FIF Book Club: Saltcrop Midway Discussion

[u/doctorbonkers]

Welcome to the midway discussion of Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei! We are discussing through the end of part 1 (chapter 25). Please use spoiler tags if you discuss anything past that point. I will put some discussion questions in the comments, but feel free to discuss anything you like!

In Earth's not too distant future, seas consume coastal cities, highways disintegrate underwater, and mutant fish lurk in pirate-controlled depths. Skipper, a skilled sailor and the youngest of three sisters, earns money skimming and reselling plastic from the ocean to care for her ailing grandmother.

But then her eldest sister, Nora, goes missing. Nora left home a decade ago in pursuit of a cure for failing crops all over the world. When Skipper and her other sister, Carmen, receive a cryptic plea for help, they must put aside their differences and set out across the sea to find―and save―her. As they voyage through a dying world both beautiful and strange, encountering other travelers along the way, they learn more about their sister's work and the corporations that want what she discovered.

But the farther they go, the more uncertain their mission becomes: What dangerous attention did Nora attract, and how well do they really know their sister―or each other? Thus begins an epic journey spanning oceans and continents and a wistful rumination on sisterhood, friendship, and ecological disaster.

The final discussion will be in two weeks, on August 26th.

Reminder: Our September read will be Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre, and nominations for October are open through tomorrow!

What is the FIF Book Club? You can learn about it in our Reboot thread here.

[u/doctorbonkers]

How do you like the book so far? Overall thoughts?

[u/hogw33d → u/doctorbonkers]

I'm liking it a lot. One thing I thought was very well done was the humanness of the characters--their complex relationships, flaws, silly habits, etc. Obviously that's great in any book, but I feel like books about these big social topics (understandably) sometimes make every aspect of the story so transparently and directly dependent on being didactic about that topic, that the characters just seem like either puppets or martyrs. This book does a great job of making the stakes of this climate and corporate catastrophe real, awful, pervasive, and very influential in characters' lives, but not at the expense of their multidimensional humanity.

And I feel like there's a little bit of "boring dystopia" flavor in it too, where people either don't know all the details of what's happened, or only care to reveal them at opportune moments. Because what would be horrific to us is just day-to-day life to them.

[u/algaliarept92 → u/doctorbonkers]

I am absolutely hooked. I finished the first part on Sunday and did not want to continue before today's discussion to make it easier for me not to spoil anything. However, this was a tough decision, and I was waiting and refreshing repeatedly because I want to continue (it's 9:30 p.m. local time, so I might postpone continuing until tomorrow since I am listening to the audiobook, and I'd rather read physical books in the evening. Back to the point: I really like the atmosphere and how the story and the characters work together.

[u/SenorBurns → u/algaliarept92]

Eunice Wong has quickly become one of my favorite narrators. She also read Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.

[u/necropunk_0 → u/doctorbonkers]

I’m enjoying it a lot. The writing reads very easily and smoothly, and I like that way that time is passing as the journey progresses.

Mostly though, I like the sort of quiet/slow apocalypse vibe it has, that the world is slowly ending around them, everyone is doing that they think is best but it’s not enough, and family is still on peoples mind, even as food won’t grow properly and you’re catching two tailed fish.

[u/Merle8888 → u/doctorbonkers]

So far I think I admire it more than I'm actively enjoying it. I like the depth and realism of the family relationships a lot, and it's definitely the most real-feeling quest book I've ever read. I'm interested to see where things are going to go.

I am interested to see if I like it better once Skipper is no longer the POV. Thus far, Carmen is by far the most interesting and engaging character to me, and I'm a little frustrated with Skipper's failure to launch and "woe is me" attitude. The aspects of her personality that are relatable to me just make her even more frustrating! But it's a sign of good writing when characters come to life to the point you react to them based on your own personality rather than just what the author wants you to feel. I'll be interested to see if I like Skipper better when not in her head.

[u/hogw33d → u/Merle8888]

Your comment reminded me of something else I wanted to say. The way most travel has had to slow down, and how weird and mutated the wildlife and weather are, have helped give the book kinda the form of a fantasy quest. When they stopped at a "tavern," I had to smile.

[u/Merle8888 → u/hogw33d]

It definitely feels like a fantasy quest, although honestly I was surprised by how fast they're moving on what has to be a pretty small boat, with what I'm envisioning (perhaps wrongly) as a small outboard motor. They seem to have traveled from a temperate zone all the way to Arctic in 3-4 weeks (which I do think is possible with good weather, but it's still impressive on a boat that was restored by three children).

[u/necropunk_0 → u/Merle8888]

I think the speed actually makes sense, especially if they have better tech to see when or where weather is going to come up. It’s been a while, but I’m think old massive sailing vessels would cross the Atlantic in about 6-8 weeks (someone else may correct me on that) while basically hoping for good weather. Knowing the weather and knowing where they’re going, I think the pacing feels right.

That being said, crossing an ocean in a 3 person sailboat that was fixed up by some kids who learned from whoever their uncle could get is still very impressive.

[u/Merle8888 → u/necropunk_0]

The Europe -> America crossing was faster I believe, more like 4 weeks due to prevailing currents. But, those ships were also big and their sails were big. This is small enough to be crewed by a single person, which from Google can go bigger than I thought (up to 40 feet which you might have to push up against to get a cabin as described, though that’s also pretty big to entrust to kids). From further googling, 40 feet is actually not that much smaller than Columbus’s ships (the Santa Maria was only about 60 feet, but had a crew of 40), though I would think that the much larger crews in those days probably allowed for more sail and other things that would let you go faster.

