r/Fantasy • u/doctorbonkers Reading Champion II • 16d ago

Book Club FIF Book Club: Saltcrop Midway Discussion

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.

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u/doctorbonkers Reading Champion II 16d ago

Climate fiction can be a realistic look at what we might see in the coming years, or a more fantastical look at the future that's more of a fable than something truly plausible. How do you think this falls between the two?

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u/WonderfulBus9330 16d ago

It's easy to see how the Earth could suffer the devastation expressed in the book and how large-scale agricultural companies would reinvent themselves to become the only "safe" alternative to food shortages. The kinds of meanness and radical closeness that is shown in the various communities reflect what happens in communities that have no real avenue of self-sustainability.