In the near future of After World, Debbie Urbanski's debut novel, the climate crisis necessitates a level of drastic action that has been thus far contained to the postapocalyptic novel (both in reality and on a meta self-referential level within the novel). When humanity asks for solutions, an AI suggests eradication of the problem: humans. This is ostensibly rejected: "No one and nothing would ever trigger human extinction to save the planet, people believed." But, ultimately, a debilitating virus spreads as resources dwindle and regulatory efforts shift to facilitate the demise of the human populace--with minimal additional impact on the earth and its nonhuman inhabitants.
The novel's primary focus is Sen, the last human and chosen witness to how the world she was promised will continue without her as she slowly dies: "She is solitary and respiratory and mammalian and alone" as she logs her observations in drone-provided notebooks. Storyworker ad39-393a-7fbc, a digital presence that appears "outside their field of vision as an imperceptible wariness," relays Sen's life and must upload Sen to Maia, the virtual reality where humans will be archived. But the storyworker cannot stay unaffected by Sen. As their stories converge, Urbanski invites readers to consider if it's possible to engage with existential questions about worth and legacy without considering cost and consequences.
The questions at the heart of After World are desperate and unanswered, but the novel's sadness never gives over to issuing judgment, instead suggesting limits to the allure of the postapocalyptic novel with a heavy dose of believable global peril. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer