A young boyand his older sisters find themselves suddenly and utterly alone. They are orphaned in an abandoned fishing village. Their food supplies dwindling, they set out across a treacherous wilderness in search of the last of their people. Down the coast, raiders have the children's mother, along with the rest of their human cargo. Determined to reunite with their family, the mother plots to escape.

After 20% this Dystopia book is not for me.

Thank you for NetGalley and Viking for this ARC.

**Features:**

- Post apocalyptic story with an ‘ancient civilization’ feel
- Climate fiction set long after an initial climate disaster
- Celebrates human resilience and the importance of community

**Summary:**

The world is constantly changing. When food could no longer be grown and fishing nets started to come up empty, the people of Lilah’s fishing village decided it was time to leave. Choosing to stay behind, Lilah’s family is struggling to survive when she is captured by raiders. Presuming she and their father are dead, Leerit, Maret, and Kushim set out on a perilous journey through the wilderness in search of the villagers who left them behind. Meanwhile, Cyrus is left to navigate a complicated political landscape in one of the last human cities. In the fight for survival, all three stories will converge to determine the future of humanity.

**Thoughts:**

This dystopian climate fiction is both brutal and beautiful as it depicts three very different stories of survival. Though it is never really specific about how our society declined, this story takes place far enough in the future that people have returned to a style of living more consistent with ancient civilizations. Despite this evolution, climate change is still occurring and plays a central role. Though this book offers a critique on the parts of human nature that lead us down destructive paths, it focuses more on human strength, resilience, and community. There are plenty of dark moments, but I would say this book is more hopeful overall.

The writing in this book is beautiful and feels minimalistic. The chapters and sections are short, but I don’t feel like anything was missing. That being said, I felt like it took me a bit longer than usual to get into the story. Each storyline takes a while to find its footing, but I found each captivating once they really got going. If you are willing to be a little patient, this book is well worth the read!

The Ancients is a thought-provoking dystopian centered around climate change. The author has a talent for delivering an ominous story and yet captivating with the hope and desire to survive emanating from the characters.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is such an interesting and engrossing read. It reads like an epic, with many intersecting storylines and characters. Three siblings are left abandoned when their parents disappear. They wonder if they are the last people on Earth as they go in search of others. Meanwhile, their mother has survived and has been taken captive. We also get to see the perspective of the more privileged class. The characters move in and out of peril and luck. They get separated. We hope they reunite. And we come to learn about the various and heavy effects of climate change. I found the writing very easy to follow, and the plot moved quickly. Some of the tales within this tale were maybe a bit too heavy-handed in their morality, but overall, this book was a very imaginative way to think about climate dystopias.

Unique and surprising. I especially liked how Larison challenges the reader's idea of what is "primitive" and "modern," and his clever borrowing, from creation stories to Game of Thrones type emperors. There are many familiar elements here that are meshed together creatively.

There is also a clear point of view, in terms of the potential consequences of climate change, and the bias still facing those who are gay. This threatens to distract the reader at times from the engaging plot and richly-drawn characters, but Larison never fully takes the pulpit, to the novel's benefit. He delivers his warnings and commentary about the fallibility of those who seek power within the spellbinding realm of the story.

All in all, I would highly recommend this story to sci-fi/fantasy readers as well as speculative fiction fans.

This is an interesting story envisioning a world that is succumbing to the effects of climate change. It focuses on a family who refuses to join the rest of their village when they leave in search of a location that will sustain life. When their parents disappear, the children embark on a dangerous trek through mountainous terrain in search of their aunt, who had moved with the village. Meanwhile, the mother, who was kidnapped, is taken to a faraway city as a slave. This city demonstrates the domino effect of aggressive production policies that led to the collapse of their food chain.

The author does a wonderful job with world building and character development. It is an interesting and engaging read.

Many thanks to PENGUIN GROUP Viking and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

In a post-apocalyptic world in which our civilization has been destroyed, survivors have had to build-up from the beginning of primitive times. They’ve just entered the bronze age, and pockets of humans are spread out far distances from each other – with for many only remote rumors of others. Moreover, climate change is in full force- with the world drying up and the attending drought causing wide-spread starvation.

