Welcome! Today we’re reading Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling, a debut published by Atria in March 2023. This is a dystopian cli-fi novel, multi-perspective, and plot-driven. We’ll also be talking about Utopia, futuristic architecture, and a non-fiction recommendation.
When I saw Camp Zero was a Book of the Month pick for March, I jumped on it pretty quickly. The synopsis matched perfectly with the other books I’ve been reading lately, and I thought it would be nice to have a contemporary/commercial novel thrown into the mix.
I’ve been reading quite a lot in the realm of Utopia and Dystopia, and trying to get into sci-fi and climate fiction. I started this reading project a few months ago, but I haven’t gotten around to sharing the details…but I will soon! Just know that this is in relation to that.
Find Camp Zero on Bookshop.org
Table of Contents
Camp Zero Review
Utopian Architecture & Last Futures
Further Reading & Links of Interest
“It’s far easier to create darkness than it is to create light.”
Book Review
Camp Zero is a near-future dystopian story that imagines what a climate-ravaged world will look like, and explores the dangers of exclusionary Utopian visions.
It’s 2050, and the climate crisis is in full swing: sweltering temperatures are the norm, sea levels have risen drastically, catastrophic storms are commonplace, and the Far North is the last bastion of hope. Oil has been banned, though not soon enough. Smartphone-like implants, called the Flick, are the main form of escape and distraction from the disastrous realities of the world. And the uber-wealthy live in the Floating Cities—islands of luxury that protect the rich from the effects of climate change and the problems on the mainland.
Flooding, fire, drought, riots, revolt, overpopulation—none of it ever touched the city shining in the ocean. And yet the city was still tethered to the mainland because it remained reliant on it for labor.
In this multi-perspective story, we follow 3 main characters whose stories eventually weave together:
Rose, a sex worker from the Floating City who has been sent to Camp Zero to spy on Meyer, an idealistic architect who plans to build a settlement in Canada’s far north;
Grant, a recent Ivy League graduate and son of one of the wealthiest men in America, who wants to escape his family legacy;
and an unnamed narrator, part of a rogue all-female group called White Alice, who have attempted to start their own way of life at a remote, government-owned climate station.
There is a bit of intrigue, a bit of action, a bit of suspense, a bit of character development, a bit of world-building, a bit of advanced technology…but just a bit. I quite liked this book because it’s dealing with themes and ideas I’ve been reading and thinking about a lot recently—namely, Utopia/Dystopia and climate crisis. So I had a lot of related material stored in my head to work with while reading.
This is cli-fi more than sci-fi—we don’t need a ton of world-building because it’s quite near to our own reality, only a few decades out, and the technology and architectural advancements aren’t hard to imagine. I’m slowly trying to wade into the sci-fi realm, so this works for me on that level, but it might be a little underwhelming for others.
Overall, this was an enjoyable and entertaining read for me, but not highly-impactful. It’s pretty surface-level when it comes to each aspect of the story—it doesn’t go into depth with the world and technology, we get just enough backstory on each character to serve the plot, and there’s not a lot of emotional depth. I don’t see these points necessarily as a bad thing if you want a quick read and find the ideas interesting. It’s a plot-driven story with a message, and while it wasn’t fully-satiating, it was quite a fun snack.
Architecture of Utopia
Now let’s talk about the part of this novel that really intrigued me: UTOPIA! ARCHITECTURE!
It didn’t deliver fully on these fronts, but luckily I happened to be reading Last Futures by Douglas Murphy at the same time (by pure coincidence). This non-fiction work explores the futuristic architectural movements of the 1960s and 70s, and how these Utopian visions seemed to die out within a couple of decades. It covers geodesic domes, megastructures and plug-in cities, communal movements, and a lot of Buckminster Fuller. (I highly recommend if you’re interested in architecture.)
This tied in well with Camp Zero, or at least helped me envision certain aspects of the story. One of the characters, Meyer, is a sort of “Utopian” architect, whose style and influences very clearly come from the time period explored in Last Futures.
Meyer is interested in building a better world out of the ruins, and his vision is the blueprint for building at Camp Zero. His camp flag features a geodesic dome, a symbol of communal, Utopian living. He is a genuinely idealistic man, though…flawed.
Meyer…planned to build an off-grid settlement shielded from the rising temperatures and economic chaos of the US, where Americans could immigrate to and forge a new life. He called it Camp Zero and said this camp is just the beginning.
Each of the 3 main places in this novel is someone’s version of Utopia.
The Floating City is a futuristic Utopia exclusively for the rich, who get to live in luxury, protected from the elements and the unrest on the mainland;
Camp Zero is Meyer’s vision of a utopian settlement that will give refuge to those fleeing climate disaster in the south—though his vision is shot from the start;
And White Alice becomes a last-ditch chance for a group of women to live and prosper according to their own rules—it didn’t begin as a vision, it began out of necessity.
But all of these Utopias are flawed.
The Floating City is exclusionary. While it was initially built as a way for everyone to continue life amongst rising sea-levels, it became an isolated haven for the elite.
Camp Zero is a pioneering vision, aka a settler-colonial vision. Meyer wants to use land in the far north of Canada to build a settlement for Americans.
White Alice is…harder to explain without spoiling the book. But it’s a female-only community, and a highly-isolated one at that.
Rose, the main main character, doesn’t quite buy into these Utopian ideas. In the end, she is interested in a better world, but one that includes everyone and doesn’t use escapist fantasies as the answer.
Camp Zero is an acknowledgement of what we have done, and what is left. If we finally accept that the end doesn’t exist in the faraway curve of another generation, but that it is here, right now, then we can imagine a different path forward.
Further Reading
Are Floating Cities a Real Possibility? (Smithsonian Magazine, 2021)
Listen to Michelle Min Sterling talk about Camp Zero on the BOTM podcast
Floating Cities, No Longer Science Fiction, Begin to Take Shape (The New York Times, 2017)
Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome and Other Forward-Looking Architecture (Architectural Digest, 2016)
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