Camp Zero is set in the near and all-too-possible future when the equator becomes a dead zone and survival is found in moving north to higher latitudes. The story is located at two camps in the northern part of Canada near the Arctic Circle. Ice, snow, and bitter cold still remain a dangerous threat that requires people to prepare and plan to exist.

Camp Zero is a former mining village emptied when the mine shut down. A man who wants to redeem his name by building a refuge from the environmental collapse that is happening thanks, in part, to the businesses that made his family so wealthy. It is a village of men.

The Blooms are a small group of sex workers imported to provide sexual comfort to the leadership there. One of the Blooms, however, has a second mission that is gradually being derailed by one of the locals.

White Alice is a climate monitoring station staffed solely by women. They transmit regular reports and must come together to forge a new working relationship when they discover information left behind by one of the crew who staffed the station before them.

What will happen when the framework for their existence in the north begins to crumble?

Camp Zero is an intriguing construct with much more potential than is realized. It was frustrating because it felt unresolved. It didn’t exploit its full potential with a village of man and one of women. We saw one was more hierarchical and the other more collaborative, but this was not explored as much as it could have been. It also felt rushed in the latter half of the book. This is because then ending is incomplete and unresolved. It leaves readers with more of a “huh?” than a “what happens next?”

received an e-galley of Camp Zero from the publisher through Edelweiss.

Camp Zero at Atria Books | Simon & Schuster
Michelle Min Sterling ( )

3.5 stars, this was good but missing something. The stories of all the characters, especially White Alice were fantastic, but there was too much flashback mixed in with the momentum of the story. The message of men destroy everything was heavy handed and could have used more nuance as well. I liked the setting and idea though, climate dystopia in the far North. ( )

2.5 Stars ( )

Camp Zero is Michelle Min Sterling's debut novel. It's a unique, unsettling and addictive read that I just couldn't put down.
It's 2050 and climate change has decimated much of the world. A group of American investors are secretly planning to build far up in the Canadian North. That's the basic premise - but there's so much more.

The cast of characters is very different and gives us varying points of view. The investor, the architect, his foreman, the diggers, the six sex workers that were flown in, an English teacher, the 'locals' and women soldiers living in a nearby Cold War-era climate research station. I thought to myself, how in the world will all these players be tied together? They are though - in a devilishly clever plot.

Sterling examines the reasons of each player, what they want, what they need and how they're going to get it. I have to say that I found White Alice's 'whys' and 'hows' were the ones that intrigued me the most.

There's loads of social commentary in Camp Zero. The stakes are high with the rich building enclaves for themselves, staffed by the lower classes. The blithe idea that they are entitled to the land and it's natural resources. Their own comfort and needs trumps all. Even as the planet is dying.

Camp Zero's storyline kept me eagerly turning pages as the action and danger is ramped up on the way to the final pages. The ending was not what I had hoped for - but seems to fit the narrative better.

Camp Zero checked a lot of boxes for this reader - a believable dystopian setting (loved the abandoned mall), interesting characters, a plausible plot and great writing. I look forward to Sterling's next book. ( )

Pros: compelling read, interesting personalities

Cons: bittersweet ending

Camp Zero is the beginning of a utopian community in northern Canada, away from the heat and disasters of the rest of the world, where man and nature can finally coexist.

Rose will have enough money to support herself and her mother if she works in the camp’s brothel, spying on its architect for her former boss. Grant took a teaching job there to get away from his ultra rich family and their control over his life. But the diggers have no interest in literature or poetry.

Further north still is White Alice, a station manned by a crew of female Americans who have created their own community.

As life in the camp progresses, it’s clear that this isn’t the escape the workers were promised. Are they willing to take the risks required to create the future they want?

I found the book a very compelling read and hard to put down. The characters are vibrant and their situation challenging. It was interesting learning about Rose and Grant’s pasts and how the rich created a new city that could more easily weather the new climate while watching the rest of the US fail. Not as much happens in the present, though seeing Rose try to figure out what she wants in life and take a chance on love was nice.

The White Alice crew was fun, though I was surprised by the extent to which they wanted their community to continue on into the future. Especially given their energy concerns as the production of fossil fuels came to a halt.

There’s limited descriptions of the sex work involved. The profession is treated with dignity by all but one or two of the clients. It’s not a titillating story. Be aware that there is a non-graphic attempted rape later on in the book.

The ending is bittersweet, with a lot left open.

If you’re interested in slow apocalypses and highly personal stories of surviving in challenging circumstances you’ll like this. ( )