The story alternates between a family barely eking out a living fishing by the beach, the rest of their clan having headed to what lore has labeled forbidden mountains in hope of finding migrating elk and greener land. The three children of this family, after their parents suddenly disappear, have to make a survival trek to hope to find their clan in the mountains before they themselves starve, freeze, or get killed by wild bears.

On a wealthy island nation, Cyrus, the studious historian son inherits the family mantle of his newly deceased powerful dad. The family had made a fortune in producing wool for everyone’s clothes, and the son learns of a mandate from his emperor to produce more wool than ever before. To do so, their island captures and enslaves people they find living on other islands The son also learns after his father’s death of the family’s vast debts, as well as his need to produce the wool if he has any hope of getting a place on board a giant Noah’s Ark of a ship the emperor is building to travel to more fertile lands.

What follows is a powerful survival tale of both families, with some somber messaging about where our current civilization is heading.

Thanks to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

The Ancients is a well crafted dystopian story of two societies on the brink of ecological collapse. The Coastal communities are matrilineal, lead a simple existence, give thanks and pray to their Mother the Sea. In this climate damaged land, resources grow increasingly more scarce. The Coastal people are forced to leave their villages in search of more favorable fishing and hunting grounds. At the center of this story are three siblings whose life course is changed when their parents leave to find food and never return.

A more technologically advanced, patriarchal society, reside among the hills where they worship the Sun. The patriarch is on his death bed, and his son Cyrus has no interest in taking a wife to secure his position as heir to the throne. Instead he wishes to be a scholar, and to study alongside Ashair his secret lover. Meanwhile, conflict and rebellion threaten. Desertification encroaches on their land, and shrewd political leaders plan their escape. An arc is built to sail for more prosperous lands to colonize, but not all will be allowed aboard.

If speculative climate fiction is your thing, then give The Ancients a read. You will find themes of human resilience, stewardship of the earth’s resources, the power of myth making, and questions about who gets to control the story.

Many thanks to the author John Larison, @VikingBooks, and @NetGalley for the pleasure of reading this imaginative tale in exchange for an honest review.

“The Ancients” is a complex dystopian novel that I found challenging to connect with. Revolving around three sets of characters, the backstory remains ambiguous. This seems to be in a future where conditions are primitive, possibly due to a climate disaster. I understand the sermon the author was preaching; the pacing was just sluggish and the journey too long.

Thank you to Viking and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Ancients is a very enjoyable, immersive read. Set in a future where climate change has pushed humanity to the brink, it paints a vivid picture of a world where survival is a daily struggle. What really drew me in was how complex the characters are—none of them are perfect, but their flaws make them feel real. You find yourself rooting for them, even when you don’t always agree with their choices.

The themes of sustainability and rebuilding resonate deeply throughout the story. Despite the grim setting, there's a sense of hope that threads through the narrative, reminding us of the strength of the human spirit. The only thing that left me wanting more was the ending, which felt a bit too clean for the gritty world that had been built. But that didn’t detract from the overall impact of the book—it's a compelling, well-crafted story that I highly recommend!

I do not like comparing, but I would say that this book in a lot of ways reminds me of Dune, in its themes, in the writing and the world building (except this one takes place in an earth we have destroyed over the centuries). We follow multiple perspectives throughout the story, but I would say, my favorite would be the siblings. There is something so relatable to them, and in a way reminded me of my own fights and fears with my younger cousins, and our own personal struggles. Curious, how removed by fiction and circumstance, I can still find three siblings trying to get to a better place, similar to me and my cousins immigrating and me being the closest example available for them to copy. The pain, the fear of losing family, it is a grim reality compared to mine, yet it still spoke to me.

There is something to be said about the character work and the narrative tone of the novel: it is delightful, it is poetic, and it is thought-provoking without the need of over-encumbering its audience or talking down or pretentiously to them.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Fascinating story of a primitive family that is actually our post apocalyptic future. Life has been good for generations, when over the period of a few short years the climate begins to shift- food is becoming increasingly scarce.Starvation is coming soon and a decision needs to be made- journey into the unknown and hope for a better life or wait for things to go back to the way they were. Initially our family decides to stay, as their relatives and friends leave their camp and turn their back on the empty sea into the unknown mountains.

