The Terraformers
{5/5} “The ancient order of environmental engineers and first responders traced their lineage all the way back to the Farm Revolutions that ended the Anthropocene on Earth, and started the calendar system people still used today. According to old Handbook lore, the Trickster Squad — Sky, Beaver, Muskrat, and Wasakeejack — founded the Environmental Rescue Team 59,006 years ago.”
The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz, published in 2023
When Ranger Destry Thomas finds someone cooking rabbit over a fire, she asks him to leave. He spouts some nonsense about having the right to experience the Pleistocene. She figures out that he’s a remote, and when he doesn’t leave she shoots him. She biodegrades his camp and — when she finds it with a little help — his ship. Sask-E is in the process of being terraformed but it’s not ready for colonizing yet.
Part 2 takes place 700 years later.
It’s about what happens when you come across people who’ve been hiding for a thousand years, and when you find out your boss killed your parents and now they’re not very happy with you.
It’s about people of various shapes and sizes working together to get the best deal they can from an uncaring corporation.
This is a novel you will keep thinking about.
One more quotation, from the “Environmental Rescue Team Handbook”: “Inside every conflict, a friendship waits to be born.”
This is the 3rd book I’ve read by Newitz. I previously reviewed Autonomous.