climate-themed novels ever written, and it's title is POLAR CITY RED.
It's set in Alaska in the year 2075 andJim is a born writer,
it's one amazing yarn, he tells. I've been corresponding with Jim
since last August 2011 when plans for this novel were first hatched.
Jim's the author, and the
entire book is his: his plot, his cast of characters, his ideas, his
themes, his story, everything from the first page to the last in Jim's
amazing work.
to the writer's mansion born! And note: On one level, it's just a great
storytelling yarn, a story, pure fiction. But on another level, it's a
story about where humanity
might be headed in the near future due to global warming and climate
change.
If nothing else, POLAR CITY RED is a wake up call for
humanity!
I've read the first 16 chapters, courtesy of Jim's passing them on to
me after he and his wife have read them over. I just read the chapters
as a reader, since I am not
a scientist or a climate researcher. But I am a climate activist and I
am concerned about the future of humankind, if we don't stop global
warming and co2 emissions soon.
Is it too late? Some say yes. I still have hope. I believ Jim Laughter
also has hope. He wouldn't have spent 9 months writing this book if he
didn't have the hope that
reading it might help raise public awareness of the issues just a
little bit. See for yourself when the book is out. It's a real
page-turner is all I can say.
Jim has a tradition when he gets ready to finish a book -- and he has
written ten sci fi novels so far. He goes to a special place, maybe a
new city or a mountain resort,
where away from the daily grind he can devote himself to getting to
the finish line of his current novel. So for POLAR CITY RED, Jim and
his wife headed from their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a resort in the
Ozark mountains for a week.
Jim told me in March 2012:
"It's just something we always do when I'm
finishing a book so I can have a quiet place to work away from the
kids and grandkids. I plan to finish the book there, including final
edits and proofing before sending it to the publisher for layout and
their editing staff to look it over. Of the six novels I've published
with them, their editors have only ever made minor changes to my
manuscripts. I screen them pretty well before sending them in."
Jim told me something very interesting, too. He said to me in the
beginning of March, after we had met online last August via a mutual
friend's introduction that first brought us together in cyberspace
(we've never met face to face, nor even spoken on the phone: our
entire friendship is by email and blog), and Jim said to me in March
after workign in his book for almost 9 months :
"I must admit that I wasn't wild about this book project at the
beginning,since I wasn't a big believer in global warming when we
first met online. But now that I've had time to study it, I can see
where the world is heading and it makes me weep for my grandchildren."
When you read Jim Laughter's completed POLAR CITY RED, a fictional
look at climate change and global warming, you too will weep for your
grandchildren and their descendants, because
what Jim has written is a tour-de-force of a climate novel that is not
a pretty picture. But the book ends on a hopeful note, and that is
Jim's message to the world I believe. Hope springs
eternal. Even in our darkest hours, now, when humanity hangs bya
thread, there is still hope. And Jim's novel delivers it, but read it
and see for yourself.
It's Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD meets Mel Gibson's MAD MAX movie
franchise. It's not the end of the world, but pretty close to it. In
the end, in the final chapters, hope triumphs.
READ IT AND WEEP. AND READ IT AND TAKE ACTION. The book is a wake up
call for all of us to take action. NOW!
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