Forget Barbie; Kika Hatzopoulou’s new novel Threads That Bind is everything. A noir detective story that explores the ethical and existential questions inherent in a soulmate romance—set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world where the descendants of long-dead gods walk the earth and monsters rise from the sea each night—Threads That Bind is doing a lot. But where lesser authors would fail to tie it all together, Hatzopoulou somehow pulls it off, forcing us to confront matters of power, privilege, and ethics versus ideology, all the while showing us a terrifying vision of what climate collapse might look like if things go on the way they have been.
The story starts out simple enough with Io Ora, a private detective, aided in her work by her powers as one of the moira born, descendants of the Greek Fates who are able to see the tapestry of threads connecting people to who, and what, they love. When the mob queen of the Silts—the neglected slum where the poor and Other born like Io are forced to live—calls on her to deal with a monster, it’s an offer she literally can’t refuse, even though it means partnering with the man she’s been avoiding for years, tied to her by an incredibly rare love thread.
As the two of them investigate, webs of political lies unravel all across the city, leading them to the gated community of The Hill, where Io’s estranged sister lives with her fiancé. Events unfold—horribly, nightmarishly—fast from here, and I won’t go into details because I don’t want to spoil the book for you, but this is where all those moral questions about family, loyalty, and the greater good become inescapable for Io and the reader. All the while, the effects of an untempered climate crisis continue to play out around them, shaping everything from the unjust social and political systems that drive the Ora sisters to their inevitable clash, to the global conflicts that leave people in Io’s life scarred or dead.
The truly terrifying thing about Hatzopoulou’s vision is that, chimerini and demigod powers excluded, all of the strange and deadly environmental features are based on real, potential outcomes for our own climate crisis if something isn’t done to stop it. Threads That Bind is set on an alternate, fantasy version of Earth, but it’s just the magic and monsters that are made up. All the flooding, lack of clean water, and nightmarish weather systems are straight out of scientific projections that we might see manifesting sooner rather than later if things carry on the way they have been.
Speaking to The Mary Sue, Hatzopoulou said,
“Just the other day, someone asked about all the extreme natural disasters that have stricken the world lately that also make an appearance in Threads That Bind, like the bloated tides and acid rain and neo-monsoons and wars for clean water. And I got increasingly upset and horrified as I had to explain that back when I was brainstorming this novel in 2018, I created the book’s post-apocalyptic world based on research. I studied climate change apocalypse scenarios and pulled inspiration from water- and weather-related potential disasters. And now, 5 years later, I see more and more of those scenarios come to fruition … It really is terrifying.”
The world laid out in Threads That Bind seems like the kind of classic fantasy world-building that makes you fall in love with the genre because the planet Hatzopoulou describes is so thoroughly alien—and beautifully detailed, to a point that you can’t help but envision yourself stood in Io’s place, seeing and feeling everything she does as she crosses a cat bridge over polluted flood water or runs to get out of the path of searing acid rain. The fact that it’s closer to speculative fiction—that the magic and mythology are what keeps it anchored in fantasy while the setting itself is a Cassandra-like possibility for our own future—is an alarming realization to make.
It’s one of those moments where, if you’re keeping on top of climate change, you feel the ever-present anxiety rising up around you with the reminder of what’s (likely, very likely) to come, as well as that sense of helplessness that comes from witnessing a global problem you can’t solve without the cooperation of governments that are determined to keep their heads firmly in the sand. It’s an effect Hatzopoulou is aware of, knowing how well Io’s mental state is likely to resonate with her readers because of it,
“I certainly hope that readers get something out of the story. The post-apocalyptic setting has really informed Io’s—the protagonist’s—character. She has been raised and still lives in a world full of threats that create a near-constant sense of anxiety. I think we can all feel that anxiety seep in, especially in the last few years. We try to be conscious consumers and help as best we can, but the truth is what we can do as individuals to fix climate change is limited. It needs to be a united global effort and I really hope our governments put their heads together and act soon.”
There’s so much more to say about the book that I don’t have the time, or the word count, to get into it here. Hatzopoulou’s handling of trauma, familial abuse, and religious violence are complex and fantastic. Her cast is studded with queer and trans characters, whose queerness is both an important part of who they are and treated as an everyday fact of life by the people around them. The proliferation of grey areas and lack of an easy answer when it comes to ethics, and the big moral stakes laid out in the book, feel real and therefore so much more satisfying than the kind of sci-fi or fantasy that proposes a pat, good vs evil, clearcut answer.
There’s also still so many questions left unanswered, about the world, the gods, the Io sisters themselves that Hatzopulou promises to get in to in the sequel – along with answers on climate change, and how the people of her books, and those of us here in the real world, can still turn things around before it’s too late.
“Without spoiling too much, I have tried to provide an answer and resolution to the climate apocalypse of the world of Threads That Bind in its sequel and final book of the duology, which comes out in 2024. You’ll have to read to figure out the rest, but I’ll just say that not all is lost. We as a species can still turn this around.”
Personally I’m hoping to see Io fight a god, but we’ll have to wait until 2024 to find out what happens.
(featured image: Penguin)
Published: Aug 7, 2023 03:38 pm