Nina Munteanu’s “Robin’s Last Song” in Metastellar Magazine

My short story Robin’s Last Song was republished recently in the superlative online magazine Metastellar. The story had first been published in 2021 in Issue 128 of Apex Magazine. An earlier version of the story called Out of the Silence appeared in the literary magazine subTerrain Magazine Issue 85 in 2020. 

 

I raced up the stairs to the auditorium then quieted my breath and listened at the door, heart thumping like a bird trying to escape. Professor Gopnik was ten minutes into his lecture; I could hear his commanding voice: “… estimates that the entire number of birds have been reduced by a third in five decades—I mean common birds like the robins, sparrows, warblers, and even starlings…”

He was talking about Rosenberg’s paper in Science. The study shocked the scientific community; but I had already observed the decline of the house sparrow around my aunt and uncle’s house near the Old Mill. And the robin—my namesake, whose song heralded spring for me—had grown quiet.

I imagined Gopnik waving the journal at the class in his typical showman style. He had a habit of wandering the stage like an evangelist, fixing each student with intense blue eyes as if challenging them to believe. I thought him an over-confident condescending prig. But for someone who looked as young as the students he was teaching, Gopnik was brilliant. And what he was doing was so important. I wanted so badly to work under him as a grad student. But he terrified me.

 

The Story Behind the Story

 

It all began with my discovery of an emerging bioacoustic tool, soundscape ecology, that measures biodiversity and ecosystem functionality. I’d just read the disturbing 2019 Science article by Rosenberg and team who determined that our slow violence of habitat degradation and toxic pollution has reduced the world’s bird population by a third in just five decades. I was devastated; I could not imagine a world without the comforting sound of birds. What would it be like if all the birds disappeared?

 

Already primed with research into genetic engineering for the sequel to my 2020 eco-novel, A Diary in the Age of Water, my muse (often delightfully unruly) played with notions of the potential implication of gene hacking in ecological calamity and how this might touch on our precious birds: when nature “is forced out of her natural state and squeezed and moulded;” her secrets “reveal themselves more readily under the vexations of art than when they go their own way.”

 

Robin’s Last Songis a realizable work of fiction in which science and technology are both instigators of disaster and purveyors of salvation. Today, gene-editing, proteomics, and DNA origami—to name just a few—promise many things from increased longevity in humans to giant disease-resistant crops. Will synthetic biology control and redesign Nature to suit hubris or serve evolution? What is our moral imperative and who are the casualties? As Francis Bacon expressed in Novum Organum, science does not make that decision. We do. 

 

 

You can read an Interview on Writing Robin’s Last Song that Alberta author Simon Rose did with me recently.

 

I also recently sat down with Rebecca E. Treasure of Apex Magazine for a conversation about story, ecology, and the future. Here’s how it begins:

 

Apex Magazine: The Way of Water in Little Blue Marble is such a powerful piece touching on water scarcity and friendship, a dry future and the potential for technology to overtake natural ecology. Robin’s Last Songexplores extinction, human fallibility, friendship, and again, that conflict between technology and nature. Do you think we’re heading toward the kind of dystopia shown in these stories?...

 

For more about bird declines around the world see my articles: “What if the Birds All Die?”

and “Birds are Vanishing.”

 

“Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds. The early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.”—Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

 

Read my other stories in Metastellar here: Nina Munteanu in Metastellar Speculative Fiction and Beyond. 

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Nina’s “Favorite 3 Reads Of 2023: Feminist Eco-Fiction

In late 2023, I was invited by Shepherd to post an article of my favourite three reads of 2023. I had earlier posted on Shepherd an article describing what I considered to be the best eco-fiction books that make you care and give you hope.

 

I started out by reviewing what I had read in 2023. It looked like I’d read about thirty odd books, almost half and half non-fiction to fiction. That’s not many, but I’m a slow reader. I pore through each book at a snail’s pace, spending time making notes with some, particularly the non-fiction books, which I use to research my writing. With fiction, I dive in deep and thoroughly savor each word and sentence like a mouthful of an excellent meal made with loving hands. Books varied from non-fiction scholarly works on forest ecosystems (The Treeline by Ben Rawlence) and post-capitalism (Four Futures by Peter Frase) to literary fiction, political thrillers, speculative fiction, clifi, and eco-fiction.

 

It was a tough choice, but I came up with three choices and a thematic rationale that resonated with me and made a deep kind of sense for that year: all three books were eco-fiction of sorts and featured hopeful stories of strong women, acting out of compassion and in solidarity with intelligence, kindness and courage. For me, 2023 was a year of strong feminine energy for the planet and my favourite books reflect that. Here they are (read the original article on Shepherd here): 

 

 

The first of my favourite three books of 2023 is Michelle Min Sterling’s Camp Zero.

