Camp Zero

DEBUT Rose is a Korean American sex worker who has agreed to spy on an architect’s utopian building project in the far north of Canada in exchange for safe housing for herself and her climate-displaced mother. She arrives at Camp Zero at the same time as Grant, an Ivy League–educated professor out of his depth in this land of extreme cold and brutality. It soon becomes clear to both of them that their time at the camp is not going to provide an easy path to the better life they expected. At Camp Zero, no one is who they appear to be, including the famed architect running the project. Allegiances are quickly formed and broken in this fast-paced eco-thriller filled with twists and turns. Sterling touches on a number of weighty topics—climate change, misogyny, greed, technology—with varying degrees of success. She is most effective when imagining the battle for resources in a world of scarcity, whereas observations on gender can feel heavy-handed at times.