cover image Burning Stones

Burning Stones

Steven Mills, . . Cosmos, $15.95 (252pp) ISBN 978-0-8095-6286-2

In contrast to Hollywood's fondness for dramatizing the effects of catastrophe on major cities, first-time novelist Mills examines the ways that smalltown inhabitants of a valley on the Washington State/British Columbia border deal with a trio of worldwide disasters: a deadly avian flu; an additional virus that turns people into simian, proto-humans (or "lucies"); and the wildfires that break out once the population is too diminished to prevent or control them. Mills presents stark, harrowing descriptions of injury and death while chronicling ex-librarian Sage Van Peldt's struggle to survive a prisonlike FEMA camp, and the efforts of paramedic Alex Gautier and RCMP officer Ronnie Sapriken to fight the fires and deal with a gang that sells captured lucies as slaves. This grim near-future tale showcases the best and worst of humanity while never falling prey to the tyranny of the happy ending. (Sept.)