 

Set in the remote Canadian north—a place I love for its harsh beauty—this feminist climate fiction explores a warming climate through the perilous journeys of several female characters, each relating to her environment in different ways. Each woman exerts agency in surprising ways that include love, bravery and shared community. The strength of female power carried me through the pages like a braided river heading to a singular ocean. These very different women journey through the dark ruins of violent capitalism, colonialism and patriarchy—flowing past and through hubristic men pushing north with agendas and jingoistic visions—to triumph in an ocean of solidarity. I empathized with each woman as she found her strength and learned to wield true heroism—one based on collaboration and humble honesty.

 

 

My second favourite book of 2023 is Yevgeni Zamyatin’s We.

 

I enjoyed this 1920 hopeful dystopia for its courageous and unprecedented feminism.

While the story centres on logical D-503, a man vacuously content as a number in the One State, it is I-330—Zamyatin’s unruly heroine—who stole my attention. Confident, powerful and heroic, the liberated I-330 embraces the Green Wind of change to influence D-503. A force of hope and resilience, she braves torture to successfully orchestrate a revolution that breaches the Green Wall—feats typically relegated to a male protagonist in novels of that era.When pregnant O-90 refuses to surrender her child to the State, I-330 helps her escape to the outside, where the Green Wind of freedom blows.I resonated with Zamyatin’s cautionary tale on the folly of logic without love and Nature.

 

 

My third favourite book of 2023 is Hugh Howie’s Wool (first of the SILO series).

Juliette—humble and gutsy, kind and relentlessly motivated in her journey for the truth—kept the pages turning for me. Juliette is a mechanic from the Down-Deep of the underground Silo, humanity’s last refuge to a toxic world. When Juliette inexplicably lands the job of sheriff, she treats her new position as a tool to seek the truth about her lover’s mysterious recent death. At her own peril, she pulls on threads that ultimately reveal a great conspiracy. 

 

Juliette’s literal and metaphoric rise from the Down-Deep to the Up-Top is a feminist’s journey that transcends intersectional barriers as she battles small-minded men of power and maintains her integrity by refusing to abide by the inhumane Up-Top rules of order. By the end, I sensed a victory for humankind through womankind. 

 

Also check out Shepherd’s 100 best books of 2023.

 

You might be interested in two of my own eco-fiction novels that feature several strong female protagonists:

 

Darwin’s Paradox follows the complex dynamic of a brave mother and her willful teenage daughter, both ‘gifted’ by a virus living inside them. Accused of murder and deliberately spreading the virus that killed many, Julie fled the enclosed city and settled in the climate wastelands with her husband and their child. Years later, when their harsh refuge is threatened by city forces seeking mother and daughter for experimentation, Julie leaves her family and gives herself up to the city, hoping they will abandon pursuing her daughter. Still psychically connected to the city’s AI community (now evolving into an autonomous entity with the intelligent virus), Julie tangles with political intrigue while her daughter, who followed her to the city, stumbles into her mother’s violent past.  

 

A Diary in the Age of Water follows the climate-induced journey of Earth and humanity through four generations of women, each with a unique relationship to water. Centuries from now, in a dying boreal forest in what used to be northern Canada, Kyo, a young acolyte called to service in the Exodus, yearns for Earth’s past—the Age of Water—before the “Water Twins” destroyed humanity. Looking for answers and plagued by vivid dreams of this holocaust, Kyo discovers the diary of Lynna, a limnologist from that time of severe water scarcity just prior to the destruction. In her work for a global giant that controls Earth’s water, Lynna witnesses and records in her diary the disturbing events that will soon lead to humanity’s demise.

 

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Winter Beauty... Photographs by Nina Munteanu

 

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Nature’s Elegance: When Dying is Beautiful…

 

 

It started with my need for change. My need to discover. To witness beauty. That meant going outside. And I knew exactly where to go. 

 

I made a lunch and took some snacks, saddled myself in Benny (my trusted VW steed) and drove west. 

 

It was late October and the cold winds hadn’t yet cajoled the colourful leaves off the maples, aspens, birches and oaks. I knew I would witness something remarkable. I was in the north temperate zone of Canada, after all, and this was the height of autumn magic…

 

Soon, I was driving along one of my favourite country roads, a gently rolling barely paved road through forest and farmland that rose and fell over drumlins and eskers with views that make you sigh. A vibrant carpet of orange-crimson forest and copper-hued fields covered the undulating hills in a patchwork of colour.

 

I stopped frequently and stepped out into the light rain to take photographs. The air was fresh and clean against my skin as I breathed in the scent of wet vegetation and loam. A light mist washed the distant hills in muted shades of a watercolour painting. The nearby forests were anything but muted. I drove past flaming thickets of red-purple dogwoods and sumacs. Benny took me beneath neon canopies: the brilliant orange and deep reds of sugar and red maples, the lemon yellows and bronzes of aspens, oaks and beeches.

 

The flaming colours signify approaching death for the leaf. The deeper the colour, the closer to the end. 

