On Higher Ground
Product Description
A Postmodern Romance
by Tim Holt
“On Higher Ground” is set in Northern California in the mid-21st century. After decades of global warming, city dwellers in the great Central Valley are living under climate-controlled, air-purified domes, surrounded by dirty, gray air and cracked and barren earth.
Despite this bleak setting, “On Higher Ground” offers a hopeful vision of the future as it moves from the scorched valley to the cooler and fertile mountain region near the Oregon border, which has been transformed by climatic changes from a ranching to a farming region. There, under the dome-free skies, a self-sufficient rural economy is gradually evolving, spurred by back-to-the-land refugees from the domes.
One such refugee, Jess Renfree, meets and falls in love with Rachel Stillwater, a lovely, spirited woman who has grown up in the Mount Shasta region. Jess is a high-tech telecommunications worker, steeped in the culture and values of domes. Along with his growing attachment to Rachel, the novel traces Jess’s growing understanding and appreciation of the underlying values of the mountain region, which he initially views as backward and out of touch.
The plot builds toward a climactic confrontation between the refugees from the domes (who begin to desert them en masse after Sacramento’s air purification system fails and a crack causes flooding in the East Bay dome) and a group of diehard vigilantes in the Mount Shasta region determined to stem the refugee invasion.
Along the way we meet a varied cast of characters that includes a talented robot named Rob; Little Ed, a street person and con artist whose acting skills get him whatever he needs; and Ruby Stickner, the Dunsmuir Grower’s Market’s extroverted seller of herbal love potions.
“On Higher Ground” portrays two very different worlds: an urban society that has become increasingly dependent on technology and isolated from the natural world; and that of the Shasta region, whose inhabitants, eschewing much of the clutter of the consumer culture, are beginning to reconnect with each other and the living world around them.
by Tim Holt
“On Higher Ground” is set in Northern California in the mid-21st century. After decades of global warming, city dwellers in the great Central Valley are living under climate-controlled, air-purified domes, surrounded by dirty, gray air and cracked and barren earth.
Despite this bleak setting, “On Higher Ground” offers a hopeful vision of the future as it moves from the scorched valley to the cooler and fertile mountain region near the Oregon border, which has been transformed by climatic changes from a ranching to a farming region. There, under the dome-free skies, a self-sufficient rural economy is gradually evolving, spurred by back-to-the-land refugees from the domes.
One such refugee, Jess Renfree, meets and falls in love with Rachel Stillwater, a lovely, spirited woman who has grown up in the Mount Shasta region. Jess is a high-tech telecommunications worker, steeped in the culture and values of domes. Along with his growing attachment to Rachel, the novel traces Jess’s growing understanding and appreciation of the underlying values of the mountain region, which he initially views as backward and out of touch.
The plot builds toward a climactic confrontation between the refugees from the domes (who begin to desert them en masse after Sacramento’s air purification system fails and a crack causes flooding in the East Bay dome) and a group of diehard vigilantes in the Mount Shasta region determined to stem the refugee invasion.
Along the way we meet a varied cast of characters that includes a talented robot named Rob; Little Ed, a street person and con artist whose acting skills get him whatever he needs; and Ruby Stickner, the Dunsmuir Grower’s Market’s extroverted seller of herbal love potions.
“On Higher Ground” portrays two very different worlds: an urban society that has become increasingly dependent on technology and isolated from the natural world; and that of the Shasta region, whose inhabitants, eschewing much of the clutter of the consumer culture, are beginning to reconnect with each other and the living world around them.
