Les ressources naturelles

At Torrents, every ecological challenge has its answer. They transform skyscrapers into forests, they restore extinct species, they send algae to swallow oil-spills and robotic bees to pollinate flowers. Clémence Saint-Pierre, the communications director, believes every word of it, until the day an insoluble problem arises: the Gulf of St. Lawrence has been emptied of any life. Mired in the management of this crisis, Clémence works tirelessly, overseen by an army of drones, a tyrannical boss, and a woman with fox’s eyes, while, in the basement of Torrents, an artificial jellyfish pirates her dreams. When she finally cracks, she decides to get to the source of the problem. On the shores of a seemingly dead Gulf, she discovers the scale that a life can take on, her own and others’, when it transcends the individual — and she reconciles with ancient powers that bind her to water and mist in an inexplicable way.

In this second novel, Christian Vadnais deepens her exploration of ecofiction through an exuberant story that brings together professional psychosis, transhumanism, and primordial legend. Les ressources naturelles is at once a merciless assault on “green” capitalism and a tribute to that which resists, and persists to live.