Stone Soup Editor’s note: We sent a copy of Three Days Till EOC by Abhimanyu Sukhdial, the winner of our 2019 book contest published in September 2020, to the (grand)father of cli-fi, Dan Bloom, in Taiwan. He wrote us a wonderful letter of recommendation which he has given us permission to publish on our website, since his own, cli-fi.net, is not currently being updated. SCI FI NOVELLA by 12 year old boy in Oklahoma gets rave review from 71-year-old book reviewer in Taiwan In a new 66-page science/climate fiction novella by a 12-year-old boy named Abhimanyu Sukhdial from Oklahoma, titled Three Days Till EOC, time is running out. “It is the year 2100 and water, the thing that matters to all life, is wiping out life itself. The ice sheets have melted, the Earth has passed its last cataclysmic tipping point, and now there are only three days until the ‘End of Civilization,'” as the notes on the back cover of this well-designed and easy-to-read novella tell us. “Climate scientist Graham Alison, one of the last 1,000 humans left on Earth, is racing against the odds to save the world before the last rescue shuttle leaves for the Mars colonies. Will he manage to persuade the leaders of the past to change their behavior so that the present can be different? Or will it be precious networks of family relationships across time and space that actually save humanity?” The publishers, Children’s Art Foundation–Stone Soup Inc., sent me a copy of his book by air-mail and although it took two months to arrive at my home in Taiwan during this global pandemic, it finally arrived last week and I immediately sat down to start reading it. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t put the book down. It’s that’s good. It’s amazing that a 12-year-old boy in America could write such a well-plotted sci-fi story and get it published. You can order it via Amazon and other book ordering sites online. This is a science fiction book set in the future–some call it dystopian, although Abhi feels that such a label limits it to just a particular sub-genre. Among the people in the book: We meet the main character Graham Hart Alison and a cast of characters, including the first Indian-American U.S. president, Mr. Ram Singh who is in office in 2052. Teens and sci-fi geeks will love it, and so will YA readers and adults, too. Famous sci-fi writers like David Brin or Kim Stanley Robinson might even enjoy reading this book. It’s a novella that combines “science fiction” with “climate fiction” and I at the age of 71-going-on-72 enjoyed every single page. This is a young writer to watch! Signed – Dan Bloom, editor, The Cli-Fi Report www.cli-fi.net
Abhi Sukhdial
Three Days Till EOC, Reviewed by Anya, 14
When you are an avid reader, or anyone who reads books at all, there comes a point when all of the stories start to blend together. You pick up, say, a new dystopian book at the store, and sigh, because you know it’ll just be a new version of The Hunger Games or Divergent or a million other books, with the same plot, same characters, same villains. It’s inevitable. Abhimanyu Sukhdial’s novella, Three Days Till EOC, is different. Sukhdial takes his writing down a road that few writers ever fully explore, with a unique plot, and unique themes. Three Days Till EOC is a piece of dystopian, climate change fiction. In the year 2100, the glaciers are gone and the ice caps have melted. Only 1,000 humans—known as the Earthlings—remain, and in three days is EOC (the End of Civilization), when monster storms will end all human life. The set up of the book makes it seem as though the fate of all humanity is sealed. But not quite. In fact, the Earthlings are able to take a flight to Mars, if they so wish, and continue their new lives there, without so much as a backward glance to Earth. However, the people who want to go to Mars are those who don’t care about trying to make change—even at the last minute—and don’t care about doing everything they can to stop EOC. The main characters of Three Days Till EOC are quite different. Graham Hori Alison is a scientist, one of the only ones left who is still dedicated to stopping EOC. Most of the other Earthlings don’t like Graham too much. They avoid him, calling him a “Junior Uncle Scrooge.” They don’t understand why he is so focused on stopping climate change when it is clearly unbeatable, or why he won’t go on a spaceship to Mars like everyone else. In an interview, I asked Sukhdial how he chose to design Graham as his main character. He replied, “I like a lot of vulnerable characters, not just characters who are really, really powerful. And so I wanted to create a regular human because I feel he [is] very relatable, and not just a person with superpowers and stuff.” Sukhdial’s story and characters are very relatable. While the plot does incorporate some cool sci-fi gadgetry—just enough to make it sufficiently futuristic—it stays true to itself, focusing on the topic of climate change and the people who work to stop it, which, unlike teleportation devices or time traveling train cars, are very real things. Graham and his friends, Shellie and Jackson, are persistent in their belief that they can save the world. They try, fail, and try again, working against the clock that ticks down to EOC. The themes that Three Days Till EOC contains are also what sets it apart from most other fiction in its genre. Sukhdial wanted to “convey a lot of messages.” Overall, he spreads a message of perseverance, teamwork, responsibility, and legacy. All of these ideas are ones that fit in very well with our current world, as well as in EOC’s world. How can we, in 2020, persevere against all of the obstacles that plague us as a planet? How can we work together to better our world? How can we be responsible for our mistakes as well as willing to accept them and overcome them? And finally, what will our legacy be? What mark will we leave on the world? In Three Days Till EOC, Sukhdial doesn’t just ask us these questions, but he shows how answering them may well be able to save the world. Three Days Till EOC by Abhi Sukhdial, 2020. Purchase a copy in the Stone Soup Store or on Amazon.