Under the October Sky
Some fates are worse than death. Survival is one of them.
In the two hundred years since humans left the Earth’s surface to live in the sky, life on the ground had faded to a myth, a tragic memory from which they severed themselves to survive. They floated above continents turned to sand and lands swallowed by the seas, watched storm after storm rage against their cities and their monuments until they broke apart the last vestiges of civilization, the many paying penance for the greed of the few.
As a lightning harvester charged with flying her ship into these storms for energy, Raina Kennedy has seen more of the planet than most. She has spent her entire life soaring above its craters and scars, studying the gaping wounds of human devastation, as she honed her skills and became the youngest captain in storm-chaser history.
Her ship has flown for generations. Her skills are unparalleled.
But none of that matters the day they go down.
The storm season was predicted to be the strongest in a hundred years–and Captain Raina Kennedy’s chance to prove herself once and for all. But after a catastrophic accident forces them to crash back into the planet, they become the first humans on the surface of the Earth in two hundred years. Reeling from failure and staring down an inhospitable world, and with only thirty days until the peak of the storm season, Raina must lead her crew across the surface and find a way home before the storm of the century strikes. But there is far more at stake than pride as the planet begins to take lives. Fighting through natural disasters, animal attacks, and pollution, they must make it back to the sky before the superstorm strikes, or die–and have their discoveries die with them.
Told over thirty days, this manuscript follows Raina’s journey as she attempts to lead her crew through an inhospitable world to find a way home. Drawing upon elements of the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and heavily influenced by Talia’s studies in History and Anthropology, it contains critiques of the systems of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy which have developed the climate crisis over the past five hundred years. It follows a diverse and LGBTQIA2S-inclusive cast, including trans and non-binary characters, and a bisexual protagonist. This manuscript can be described as The 100 with a climate change twist, merged the haunting voice of Station Eleven for a Young Adult audience.
Written while Talia was in high school, Under the October Sky taps into the rage of a generation growing up in the throes climate change. A compelling story of desperation, survival, and finding humanity, it contains a powerful message about our future planet, intended to show us what we stand to lose from the perspective of those who have already lost it. But perhaps most importantly: it is not hopeless. In our current era of climate panic, when so many are so quick to deem our future doomed, the most courageous and powerful thing we can be is hopeful. And told through the eyes of Raina, a young woman who has been taught that the only way to be strong is to stand alone, we come to see that survival can only come from standing together.