 

With less light in fall, the green sugar-making pigment, chlorophyll, starts to break down. Other pigments, previously masked by the chlorophyll are revealed: the red-purples of anthocyaninand the oranges and yellows of carotenoids.As chlorophyll degrades, light striking the leaf may cause injury to its biochemical machinery, particularly the parts that regulate nutrient movement. So, these other pigments help to create a physical light shield and help the leaves efficiently move their nutrients into the twigs for the tree to use later.  

 

As the temperature plummets, the trees build a protective seal between the leaves and their branches, taking in as many nutrients as possible from the sugar-building leaves. Once the leaves are cut off from the fluid in the branches, they separate and drop to the ground, helped by the winds. Even in death, the leaves continue to contribute. On the ground, the fallen leaves decompose and restock the soil with nutrients; they also contribute to the spongy humus layer of the forest floor that absorbs and holds rainfall. Fallen leaves are also food for soil organisms, whose actions in turn keep the forest functional.

 

As I wove through the deep colours of autumn, I felt humbled by this naked beauty, so simply shown. So ingenuously revealed. How elegantly yet guileless nature went through its stages of individual dying to ensure renewal and growth for the whole.  

 

I returned home, invigorated and humbled by nature’s transient show. 

 

Within weeks, the bright leaves would fall, leaving the trees bare and gray and the ground a thick slippery carpet of brownish gray-black rot. Beauty enfolded, dissected and integrated. Insects, fungi, and bacteria would deliver what the leaves used to be and create something else, a gift to the living forest.

 

Is that not what death is? The end of something to ensure the beginning of something else?

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Mistakes Authors Make (When We Don’t Pay Attention to Place and Things)

 

In “A Dance of Cranes” (Dundurn, 2019) author Steve Burrows erroneously describes the actions and motions associated with canoeing. In the following scene, the protagonist Jejeune is canoeing on a river in the boreal wilderness of northern Canada:

 

The low sun seemed to light the stand of birches from within, flickering through the trunks like a strobe light as Jejeune rowed past.  

 

One does not row a canoe; one paddles—with a paddle.

 

You might think that this is a small error, hardly worth mentioning; however, the friend who pointed out this mistake to me, was thrown out of the novel by it. She is a naturalist and has often gone canoeing in the lakes and rivers of Ontario. This mistake suggested a lack of professional attentiveness from both author and editor of the publication. By compromising the authenticity of the fictional setting the error stopped the reader from participating. We were no longer paddling with Jejeune; we were looking at the book.*

 

Some of you may rail at me for being overly harsh. You would remind me that this is a work of fiction, after all, not fact. You’d remind me that fiction is a work of the imagination, of characters and journeys; not a dry documentary. 

 

I would agree with you—up to a point. Certainly, in fiction we can and do take liberties with “facts” so long as the narrative keeps the reader moving in the “fictive dream.” Authors have managed to successfully bend reality considerably in the past to great effect because the reader was fully engaged in the narrative and the characters. 

 

But ultimately, beginning-to-end factual accuracy remains important in a made-up story for various reasons. While some “fake facts” or mistakes (such as the example above) may slip by many readers unnoticed, someonewill notice. Guaranteed. And, as with my naturalist friend, it can make the difference between a seamless read and a jarring one. Writer Dorian Boxshares that, “Some readers may even post reviews criticizing your book on that basis.” Dorian adds that when they spot large factual inaccuracies in a novel, “it detracts from the reading experience. I start to question other things. Credibility is damaged.”

 

All good fiction is anchored by consistent and believable world-building, whether the story is set in contemporary New York City or a made up planet in some made up solar system. The key to this believability is the use of grounding ‘facts’ or world-consistencies that immerse the reader in the story world. The reader relies on the author to realistically represent the world they are reading about. This allows the reader to experience the story as though it was real. Representing the facts accurately enables the writer to take liberties with other aspects of the story. Because the reader is nicely embedded in the world through accurate depiction, they will follow your characters through it eagerly.

 

The Importance and Ease of Research in Fiction Writing   

 

To prevent what happened in the example I gave above, authors must exercise due diligence in world building, in representation of setting and place, and in other elements of the story. Writers have easy access to so much knowledge about so many topics through local libraries, local experts, the internet, social media, and more. In other words, no excuse. 

 

In the novel I’m currently working on I needed to understand what it felt like to handle, load and shoot a particular make of shotgun. I had handled one in the past but not actually used it. The internet provided exceptional instructional videos and sites that I could use to come close to the actual experience. I paid particular attention to nuances and sensual aspects such as texture, smell, weight, as well as mechanical aspects, like recoil; anything that would more viscerally help me experience it. When I had written the scenes, I showed them to someone who had handled a shotgun for their verdict on accurate depiction. 

 

For more examples and discussion on place and doing research, check out Chapter H and R of my first book in TheAlien Guidebook Series“The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!”and Part 2 of my third book in the series “The Ecology of Story: World as Character.” 

 

 

*There is such a thing as a rowing canoe; canoes can be set up for rowing with oarlocks and sockets, oars, rowing seats and even forward rowing contraptions such as foot brace for efficient rowing. However, this was not the case in the book I gave as an example.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press(Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.