At the start of the story the two youngest children 7 and 12 years old wake up tp find that their parents didn’t come home last night. They travel acress the river to their teenage sister who has had a fight with her mother ( guess that never changes) and moved out into the aunt’s abandoned encampment. When the younger children show up she know that her parents absence means grave danger and immediately takes charge, trying to trace her tribe’s journey into the mountains.
Contrasting their story, is a city where wool is used as currency and the heir to the “corporation“ doesn’t want to follow in his dying father’s footsteps, he would rather settle down with his male lover and life a quiet life of culture and contemplation. Unfortunately for him, his lover is a dedicated doctor of the poor and married.
The story is a bit slow in places but compelling. I enjoyed the characters, the 3 siblings become separated I was constantly pulling for them to be reunited.
The author gave some interesting things to consider- how prejudice can shape actions- Left coast vs Right Coast and the barbarians. Also, the “primitives” live in harmony with land and the seasons- they are a matriarchal society and seemed to be peaceful. They contrast sharply with the city - the last outpost of “civilization“ where slavery, greed and corruption are rampant and fully male dominated. As the city is also facing ecological catastrophe they are building an ark to sail to a more fertile land. Lots to unpack here.
I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.
Recommend.

I absolutely loved The Ancients. It’s the story of a world ravaged by climate change, where civilization has been set back thousands of years. The interwoven stories of survival and hope kept me hooked from start to finish.

None of the characters were purely likable, but they were all compelling in their own ways, forcing me to stay invested in their struggles.

I loved the messages about sustainability and hope in such a bleak future. My only minor gripe was how neatly everything wrapped up in the end, which felt a little too tidy given the harshness of the story. That said, it didn’t take away from how incredible this book was overall—highly recommend!

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking!

The future portrayed holds struggle but also hope

In a world where the environment is rapidly changing (and not in a good way) the struggle to survive is real. One family, clinging to their village despite the fact that the fish upon which their existence is dependent have disappeared, is torn apart when the mother is captured and placed into slavery. Her three children must find their own path to survival, even as the mother tries desperately to reunite with them. The eldest, a daughter, leads her siblings into the mountains, following in the path of their fellow villagers who had travelled that way earlier. Along the way, they will themselves follow divergent paths; one will go to war against the barbarians, another will find their place within a group of herders, and the third heads to the city of the barbarians where he might be healed. Meanwhile, within the city the leaders are looking to find a new place where their people can thrive, as they are suffering from the lack of green spaces to be found between the dunes and the sea. One resident of the city, Cyrus, starts out a naive and self-absorbed boy with a scholarly background, and what he sees with the forced labor he is tasked with overseeing and what he knows of the world’s history lead him to rethink what he has always believed. Nature is a harsh teacher, but if people heed the lessons of the past they will find that a better future world can be created.
With a writing style best described as stripped down yet able to evoke the richness possible within the natural world, this is climate concern-based apocalyptic fiction as cautionary tale. It is not something that can be read through quickly, it needs to be absorbed carefully as the patient read along. Is this our imminent future, or is it centuries away? Are we doomed to this end, or can actions be taken now to avoid such devastation? That is up to the reader’s own imagination and view of the current state of the world. Those who have enjoyed works by authors like Cormac McCarthy, Lois Lowry, and Octavia E. Butler might find this work of literary fiction to their liking, as would anyone who appreciates a well-crafted story with a cautionary slant. My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking/Viking Press for allowing me early access to a copy of The Ancients.

Set in the distant future, this novel explores a world on the cusp of reinventing itself. There are three storylines - a young boy and his two sisters whose parents have disappeared, their mother's arrival in the heart of the metropolis, and the head of the wool industry.

