About Edward Rubin:Edward Rubin is University Professor of Law and Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He’s been a science fiction fan since fifth grade and currently teaches a course at Vanderbilt entitled “Visions of the Future in Science Fiction.” In addition, he was one of the organizers of a science fiction reading group at the Law School. Rubin has spoken about administrative law and legal theory at numerous academic conferences and workshops and has served as a consultant on administrative law to the People’s Republic of China.
Visit his website here.
Now, a little about Mr. Rubin's latest book.
Title: The Heatstroke Line
Author: Edward Rubin
Genre: Dystopian/Sci-Fi
Length (print): 229 pages
Buy Links: Paperback $14.95 Kindle $2.99
Blurb: Edward Rubin explores an America ravaged by the disastrous effects of climate change. Coastal cities have become uninhabitable, sweltering heat devastates the interior and an ensuing civil war has broken the nation into smaller successor states and dozens of tiny principalities. Canada, where the climate remains tolerable, dominates the fractured remnants of the former United States.
Amid the chaos, scientist Daniel Danten ventures into the region below the Heatstroke Line (the former Southern states) to investigate the source of flesh-eating insects that afflict the remaining population there and threaten to invade the remainder of the country. The bizarre and brutal people he encounters when he is taken prisoner reveal the real horror that this environmental disaster has produced.
“We need to realize that climate change will have catastrophic effects on our own country,” said Rubin. “It’s not a remote problem, in either space or time.”
“The Heatstroke Line” stands apart from other global warming “cli-fi” novels by depicting an imaginable future, where modern homes, governments, schools and political conflicts still exist. The intent is to avoid the usual tropes of post-apocalyptic fiction, and confront the reality of climate change in a manner that will motivate believers to action and persuade climate change deniers to rethink their position.
Rubin was inspired to write the novel after a conversation with a colleague who shared his frustration with the apathy and opposition regarding climate change. The goal of his new book is to provide an engaging and entertaining story that induces people to think seriously about the impending disaster.
This is a novel that shows what climate change will do to the United States. It is intended as a warning. Many Americans are willing to deny the reality of climate change because they think that it will only affect tropical countries and oceanic islands that are far away from us. The Heatstroke Line depicts a United States that with its coastal cities flooded and its remaining land sweltering under debilitating heat. It has broken into smaller units that are in conflict with each other and it is dominated by more northerly nations, such as Canada, that now have temperate climates.
What do you think? Gonna check it out?
Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!
Jo
