Pills and Starships (33 page)

5
. The sister and brother react to the news of their parents' death contract, and the company-guided events of the "final week" as they react to their world, in different ways. Yet Nat joins Sam rather than be left behind. What does this say about her? What does it say about Sam that he seems willing to suddenly leave his sister, forever, for a new life?

6
. The character LaTessa is almost an antagonist—but not quite. In what way does she seem/not seem like an antagonist when they first arrive at the Hawaiian resort? And later, after the storm, how does that change?

Setting

1
. In Nat and Sam's complex, before the family sails off to Hawaii, the siblings live without much contact with other people their own age. Most of their human contact is virtual—through their computers, their Faces. One of Nat's friends through her Face even enters her life and then dies without the two ever meeting. How do you think it affects them to know people onscreen but not in the flesh? Would you be comfortable in a social world like that? Why or why not?

2
. Nat appears not to have understood just how extreme the poverty is in her world until she's told about it on the Big Island. Yet Sam even knows about the massacres the corporates have carried out. Is it possible to live alongside someone and have a radically different view of reality? To what degree do we see what we want to see, in the world outside—and in our homes?

3
. "Dystopias" are more common than "utopias" in today's speculative fiction, and arguably in most Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction—from hard science fiction novels to Hollywood blockbuster movies. Why do you think that is? Why is there such cultural demand for bleak or disastrous visions of the future?

4
. If you had to design your own dystopia, what would it look like? And what about your personal utopia?

Plot and Ideas

1
. Unlike, for example,
The Hunger Games
or
Harry Potter
,
Pills and Starships
doesn't contain too many direct conflicts between characters—even its climax has to do as much with a "natural" event—a Category Six Hurricane—than with a battle between human characters. Much of the action occurs off the page and in the mind of the narrator. Why do you think the author made that choice? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

2
. Can you imagine a future world where having babies is illegal? Why/why not? Discuss the idea that powerful authorities—whether governments or corporations—might regulate something as basic as human reproduction. Can you think of any real-life examples of this type of regulation being enforced?

3
. In this world, individuals' carbon footprints—that is, how much they contribute to the climate change crisis—are the most important measurement of their physical and social impact (at least to the powers that be). What is a carbon footprint? What would a world look like if carbon output was generally accepted to make the difference between "moral" and an "immoral" person? What do you think are the measures of morality we live by today?

4
. How might a society governed by corporations differ from one governed by elected officials? How is the online voting Nat describes different from how we now choose our public representatives?

Author's Statement

___________________

I wrote
Pills and Starships
as an adventure, imagining a girl—just slightly older than my daughter—living in a world devastated by the impacts of climate change. Since I work for a nonprofit that petitions and litigates over climate and related problems, it wasn't much of a leap for me subject-wise. But I found myself flattened and discouraged by the scientific, bureaucratic, and evasive language that accompanies so much coverage of the global warming crisis. I wanted to write about this turning point in human history in a way that felt lively and emotional to me, invigorating and possibly even inspiring, not deadening or trivializing.

The idea was that, in the wake of climatic chaos and the collapse of natural life-support and social systems that go along with it, a family is doing what used to be a middle-class American ritual: taking a vacation in Hawaii. But of course, on second glance, this isn't like the vacations we take at all. This is the family's "final week" together because—shepherded along in the process by powerful corporate authorities that promote life management, and finally death management, through psych meds—the parents are preparing to die.

To me, the tragic backdrop wasn't the fanciful part of this story; to me the only pure-fantasy element of the novel was the proposition that well-meaning and even quasi-stable parents of teenagers would acquiesce in their own death-by-pills, just when, arguably, their children need them most. So it was exciting to take what I believe is a possible, if extreme, dystopian future and play it against a high-concept, extreme cultural/familial dysfunction.

If the climatologists and geophysicists are to be believed, we're bound to see cascading paradigm shifts and desperate adjustments of life expectations as our atmosphere and oceans continue to change and eventually offer us a different, unfamiliar planet to live on. I wanted to explore one vision of a way our psychological norms might be perverted during the resulting disorder.

And even in the context of radical social collapse, something rang true to me about a teenager just still being a teenager through it all—at times cheerful, at times resentful or angry, like other teenagers anytime, anywhere. Without a long personal history on the earth, I speculated, young people might not be operating on the same assumptions as adults, and as such they might prove more resilient, more fluid in their response to the new world than those who knew it before it was transformed.

