Albert Campbell District Blog

As you may have already heard, the world is scheduled to end — or, at the very least, undergo a major transformation — on December 21, 2012. Wondering what you'll see when you look out the window tomorrow? Check out these books that imagine a Toronto transformed in the not-so-distant future:

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

Summary:

The rich and privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind
roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to
rediscover old ways — farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need
a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets.
With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient
truths, eternal powers, and the tragic mystery surrounding her mother
and grandmother.

She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends.

Excerpt:

"Paula and Pavel had set up their awning at the corner of Carlton and Sherbourne, next to the shack from which Bruk-Foot Sam sold reconditioned bicycles. Braces of skinned, gutted squirrels were strung up under Paula and Pavel's awning. Ti-Jeanne could smell the rankness of the fresh meat as she walked by. It must have been the morning's kill. The couple had claimed the adjacent Allan Gardens park and its greenhouse, which they farmed. In the winter, Paul and Pavel were the Burn's source of fresh vegetables for those who lacked the resources to import them from outcity. And the overgrown park hid a surprising amount of wild game: pigeons; squirrels; wild dogs and cats for the not too particular." 

Headhunter by Timothy Findley

Summary:

It all starts when Lilah Kemp — librarian, spiritualist, schizophrenic — inadvertantly lets Kurtz out of page 92 of Heart of Darkness and is unable to get him back in.

While Kurtz is stalking the streets of Toronto, Lilah frantically
begins her search for Marlow to help her deal with the literary villain.

Meanwhile,
the city is becoming increasingly chaotic and terrifying. The rich and
powerful are engaged in a web of depravity, a new and horrifying
disease called sturnusemia has swept the city, and severly traumatized
children are turning up at the local psychiatric institutes. Kurtz
seems to be at the centre of it all.

Lilah, witness to events
tearing the very fabric of her society, seeks solace as always in great works of literature and prays for Marlow to find and capture Kurtz — before it's too late.

Excerpt:

"On a winter's day, while a blizzard raged through the streets of Toronto, Lilah Kemp inadvertendly set Kurtz free from page 92 of Heart of Darkness. Horror-stricken, she tried to force him back between the covers. The escape took place at the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, where Lilah Kemp sat reading beside the rock pool. She had not even said come forth, but there Kurtz stood before her, framed by the woven jungle of cotton trees and vines that passed for botanic atmosphere."

Technicolor Ultra Mall by Ryan Oakley

Summary:

In the commodified future the consequences of a failing society
are brought to bear upon one man’s ambition and his attempt to escape
his own socio-economic hell.

Excerpt:

"As it was, The T-Dot Center was hovering on the edge of acceptable profitability for a top five mall. He couldn't afford a whole division of spooks. The CEOs would get paranoid about trade secrets being stolen and leveraged into a state monopoly. Some would probably leave for friendlier malls, taking their stores and money with them. No. Intelligence services undermined the security they were supposed to create. Rock would have to do. Even if he was a bit thick."

Your Secrets Sleep With Me by Darren O'Donnell

Summary:

Toronto's CN Tower has fallen into the lake. The city is crowded with
refugees from the US. Michael and Ruth Racco's dad has, in a rash of
road rage, perpetrated the Backhoe Massacre. And, in the middle of it
all, little Jimmy Hardcastle has, in the fountain of a suburban mall,
walked on water.

As helicopters chop the air over Toronto and a
paranoid America slides into fascism, kids from south of the border
collide with kids from north of the border and, over lattes, ruminate
on new possibilities.

Your Secrets Sleep With Me is a frenetic,
ruthlessly hilarious critique of power and politics. Brilliant, absurd,
incisive and fun, this caffeinated novel will take you on a doomed
search for the place where you end and everything else begins. But you
will not be alone. Shhh. Don't worry. Your secrets sleep with us.

Excerpt:

"What happens next will be the source for many discussions about the state of the world, the nation, the city, the environment and the populace. The dark purple clouds begin twisting and touching down, a tornado forms, thundering and careening into the city, knocking over its point of pride: the world's tallest free-standing structure, the CN Tower, lifting it and dropping it right into the lake."

The Never Weres by Fiona Smyth

Summary:

Three teens become humanity’s only hope for survival.

Late
in the next century, the human race is on the verge of extinction. A
mysterious virus has resulted in no births in almost a generation.
Despite the impending doom, three urban teenagers try to live their
lives with hope.

Mia strives to preserve humanity’s compassion through her art and her
volunteer work with the “oldies.” Tech-savvy Xian spends her time
tinkering with the robots she’s sure will inherit the Earth. Jesse, the
son of geneticists, is convinced the future lies with cloning, but
society is reeling from the grotesque failures of previous attempts.
When the friends stumble upon the 60-year-old mystery of a missing
girl, it leads them to the world’s only successful clone — and the key
to saving our species.

Excerpt:

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Interested in reading more about Toronto's fictional future? Check out this list of novels set in Toronto from 2004 to the future. Do you have other favourites? Add yours in the comments below!