There is drought and famine, disparity, slavery, sloth and not a lot of benevolence. I had a hard time figuring out the "when" of it all, because the setting felt biblical (but we're supposed to be in the future?) The wealthy wear robes, few can read, they don't have books instead they read from scrolls, the labor is very manual, the "guilds" very rigid. Letting go of trying to determine how this all fit in a relative timeline let me sink into the story itself.

And it's a big story. The siblings on a harrowing journey, their affinity with the land, raw survival. They don't know their mother is still alive, captured into slavery for the wool trade. The end of times is coming and the collision is, well, biblical.

Great world building, and a treatise on the cyclical nature of civilization.

My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Viking for the digital ARC.

On a planet overwhelmed by climate catastrophe, three children search for their aunt after their parents disappear from their abandoned seaside village. Their mother is stolen into slavery for a society of sun worshippers. A man is forced to abandon scholarship and illicit love to take on his father‘s legacy of wool production to earn a ticket to escape the drought-stricken city. After Whiskey When We‘re Dry, I was hoping for another powerful character study. Instead what emerges is a fable where the characters take a backseat to the message of a people who have forgotten the lessons of a civilization long-erased as they threaten to mercilessly drain the earth of its resources. Again.

Larison's writing is strong and the story is a unique imagining of a different sort of dystopian future than usually appears in fiction. However, I found myself wanting more - more depth of character, stronger threads of connection from the primitive future Larison imagines to our climate changing present.

The novel opens with two children, thirteen year old Maren, and nine year old Kushim, awakening to find that their parents, Lilah and Tamar, who had left them to find food, had not returned to their remote fishing village. The children seek help from their adult sister, Leerit, who lives across the bay. The family live in a meager “village of five” after Lilah’s sister, a midwife, and the other villagers chose to abandon their beach and decamp to the mountains when food became increasingly scarce. Leerit intends to lead her younger siblings (“senseless, stupid, coddled children”) to find their Aunt before winter sets in. Larison has crafted a skillfully executed set piece as the trio attempt to traverse a treacherous mountain range.

Meanwhile, Lilah has been abducted and her husband, Tamar, murdered. Lilah believes that their plight is a result of Tamar killing a bear that had been raiding the family’s food stores. After the killings, there were fewer fish, few elk, and strange inexplicable illnesses sweeping through the village. Lilah is kept in a cage with several younger hostages as they are transported to the empire. The captives will be part of the “indentured” who toil in various industries, such as timber, plastic, and crops. Lilah is assigned to wash wool.

Cyrus is a scholar, who studies the scrolls with fragments of ancient stories, and the son of a prominent, but debt-ridden, wool producer who lives is a commanding estate that overlooks the docks where Lilah and the other captives were brought. Cyrus’s dying father reminds Cyrus that they must give the Emperor the additional wool he has requested as a tribute to insure passage on the ark that is under construction. The empire is in decline. There is little to sell and fewer with money to pay. For centuries, sand dunes had been encroaching on the pastures and driving people who lived on the fringes of the empire toward the little remaining green space. The Emperor had been sending scouts to find green land. Only one returned — a boat of starving sailors who found green shores across the roiling waters. The huge ark under construction will lead certain members of this stratified society to a land of plenty, “a land of lakes and grass, fruit trees and nuts, grapes and endless harvests, a land that knew no drought and no winter.” .

Larison has crafted a richly imagined apocalyptic story set in a distant future decades after an ecological collapse. Larison sweeps us across the devastated landscape through the eyes of characters each with a unique view of the past. As resources grow increasingly scarce, these societies clash and plans for colonization of prosperous lands become paramount. Although too many plot threads bog down the narrative, the precise world-building and unique theme of how stories are used for societal control makes this novel a worthy entry in the climate fiction genre. Thank you Viking and Net Galley for an imaginative read.

Science has said that the climate has changed many times over the centuries, always influenced by the populations misuse of resources. This concept is the base story in THE ANCIENTS. Civilizations are disappearing as their environments no longer support life. Mankind is moving into smaller and smaller areas, driven by the minimum requirements to sustain life. Yet there are still those privileged who make use of resources so scarce that an entire population of conscripted laborers work to provide luxuries just for the few. Is this a look into the future? Or could it be a reminder from history that will become fact if changes are not made soon.
The world building in this book gave me the same feeling I got when I read the first Dune book. Is that prescient? I certainly hope not. The story line is both beautiful and scary. John Larison gives readers alot to think about in this fictional look at a civilization doomed to live in a damaged environment.