In the end, writing
Pills and Starships
was a joy for the same reason writing's always my favorite thing to do—because I got to invent a voice and personality that haunts me after the book is closed.

LYDIA MILLET
is the author of eight novels for adults as well as a story collection
Love in Infant Monkeys
(2009), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her first book for middle-grade readers,
The Fires Beneath the Sea,
was named one of
Kirkus
’ Best Children’s Books of 2011, and, along with the second in the series,
The Shimmers in the Night
(2012), was a Junior Library Guild selection.
Pills and Starships
is her first book for young adults.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher.

Published by Akashic Books

©2014 by Lydia Millet

Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-275-9
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-61775-276-6
eISBN: 9781617752841
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956781

James Everett Stuart cover artwork courtesy of Spanierman Gallery LLC, New York, New York.

First printing

Black Sheep/Akashic Books

Twitter: @AkashicBooks

Facebook: AkashicBooks

[email protected]

www.akashicbooks.com

Also Available from Black Sheep
an Akashic Books imprint for young readers

Changers Book One: Drew
by T Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper

The cheerleader, the nerd, the jock, the freak. What if you had to be all four?

“
Changers
should appeal to a broad demographic. Teenagers, after all, are the world’s leading experts on trying on, and then promptly discarding, new identities.”
—New York Times Book Review

“‘Selfie’ backlash has begun: The Unselfie project wants to help people quit clogging social media with pictures of themselves and start capturing the intriguing world around them.”
—O, the Oprah Magazine
on the
We Are Changers
Unselfie project

“This is more than just a ‘message’ book about how we all need to be more understanding of each other. The imaginative premise is wrapped around a moving story about gender, identity, friendship, bravery, rebellion vs. conformity, and thinking outside the box.”
—School Library Journal

“A thought-provoking exploration of identity, gender, and sexuality . . . an excellent read for any teens questioning their sense of self or gender.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“A fresh and charmingly narrated look at teens and gender.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Changing bodies, developing personalities, forays into adult activities—where was this book circa the early 2000s when I needed it? But something tells me my adult self will learn a thing or to from it as well.” —Barnes & Noble Blog/Indie Books Roundup

Changers Book One: Drew
opens on the eve of Ethan Miller’s freshman year of high school in a brand-new town. He’s finally sporting a haircut he doesn’t hate, has grown two inches since middle school, and can’t wait to try out for the soccer team. At last, everything is looking up in life.

Until the next morning. When Ethan awakens as a girl.

Ethan is a Changer, a little-known, ancient race of humans who live out each of their four years of high school as a different person. After graduation, Changers choose which version of themselves they will be forever—and no, they cannot go back to who they were before the changes began.

Ethan must now live as Drew Bohner—a petite blonde with an unfortunate last name—and navigate the treacherous waters of freshman year while also following the rules: Never tell anyone what you are. Never disobey the Changers Council. And never, ever fall in love with another Changer. Oh, and Drew also has to battle a creepy underground syndicate called “Abiders” (as well as the sadistic school queen bee, Chloe). And she can’t even confide in her best friend Audrey, who can never know the real her, without risking both of their lives.

Fans of the books of John Green, the Joss Whedonverse—and empathy between humans—will find much to love in this first of a four-part series that tracks the journey of an average suburban boy who becomes an incredible young woman . . . who becomes a reluctant hero . . . who becomes the person she was meant to be.

Because, while changing the world can kinda suck, it sure beats never knowing who you really are.

T COOPER’s
most recent book is
Real Man Adventures
(McSweeney’s), which
Vanity Fair
has called “brave and hilarious.” He is also the author of three novels including the best-selling
Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes, The Beaufort Diaries, Some of the Parts,
and is the coauthor of
A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing
. Cooper’s work has appeared in the
New Yorker,
the
New York Times,
the
Believer, O, the Oprah Magazine, One Story, Bomb,
and elsewhere.

ALLISON GLOCK-COOPER
is the author of the
New York Times
notable book and Whiting Award winner
Beauty Before Comfort.
Her work has been published in the
New York Times, GQ, Rolling Stone, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, O, the Oprah Magazine, Elle, Marie Claire,
and many others. She is a contributing editor for the magazine
Garden & Gun,
a senior writer at ESPN, a columnist for
Southern Living,
and the recipient of a GLAAD award. Her first poem was recently published in the
New Yorker.

Changers Book One: Drew
is available in paperback
from our website
and in bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books are sold.