In a near future of water-scarcity and rising male infertility, a climate plague claims mostly men, and virgin births are rumored. CanadaCorp—Canada’s national water utility and police—has constructed NAWAPA-2, a huge reservoir that drowned a tenth of British Columbia, to service the parched USA. Amid rising violence and religious predictions of the ‘end of times,’ CanadaCorp conducts secret experiments to ‘save’ humanity from extinction: virgin mothers and their deformed babies—all girls—appear immune.
Four homeless drifters, gifted with an arcane power associated with water and living in the shadow of CanadaCorp, are drawn to meet in the wilderness of northern British Columbia to fulfill a perilous destiny.
When virgin mother Jade loses her deformed baby girl after she is taken by the Corpers in Nova Scotia for experimentation, she summons the ghost of a Halifax Explosion survivor to escape.
Water technologist Daniel, betrayed by his Corper boss, keeps one step ahead of the rabid feral dogs in the streets of Toronto using his synesthetic abilities.
After losing her family in a Northwest Territory mudslide, Gwich’in limnologist Bobby-Jo follows the ghost of her brother into a British Columbia Corper town on the edge of the NAWAPA inland sea.
Grace, a clairvoyant murderer, forms a plan to free the water and virgin mothers and send a message to CanadaCorp by destroying NAWAPA-2.
This harrowing dystopian story explores themes of climate change, gender, and environmental activism, asking the ultimate question: who will survive in a warming world?
Thalweg is a companion novel to the award-winning novel A Diary in the Age of Water.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and novelist. Her novels include: Collision with Paradise; The Cypol; Angel of Chaos; Darwin’s Paradox; The Splintered Universe Trilogy; and The Last Summoner. In addition to eight novels, she has authored award-winning short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which were reprinted and translated into several languages throughout the world. Recognition for her work includes the Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, finalist for Foreword Magazine’s Book of the Year Award, the SLF Fountain Award, and The Delta Optimist Reviewers Choice Award. Nina’s latest non-fiction book, Water Is—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher, and environmentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the NY Times as her #1 choice in the 2016 “The Year in Reading.” She lives in Toronto.
“Thalweg is an ambitious and imaginative work of eco-fiction; its blend of science, fantasy and big ideas kept surprising me page after page.”
Emmi Itäranta, author of Memory of Water
“Nina Munteanu’s Thalweg paints an all-too-plausible path to apocalypse featuring well-documented ecological perils plus wholly original speculation about evolution forged by climate change. Rich with a mysticism based in water, Thalweg is a treasure of indigenous knowledge and culture skillfully combined with solid genetic and climate science. The result is a compelling narrative that also reads as a handbook for survival when the collapse of modern society looms. The novel’s fully fleshed characters will challenge readers’ core beliefs as they endure relentless persecution from both corporations and fanatics to fulfill a mysterious destiny. Highly recommended for fans of ecofiction.”
Scott Overton, author of Augment Nation and Indigent Earth