This was a solid 3.5-4 star read for me! I was engaged with the narrative from start to finish, but I was hoping for more glimpses of prior civilization to connect the new world to the old. The Ancients felt, instead, like a blend of historical fiction and fantasy set in a world just on the cusp of a real society. Some people live in cities, while others remain tribal and self-sufficient. Worlds clash and we see the myriad ways that people handle conflict, history, and survival. This was an enjoyable read that put forth and explored interesting ideas, but it didn't tickle my imagination the way I expected it to; that's a personal problem for me, not a shortcoming of the book :)

John Larison’s The Ancients is a tremendous novel. It’s one of those books that could be a masterpiece, for — as I’ve said on these pages before — masterpieces are books that teach you how to read them. To that end, The Ancients is an ambitious read, taking place in many different areas of the earth and hopscotching over various characters whose lives will all intersect at some point. It’s a book that invites readers to linger over it, even though, at times, the bounty of characters threatens to tip the work onto its side. Still, this is a remarkable novel, a work of speculative fiction set long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Or maybe I should say that it is set in the future in a world not unlike ours. Whatever the case, this is one of my favorite books of 2024. It’s not without faults, but they can be overlooked as the storytelling here is generally first-rate. The Ancients is not an old story but a new envisioning of a world ravaged by climate change. This is the tale of a land that is becoming barren and the efforts humanity has put in motion to escape its debilitating effects. This book is for the here and now, with an eye to the horizon.

The book follows three groups of characters throughout. The first narrative is about two sisters and a brother who have been separated from their family and are looking to reunite with them across a dystopian wasteland. The siblings believe their mother and other relatives have abandoned them. This could be further from the truth: their mother has been kidnapped by “Barbarians” and is put to work as forced labor in a camp near a city that deals with processing sheep wool. The third story is about a man of some pedigree named Cyrus who is struggling to come to terms with his sexual identity while hoping to add more wools to his coffers to be given to an Emperor who savagely demands tithes. Cyrus’s father has just died of cancer — meaning that he has inherited his father’s business and its debts — and his relationship with a medical doctor is on the rocks. At specific points, the lives of all of these characters will come together, as disparate as they may seem.

Thus, The Ancients is a book about the bonds of family and the lengths some people will go to to keep the family unit together. It’s also a coming-of-age tale in many respects, with its various characters grappling to become sexual beings. It’s additionally a tale about the current climate crisis we’re facing and the resilience of humans to survive past crises, which can be applied to the present day. However, most of all, it’s a good, crackling adventure tale — though one that takes some time to warm up to. I found the first quarter of the book to be relatively dry. That’s not all that’s deficient here. Characters reunite with each other through the flimsiest of plot devices: coincidence. In addition, the book seemingly has multiple endings, making it feel a little overlong. However, don’t let those factors deter you from a primarily superlative read. The Ancients is commanding in its ambition and rivals the best in literary fiction in its experimental style and succulent quality.

So, what more can be said about this terrific work of art? Well, this book works best when you slowly savor it and pay close attention to it — don’t let your mind wander when reading this, as you may miss the subtlest clues as to what will happen next. Ultimately, this is a book about hope — that even the most broken of people deserve a shot at redemption, even if society has, by and large, cast them away. You will think about this book and let marinade in your mind, and you may be a bit saddened when you reach its final page. Even if the characters tend to blur — the children’s mother becomes a surrogate to other children in her care in slavery, which is a tad bit confusing at times as the book treats them like her real children — this is a fine read. This dystopian fantasy novel, masquerading as other things, is richly rewarding and well worth the sticker price. I don’t know if something more needs to be said about that. Do yourself a favor, run to your nearest bookstore or library, and take the time it will take to get to know The Ancients. In the end, it’ll be a decision you won’t regret. A whole brave new world is waiting for you here, so be sure to dive right in!