The Lost CauseThe Lost Cause

America, a generation from now. Brooks Palazzo is part of "the first generation not to fear the future." When his parents died in a recent epidemic, he moved in with his grandfather in Burbank, California, City of Progress. For Brooks and his generation, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great national and international efforts to mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. The effort is global, and it employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillate back to leaders who oppose these programs, the momentum is too great -- these efforts can't be stopped, only slowed. Still, the old world isn't dead yet. In the wake of his grandfather's death, Brooks unearths a conspiracy of heavily-armed geriatric radicals -- bitter-enders who oppose everything Brooks's generation is trying to do. They're our grandfathers, our uncles, our neighbors. And they're not going anywhere. The Lost Cause asks the essential question of science fiction: Do things really have to be this way?