresh, stimulating style.”
—CRAIG H. BOWLSBY, author of The Knights of Winter
“The story like water itself fills you, moves you, hypnotizes you, and eventually, totally engulfs you.”—GOODREADS REVIEW
“Thoroughly researched and cleverly executed, A Diary in the Age of Water is a must-read, especially for those who are longing for nature, and touch, while fearing both.”
—CARAMOYNES, Amazon Review
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and award-winning novelist and short story writer. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Nina has coached writers to publication for several decades using her Alien Guidebook Series writing guides. Nina’s non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada.
Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books, short stories and essays. For more about Nina’s coaching and writing workshops, visit www.ninamunteanu.me. You can also find Nina on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.
A Diary in the Age of Water can be purchased through Amazon,Chapters-Indigo,Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Inanna Publications.
Oh, Canada! Welcome to this world-bending collection of speculative writing Canadian style. Between these boreal covers, a compilation of must-read fantastic fiction by trending and diverse authors will take readers to the next level of story discovery. New futures, fantasies and frightening realities become readers’ portals connecting yesterday’s print to tomorrow’s digital dreams. This gathering showcases stories and poetry by many award-winning, award-nominated, yet diverse authors’ and their best works, selected exclusively from Polar Borealis Magazine, a Canadian speculative fiction publication dedicated to discovering the finest ideas in a large land of divergent narratives. These stellar storytellers and poets find our common humanity, play with its evolution, evaluate the relentless tick-tock of technology and step into the seductive chill of starlight with only their imaginations to guide them against the spiralling foils of the unknown.
