A FAREWELL SEASON

Voyager Notes #1

Hello, fellow voyagers🖖! Welcome to the first edition of Voyager Notes. This monthly letter arrives every last Thursday of the month with insights into my creative life—a novel in progress, a book to read together, a sustainability project, a cup of tea, a seed of change.

May has been intense. I finished writing my first novel while riding a rollercoaster at the green tech start up where I work as an innovation product manager. The themes of my book—and the pace of our lives—made me realize we’re living in systems that are overheating: our bodies, our work, our planet.

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Fiction dispatch

Last Saturday, I finished writing There Is Hope, a climate fiction mosaic novel I’m serializing here. The fifth and final season with the same name, There Is Hope, will unfold in five weekly episodes through the end of June.

• S5E1 ∼ A glowing light — click to read

• S5E2 ∼ A deep dive — Coming June 1

• S5E3 ∼ A dark night — Coming June 8

• S5E4 ∼ A letter from the future — Coming June 15

• Epilogue — Coming June 22

This final season ties all the threads together and sets the stage for my next novel. While connected through an overarching plot and recurring characters, each season stands on its own and can be read independently.

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‘There Is Hope’ is a novel about life on planet devastated by climate change and the things that give people hope. You can explore all previous seasons and related stories here.

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To open your appetite, here’s a snapshot of the setting👇

The year is 2550. After 400 years of conflict over the last natural resources—known as the Data War—Europe is a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The North Colonies Alliance, located in the cool north, is segregated from the Dust Tribes of climate refugees scattered across the dust bowl of Central Europe, and the Japanese Seaweed Colonies in the largely uninhabitable south. The Siberian Cooperatives—stewards of the taiga and the last standing forest—hold monopoly on all natural resources in an attempt to save the planet’s ecosystem from extinction. All are connected by the Dust Road, an underground trading route controlled by the mysterious Dust Pirates.

Will humanity find its soul in a wasteland plagued by suffering, scarcity and death? Watch the tapestry of life unfold on the Dust Road through five thrilling stories of hope and an unexpected arrival.

I hope you’ll join me one last time on the Dust Road.

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The novel is free to read until the end of June, afterwards it will go behind a paywall as I prepare it for print publication this autumn.

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Reading companion

In June I’ll be reading The Blind Bowman: Shadow of the Wolf by

T K Hall

a fantasy novel that explores environmental destruction and protection through a retelling of Robin Hood.

A fantasy mashup with Game of Thrones and X-men in its DNA.
—The Guardian

I’m a huge fan of the Game of Thrones books and X-men so I’m sold.

Let me know in the comments if you’d like to read along! I’ll share my thoughts in the next edition of Voyager Notes.

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Future seeds

This week, I came across a story that spoke to me deeply.

A group of Indigenous Adivasis women from rural India are creating dream maps—visions showing ideal states of their ancestral lands and villages. With the help of an NGO, they have surveyed the forest, foraging trails and common lands that sustain their lives, and found that, in comparison with 1960, they shrunk by 25% due to climate change. Now, they plan to submit the dream maps to the government to request preservation and restoration funds.

This made me pause. How many times do we feel helpless in the face of climate change? How often do we hear that there’s nothing we can do? Do we feel helpless because we lost touch with the world in which we live?

These women have a direct connection with the land that gives them sustenance—food, medicinal plants, wood, water. They were raised to regard it not as property but as kin, a common good that needs to be respected and protected.

Forest is our life. We have taken birth in this forest and one day we will die in the forest. It is our life and livelihood.

Climate change is a direct consequence of how we relate to nature. When we feel paralyzed in the face of chaos and collapse, maybe the believes we inherited are the ones holding us back.

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From my life

After a chaotic stretch of deadlines, I feel the need to bring again some clarity into my life. In the coming days, I will slow down and prepare to host a tea ceremony at our local Shaolin Temple. I plan to serve Iron Goddess (Tiě Guān Yīn) Oolong, a Taiwanese tea named after the Buddhist goddess of compassion—a quality we could extend more generously to ourselves and the world around us.

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How about you?

• What are you reading these days?

• What dreams are you dreaming?

I’d love to hear in the comments.

Until next time,
Claudia 💚

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Support the story. Your paid subscription helps bring There Is Hope to print including a beautifully illustrated cover by a New York based artist. By upgrading, you’re not just backing a book, you’re helping bring an independent climate fiction world to life.