First published September 17, 2019
Blurb
What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.
An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out eons ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.
N. K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
My Review
Someone recommended this story to me and this morning I felt like listening to it. It’s only an hour or so of audio, so I put it on while showering, eating breakfast, and checking emails.
I loved it. Entertaining and thoughtful, with a clear politic. N.K. Jemisin is a lefty, anyone who reads her work will know that, and in this novelette that is made clear. Jemisin takes current rhetoric from the right wing manosphere – women hating, billionaire worshipping, great man theory of history loving, wealth hoarding – and extends it to the extreme, then sends someone back to Earth to get HeLa cells. The protagonist learns that not all is as he has been told and develops a plan to save the descendants of the ‘minions’ who went with the billionaires.
I loved it. Entertaining and thoughtful, with a clear politic.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 
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