The Wildcraft Drones

Rex’s debut collection takes its name from AI-powered drones, but the 14 connected sci-fi tales within prove deeply human. The opener, “Squawker and Dolphin Swimming Together,” focuses on a scientist using an underwater robot to speak with dolphins while a category six hurricane closes in. It’s the first glimpse of a world wracked by climate catastrophe, where agricultural drones have become sentient and lead the effort to rewild huge portions of land to save Earth. But not every human is willing to cooperate by relocating to drone-created city-states (“A Holdout in the Northern California Designated Wildcraft Zone”). Indeed, even some of the humans who act as enforcer Rangers for the drones begin to rethink what they’ve done (“A Tent Where the Buffalo Roam”), and soon secret communities spring up, protected by hacked drones and creativity (“Fortyounce and the Seabitch of Strip Mall City”). Centuries after the rewilding, a young boy learns more than he ever meant to about the interconnectedness of all living creatures touched by the wildcraft drones (“Davu the Explorer and the Druid Tía Yara”). Full of hard-won hope and bittersweet joy, this is climate fiction with heart. (May)