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Terrestrial History

a Novel
Pages
256
Published
2025
Language
English

Synopsis

Terrestrial History opens in 2025, when Hannah, a young fusion scientist vacationing in Scotland's Western Isles, is visited by a disfigured young man who says he was born in a Mars colony and has traveled back from the future to help her perfect fusion technology before runaway climate change makes Earth uninhabitable.

From there, the novel unfolds across four generations of Hannah's family: her son Andrew, a politician with his sights on becoming Scotland's First Minister; her granddaughter Kenzie, who eventually builds the first working fusion reactor using knowledge passed down from Hannah; and her great-grandson Roban, a mining-ship worker grieving his mentor Vishay, who encounters a phenomenon that lets him send himself back to 2025 to try to prevent a coming collapse.

A quiet, literary novel about climate, inheritance, and the moral weight of trying to fix the future by rewriting the past.

About the author

J
Joe Mungo Reed

Joe Mungo Reed was born in London and raised in Gloucestershire, England. He holds a master's in philosophy and politics from the University of Edinburgh and an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University, where he won the Joyce Carol Oates Award in Fiction. He teaches creative writing at the University of Cambridge and lives in London. He is the author of the novels We Begin Our Ascent, Hammer, and Terrestrial History, and his short fiction has appeared in VQR and Gigantic.

Characters

Dr. HannahProtagonist

Fusion scientist visited by a time traveler from a future Mars colony.

RobanProtagonist

Hannah's great-grandson, a miner who finds a way to travel back to 2025.

Brother AndrewSupporting

Hannah's son, a politician aiming to become Scotland's First Minister.

KenzieSupporting

Hannah's granddaughter, who builds the first working fusion reactor.

VishaySupporting

Roban's mentor, a mining-ship commander whose death he grieves.

All characters in Terrestrial History