Camp Zero

A Novel

by Michelle Min Sterling

Hardcover, 304 pages

English language

Published Jan. 1, 2023 by Atria Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-6680-0756-3

In remote northern Canada, a team led by a visionary American architect is breaking ground on a building project called Camp Zero, intended to be the beginning of a new way of life. A clever and determined young woman code-named Rose is offered a chance to join the Blooms, a group hired to entertain the men in camp—but her real mission is to secretly monitor the mercurial architect in charge. In return, she’ll receive a home for her climate-displaced Korean immigrant mother and herself.

Rose quickly secures the trust of her target, only to discover that everyone has a hidden agenda, and nothing is as it seems. Through skillfully braided perspectives, including those of a young professor longing to escape his wealthy family and an all-woman military research unit struggling for survival at a climate station, the fate of Camp Zero’s inhabitants reaches a stunning crescendo.

Atmospheric, fiercely …

Atmospheric, fiercely original, and utterly gripping, Camp Zero is an electrifying page-turner and a masterful exploration of who and what will survive in a warming world, and how falling in love and building community can be the most daring acts of all.

2 editions

Taylor Drew reviewed Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

Climate fiction with sex workers

4 stars

The title is basically how I described this book to a friend and I think it gives a pretty accurate impression of what the book is like--a criticism of our power structures and how the rich (largely men) move freely through society without facing any meaningful consequences for their actions.

The story is told through three different perspectives, which adds a lot of depth to the narrative because each perspective is told from a very different sphere of society.

Well there were aspects of the narrative that could have been more fleshed out and some people may find a certain aspects or actions of the story to be hypocritical, it's my opinion that this hypocrisy and seeming lack of depth is intentional. I think it adds a lot of value and intrigue to the narrative and asks readers to draw their own conclusions. You're supposed to think and …

The story is told through three different perspectives, which adds a lot of depth to the narrative because each perspective is told from a very different sphere of society.

Anyway I thought this book was great. Hope the author writes more.

Tom Harrington reviewed Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

Starts well, then loses it

2 stars

Content warning Contains spoilers

The three intertwined storylines of a post-climate-change future were interesting and compelling. At first. Two relate the story of a project to build a utopian city for people fleeing northward. Except, of course, it might not be what it seems, and the idealistic leader might or might not realize that. The third concerns a group of women at "White Alice", a climate research station somewhere in northern Canada, a couple of days travel from the other story lines. Abandoned by their home base, they must learn to survive on their own and find new beginnings on their own terms.

It's this third story line that unraveled the book for me. The book sets up severe contradictions between the group's stated aspirations and their actions, yet never addresses this. Their code of life includes such niceties as love of family and the environment as well as never killing without a reason. Yet they continually murder people, often quite brutally, and the reason is always that they want their victim's money and possessions and don't want to leave behind someone who might identify them. A person minding their own business camping in a van is told that they've lost their dog and that they need help finding it. When he volunteers to help, they kill him and take his van. They set pit bulls on people who are sleeping and, once they've been mauled to death, cut out their teeth as souvenirs. The contradiction between their high minded ideals and their actions as a band of serial killers is never addressed.

Matt Chambers

rated it

July 16, 2023