Clade is a 2017 science fiction novel by James Bradley. It follows Australian scientist Adam Leith and his family over the course of about six decades as they deal with the increasingly devastating effects of
Global Warming.
Clade contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The first chapter, before Adam's daughter Summer is born, seems to be set in the very near future, with recognizable technology like Ellie's tablet.
- Disappeared Dad: All Summer will say about her autistic son Noah's father is that he's "gone."
- Exhausted Eye Bags: Adam's wife Ellie has these after a power outage wakes up their two-year-old daughter Summer at five AM and she won't go back to bed.
- Eyes Always Averted: Noah only very fleetingly looks at other people. He spends most of his time absorbed in his screen.
- First Contact Team: Noah is part of a team of researchers scanning the skies for any sign of alien communication. They actually do receive a burst of noise from a star which, when slowed down, shows patterns that mean it's almost certainly a language of some kind. Unfortunately, they have no way of deciphering the language, and because the star is 500 light years away, they have no way of establishing communication with the senders, either.
- The Illegal: The beekeeper Amir moved from Bangladesh to Australia after the government collapsed. He was kept in a detention facility for a long time before he finally escaped.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Adam and Ellie badly wanted a child, but had to go through a two-year ordeal of fertility treatments before Summer was conceived. Tom and Maddie had little interest in being parents and had Declan entirely by accident.
- Missing Mom: Summer goes missing after the hurricane, leaving Noah to be raised by Adam. She tells herself that Noah will be better off without her, but she admits later that she was really just afraid of the difficulty of raising him. Noah is badly hurt by her abandonment, which makes the stress of moving from England to Australia even worse for him.
- Not What It Looks Like: Adam walks in on sixteen-year-old Noah in bed with Li Lijuan, a girl who's staying with them, to Adam's disappointment. Nothing actually happened - they're just sharing a bed because they wanted to feel less alone. Lijuan thinks about going after Adam to explain, but she doesn't think it would make any difference.
- Parent with New Paramour: Ellie's mother died when she was a teenager, and her father, Tom, remarried a woman named Maddie who is only five years older than Ellie. Ellie always disliked and was suspicious of Maddie. Their relationship improves somewhat after Summer is born, but after Tom finally dies, Ellie and Maddie never see each other again.
- The Plague: A pandemic with a 25% mortality rate ravages the world. Adam, Noah, and Lijuan hide out for as long as possible in an isolated house in the country. They occasionally visit the nearby town, which has been thoroughly looted, so there's not much to scavenge. When rioters start a wildfire, the three have to flee to the beach. Eventually scientists learn how to synthesize antibodies, ending the pandemic.
- Really Moves Around: During Noah's childhood in England, he and Summer lived in multiple houses. In each one, Noah would stand in the garden at night and watch the stars through a telescope.
- Replacement Goldfish: After the pandemic, a lucrative market appears for photorealistic computer sims of dead people, created based on photographs, videos, and the memories of the people ordering the sim. Some customers want the sim to be as much like the real person as possible, but others want sims that lack any disappointing traits, or that repeatedly apologize for everything they did wrong during life.
- Rising Water, Rising Tension: Adam, Summer, and seven-year-old Noah are all in England when a catastrophic hurricane hits. The family originally shelters in a church, then have to flee as the water rises. They find safety in an abandoned apartment as the floodwaters cover the ground floor windows.
- Sensory Overload: As a young child, Noah lives in a near constant state of overwhelm from other people's erratic, unpredictable movements and their loud, incomprehensible voices. His sensory processing improves with age and therapy.
- Soft Glass: Summer breaks into the apartment building by breaking a window with her elbow.
- Troubled Fetal Position: In the apartment, Noah huddles with his knees to his chest between the bed and the wall, with his screen pressed almost to his face, blocking out the hurricane.
