All the Birds in the Sky Is the Hopeful Apocalyptic Novel We Need Right Now

Though All the Birds in the Sky is a debut novel, it has the feel of an instant classic, effortlessly straddling the line between young adult and grownup fare, between science and fantasy, between the endless drag of contemporary post-apocalyptic narratives and something more hopeful. Charlie Jane Anders was the longtime editor of io9—a website that chronicles just about anything related to science, science fiction, fantasy, and all things geeky—and it shows. She plays, and plays seriously (if that isn’t an oxymoron) with a wide variety of genre tropes.This is an omnivorous, multifaceted novel, taking up the hoary old conflict between magic and science and asking, why not both?
The first third details the young lives of two misfits: Laurence and Patricia, both gifted in their own ways. Patricia learns to talk to animals, and in a breathtaking opening sequence, meets the Parliament of Birds at a Yggdrasil-like tree. She’s a nascent witch. Laurence is more…matriculating mad scientist. He builds a two-second time machine—one he usually uses to jump two seconds past whatever nightmare bullying situation he’s in at the moment—and tinkers with a self-designed supercomputer/AI that fills his closet. Both kids are doggedly misunderstood by their parents and peers, circumstances that only worsen when they begin to be hunted by an assassin who believes they will bring about the end of the world. This may sound goony, but I promise: it works.
Though their childhood friendship is glancing and conditional—Anders does not sugarcoat the way bullied children will turn on each other to keep from under the fist themselves—it is nevertheless a foundational relationship. Patricia, on her way to Eltisley Maze (a magical school that owes something to Brakebills college in The Magicians, itself a kind of grownup Hogwarts), rescues Laurence from sure death at a sadistic military school. After his escape, he comes of age with a group of science geeks helmed by tech investor Milton Dirth. Patricia becomes a full-fledged witch, working to enforce certain moral standards. Laurence joins a team assembled by Milton, an Elon Musk character with overtones of Hari Seldon from the Foundation trilogy, hoping to realize Milton’s dream of saving humanity by populating other planets. Patricia and Laurence eventually run into each other again as adults, and sparks fly, even as a world rent by climate change comes crashing down around them.
Why it will win:
All the Birds in the Sky is just full of sparkling dialogue, and something more fun than gallows humor. The world the adult Laurence and Patricia inhabit is one of casual horror. People at parties regularly moan about the growing tension in the South Pacific, or diseases burning through the Middle East, or the dust bowl of the central US. In many ways, the apocalypse is in full swing. The tension between the ordinary everyday lives of our protagonists, navigating both jobs and power outages, and their fear of what worse may come, reminded me very much of the tone of Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140. New York is underwater, but life goes on. Magic and science are in conflict, but what else is new?
There is something incredibly timely and zeitgeist-perfect about this novel, this book-shaped encapsulation of 2016, both the hope and the fear. Patricia and Laurence personify very different approaches to the problems of our world. While not political in nature, they are nevertheless deeply oppositional, though they may not need to be. Patricia and Laurence are often upset by the other’s discipline, but it’s more their placement within the structures of their work that bring them into conflict. Magicians and scientists alike are working on doomsday devices, though (of course) they only see the danger of the other side. The solution to the conflict isn’t as simple as some pablum about how “love finding a way,” but the hopeful détente the two sides reach is as least as personal as it is political.
Why it won’t win:

Anders is a first-time novelist (more correctly, this is her first genre novel; she has one earlier book with a small press). As an industry award, voted on by writers for writers, a proven track record is still something of a leg up; first time novelists are just too new. Sure, Ann Leckie pulled off a win in 2014 with her debut, Ancillary Justice, but for the most part, it’s well-established writers (with books that show off their serious experience) who have taken home the Nebula. Still, Anders has been active in SFF for a long time, both in her former role as a founding editor of io9, and the author of short stories that have racked up an impressive number of accolades. She’s already won a Hugo for a novelette Six Months, Three Days, that was also nominated for a Nebula. So maybe the first-time novelist thing won’t be as strong of an impediment, though some of that is going to be dependent on the competition.
The real bummer is that, alas, it is not 2016 anymore. The early months of 2017 have been characterized by all out hostility between, well, everyone. I don’t see much of Anders’ gossamer hope threaded through the political (and scientific) dialogue these days. I’m not sure if this year’s model of Laurence and Patricia could sit down at the same table together, let alone set aside hostilities for even a moment, and voters might favor a choice that feels more in tune with how so many are feeling these days (so, a bit grim).
It’s possible I’m being a drag here, and Anders’ light but thoughtful, dark but dreaming vision of the end (not quite the end) of things may be appealing precisely because everything sucks so much right now. Maybe it is a blueprint of how to navigate the end times with a sense of humor and good grace. That’s deserving in and of itself.
Find all entries in this year’s Blogging the Nebulas series here.