New Maps deindustrial fiction

New Maps is a journal dedicated to publishing new stories of deindustrial fiction. Each issue features several short stories, as well as an introduction, a letters section, and occasional essays and other writings contributed by readers. “Deindustrial fiction,” as used in New Maps, means fiction set during or after the long decline of industrial civilization. There are many ways to conceive of this decline, but the most straightforward way to define it is by its physical aspects. It will be, in brief, an age of consequences. On the one hand, humanity will deal with a greatly reduced availability of cheap energy, following the peak and decline of the fossil fuels that have footed the bill for humanity’s lavish lifestyle of the last century or two—a distinctly anomalous period considered against the other known millennia of history. And on the other hand, the results of the ecological destruction we’ve wrought in the process of extracting and burning those fuels will make themselves felt, in a gamut of ways including such diverse predicaments as climate change, mismanaged radioactive material, collapsed fisheries, and extinction of species we formerly depended on, among countless others. Not all of these will affect any given place, but places that escape them all will be none or vanishingly few (especially since any place that gets off light is likely to face an influx of refugees from less fortunate areas).

Country of Publication & Year Established

United States

Established in 2020

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