Eliot Peper, Novelist

When her mother dies in a heat wave that kills twenty million, Zia León abandons a promising diplomatic career to lead humanitarian aid missions to regions ravaged by drought, wildfires, and sea level rise.

What Zia doesn’t know is that clandestine forces are gathering around her in pursuit of a colossal secret: someone has hijacked the climate, and the future of human civilization is at stake.

To avoid a world war that appears more inevitable every day, Zia must build a coalition of the powerless and attempt the impossible. But success depends on facing the grief that has come to define her life, and rediscovering friendship, family, and what it means to be true to yourself while everything falls apart.

Veil is available for preorder and will launch in all formats on May 20th.

Andrew Liptak interviewed me about what inspired the book for his excellent science fiction newsletter:

A couple years ago, I listened to Tyler Cowen interview award-winning journalist Charles C. Mann. They were discussing the growth in scientific research into geonengineering—attempts to directly manipulate the global climate to reduce the worst aspects of climate change using everything from marine bacteria to ingenious machines that suck CO2 out of the air.

But there’s one approach to geoengineering that’s by far the most feasible: using high-altitude planes to spray inert aerosols into the stratosphere that reflect a tiny percentage of incoming sunlight, slowing global warming. The craziest part is that such an effort would only cost approximately two billion dollars a year—cheap enough that any country or even an individual billionaire could go ahead and do it unilaterally. Can you imagine the extent of the potential social, political, economic, and environmental implications?

Holy shit, I thought. Somebody needs to write a novel about this.

And Veil was born.

I poured my heart and soul into this novel. I think it’s my best work yet and I hope it offers a fun and thought-provoking diversion in these strange times. Preorder it today.

Oh, and if you have a newsletter, podcast, blog, column, or community and want to read an advance review copy, email me and we’ll get you sorted.

Media/rights contact: eliot@eliotpeper.com

Selected praise:

“A brilliantly imagined eco-punk future filled with memorable characters locked in a life-or-death contest to control the direction of Earth’s climate in the 21st century.”
-August Cole, author of Ghost Fleet and Burn-In

“Veil is about collapse, redemption and heroes. As always, Peper’s near-future science fiction will stick with you.”
-Seth Godin, bestselling author and entrepreneur

“Peper turns his attention to the future of geoengineering in his latest tech thriller. The lives of billions are at stake.”
–Polygon

“I love Eliot Peper. He consistently makes step function leaps in imagination and this book is so crazy relevant and timely.”
-Brad Feld, managing director at Foundry Group

“A modern parable about ecological collapse, climate change, technology, and power.”
-OneZero

“Technologists are inventing the future—a future cut through with their own flaws and hubris as much as it is informed by their ingenuity. Veil imagines a world in which truth, politics, and nature itself are at the mercy of human engineering, for better and for worse. This is an adventure that will stick with you long after you reach the end.”
-Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist

“Interrogates Anthropocene themes with respect to their complexity and wickedness.”
–Alternative Fictions

“Eliot Peper weighs the promises—and perils—of geoengineering in this tautly paced thriller which, in its final chapters, offers an intriguing solution and that most welcome of messages: a glimmer of hope.”
-Meg Howrey, author of The Wanderers