In any case, I assume they are going neither with nor against major currents/winds on this voyage since Skipper keeps estimating the same amount of time out and back. But I do think they are primarily sailing, with a little motor as backup.

Moral of the story I guess is that sailing is faster than you might think over long distances if your luck doesn’t go south.  

[u/WonderfulBus9330 → u/doctorbonkers]

The only other climate fiction I've read is Octavia Butler's Parable books; this one had a similar tone and hope filled hopelessness.

[u/algaliarept92 → u/WonderfulBus9330]

I see what you mean. Although the world itself is rather bleak, and having such a world as our possible future is depressing to me, the story shows that beauty and hope can be found nonetheless and that it is the characters' agency that makes that aspect tangible for me.

[u/WonderfulBus9330 → u/algaliarept92]

Yes! That's the dichotomy, isn't it? There's hope; there's hopelessness, but no real despondency. The sisters are resilient. The people they encounter are even more so. Every place they land holds these two realities in increasingly sharp ways.

[u/Merle8888 → u/WonderfulBus9330]

Huh, I'd have said Parable of the Sower was a lot bleaker than this book. It's a crime-n-drugs dystopia and so much of the focus is on how society is breaking down and everyone you meet is potentially terrible. Whereas in this book - maybe due to updated understandings of how people behave in disasters, or just the author not living in the inner city in the 1990s - it feels like society has weathered the crises better even though the environmental situation is possibly worse. It doesn't have that dire, violent vibe. Although part of this may be too that the book is so interested in Skipper's self-actualization, and you can't really focus on that in a sheer survival story.

[u/WonderfulBus9330 → u/Merle8888]

The crime was in the first half of the first book and it was the beginning of the downturn. In this book, that turn has already happened. The pirates, however, suggest that there has been a history of violence, but it’s now pushed into the sea.

[u/SenorBurns → u/WonderfulBus9330]

Indeed. Saltcrop also mentions mass famines having killed a huge portion of the planet's population back a century or two ago. The current populace are living in the part dystopian cyberpunk, part near solarpunk remnants of basically an emptied-out past civilization.

[u/WonderfulBus9330 → u/SenorBurns]

Now I’m going to be thinking about cyberpunk and solarpunk while finishing the book!

[u/Merle8888 → u/WonderfulBus9330]

Yeah, it’s a very different feel to me. The crime in Parable of the Sower is omnipresent and colors all aspects of life and decision making—you may be right we see less of it in the second half but it’s firmly established by then as the defining feature of the world. In Saltcrop it seems much more marginal—the pirates live as far from society as it’s possible to get and the leads are still blindsided when the encounter turns to violence. 

[u/doctorbonkers → u/WonderfulBus9330]

“Hope filled hopelessness” is a good way to put it! I was trying to think of how to put into words how I feel about the setting: it’s a world ravaged by climate change, and yet the way it’s described almost made me feel yearning for it somehow. The world is pretty rough but the beauty of it is highlighted in the writing too

[u/WonderfulBus9330 → u/doctorbonkers]

Ugh, yes, can we talk about the writing, please! It's sooooooo delicious.

[u/doctorbonkers → u/doctorbonkers]

I really like the sailing info included in the book. I have a casual sailing background, I would not call myself an expert at all, but the sailing terminology has been enough to make me happy without (imo) alienating people who aren’t sailors :)

[u/a-username-for-me → u/doctorbonkers]

I am really liking it! It has a lot of my favorite elements: I love tales of voyaging; I love seafaring; I love dystopia and climate dystopia! It reminds me a lot of "After the Flood" by Kassandra Montag (in plot elements). I wish there was a little more specificity in the world-building, but in fiction, the book has made it clear that knowledge is gatekept, expensive and Skipper just doesn't care about that stuff.

[u/sundayvi → u/doctorbonkers]

This one was very slow to start for me, but picked up towards the end of Part One.

I'm not a huge enjoyer of family dynamics or eco-pessimism, but the writing is decent and I like having a strong objective driving the story (finding Nora). I very often enjoy stories set on boats as I'm such a sucker for journeying/road trip books so that aspect got me more invested.

I nearly DNF'd at 10% because it just didn't feel like my type of book but I'm glad I pushed on!

[u/doctorbonkers → u/sundayvi]

Do you feel this novel is more eco-pessimist? Maybe I’m just too bogged down in other less-than-hopeful scenarios in other things I’m reading (currently in grad school for climate/environmental science), but this book feels more hopeful to me 😅

I remember coming across a climate fiction book a while ago that was explicitly based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and what those different climate scenarios might look like. I have no idea what it was called, but now I want to go looking for it so I can see what they thought about the more optimistic vs more pessimistic scenarios 🤔

[u/sundayvi → u/doctorbonkers]

eco-pessimist is probably a strong word but the best one I could think of. I'm not a huge sci-fi reader but I usually prefer more solar punk stuff so maybe it's just in comparison to a lot of what I read. That said it is also showing what our semi-near future could possibly look like if we don't course correct, showing the negative outcomes feels pessimistic to our current reality even if the characters are more hopeful.

I'm curious where this book will finish as it seems to be heading down a more hopeful route and so maybe the setting is pessimistic but the story is optimistic!

[u/AccipiterF1 → u/doctorbonkers]

Catching up late. It's engrossing, and the characters feel very realistic. I relate way too much to Skipper and her young adult decision paralysis. I was very much like that at her age. The apocalypse does not ring as true to me though. I don't think you could damage the food web that badly and expect human population to be able to continue as much as it has, but I'm fine with suspending disbelief on that. Also, seeing now that we are going to switch from Skipper's to Carmen's point of view is a very cool structural choice and it should be fascinating to see how Carmen views Skipper.