Green Rising

This is a powerful polemic on the pressing subject of climate change. James gives us the stories of Hester, Theo and Gabrielle, all involved in change – personal and political – and all in very different ways.

Gabrielle, protesting with Climate rebellion at a Fuel Summit, gains illegal access to the conference building, smashes a fire alarm and so brings the delegates out into the centre of the protest. To her amazement, after her actions, vines begin to grow on her body and in her hair.

Theo’s father is a fisherman, but as fish stocks diminish in polluted seas and his father’s boat is destroyed in a collision with an unmarked oil well drilling head belonging to the unscrupulous Dalex company he must try to earn money to support his struggling family. His father almost drowns as the boat sinks but a shocked Theo finds himself involuntarily growing strands of seaweed from his body and saving him.

Hester, moulded by her father to take over the Dalex empire after his retirement, is encouraged by him to exploit her gift for growing plants from her body as a way to secure a contract for the planned biospheres on Mars, to be used when the Earth’s resources for supporting life have been exhausted.

When the three are brought together they make a powerful team, reinforced by the other Greenfingers who Hester has been encouraged by her father to recruit. When she finally realises that he has deceived her and that he and his new business partner are interested only in draining Earth dry of its resources by accelerating climate change so that they can sell living units on Mars for people to flee to – if they can afford it – she decides the time has come to reverse his schemes.

This is a fast-paced story with plenty of twists and turns to satisfy ambitious and committed readers. Interwoven into the story are news bulletins, reports and interactions between the protesters in order to educate readers about the current climate change crisis. There is romance, camaraderie, political and business machinations and a real sense that working together can save this planet we live on and seem hell bent on destroying. James writes imaginatively and utterly convincingly – here we have a story which must be read.