‘Fairhaven: A Novel of Climate Optimism’ Book Excerpt
Steve Willis and Jan Lee have written a compelling novel which traces the lives of a group of innovators, engineers and visionaries as they struggle against the odds to bring climate solutions to Southeast Asia—and the world.
Setting the Stage
What will it take to fix the climate crisis? Fairhaven – A Novel of Climate Optimism, launched at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in March 2024 by Habitat Press (UK), follows the path of Grace Chan, born in Penang, Malaysia. She has experienced the dire consequences of climate change personally and is taking action borne both of hope and desperation. Her story explores the implications, both at the global scale and and on a deeply personal level, of our common dilemma and the possibilities that are open to us. Unlike most ‘cli fi’ novels, which present apocalyptic scenarios for the future, Fairhaven envisions in an engrossing, readily-accessible story for general readers how a range of practical climate adaptation and mitigation solutions could work when fully implemented. These include coastal adaptation, carbon sequestration, rebuilding ocean fishing stocks, and even re-freezing the Arctic.
Nigel Topping, UN High Level Climate Action Champion, COP26, praised the new novel: ‘We can't navigate our way to a better future fed on a diet of nothing but doom and gloom. We need stories to challenge, provoke and inspire to help us dare to imagine and act with hope – Fairhaven does just that!’
Fairhaven opens in 2036 as Grace is days away from assuming office as the President of the newly-formed Ocean Independent State. Driving along the edge of a Penang dyke to clear her mind, her truck crashes and she comes close to death as the tide rises. As she reviews her life, the reader comes to understand what has brought her (and the world) to this point, how she will move forward, and the surprising role that ordinary individuals can play.
Excerpted from the Fairhaven—A Novel of Climate Optimism
8.40 am, Friday, March 4, 2034
Butterworth Wharf
A the end of the wharf stood the Sea Orchards shed. Two 70-metre red supply boats, old, tatty, and prickly with antennas jutting up from the bridge, were moored next to the wharf.
An enthusiastic, broad-shouldered man was already waving. ‘Miss Chan!’
Grace parked and locked the scooter, not attempting to hide her delight. ‘Churchill! Look at you! I was hoping you’d be taking us around today.’
‘I wouldn’t miss my favourite troublemaker!’ the big Iban man grinned. ‘The kit is all loaded,’ he said with a broad smile.
‘Is that another gold tooth?’
‘Yes! Do you like it? I want a part as a pirate in your next movie.’
‘You know I don’t choose the actors myself. But I think you’d have a good shot at it.’
’She’s here!’ Churchill called toward the boat from the dockside. Grace tossed her kitbag onto the deck, and climbed down the ladder to greet the crew.
A taxi pulled up, and a flustered Singaporean woman clambered out, fiddling with something on her eyepiece. From the other side, a rangy, long-haired Australian unfolded himself.
’Welcome to Penang,’ Churchill boomed, offering his hand. ‘I’m Churchill, your host, captain and minder. We love to see members of the press!’
’Dave here,’ drawled the cameraman.
‘I’m Ling. Oh! And you’re – oh my goodness, you’re Grace Chan!’ the reporter gushed, as she recognised Grace standing on the deck. Tight-lipped, Grace nodded her head.
Churchill surveyed the pair. ‘You both look a bit too pretty for this trip! We’ve got spare sets of coveralls in the crew bunk room; you can change down there. ’
9.00 am Friday, March 4, 2034
Sea Orchards – Station 2
With the craft underway, the two journalists emerged in suitable outfits onto the bridge, where Churchill commanded the wheel. He nodded his approval. ‘All settled in? Miss Ling, you might want to roll up the sleeves on your overalls. Sorry we don’t have anything smaller.’
Grace jammed herself into her accustomed spot in the corner of the bridge. ‘You know, I haven’t been on one of these ships since I worked on this project when it was still at an early stage, back in 2029. It’s quite the homecoming for me.’
‘We’ll be cutting across the older orchards today, so you can see how they have come along. How are you doing, Miss Ling?’
‘You can call me Ling,’ she replied, looking queasy, as the vessel rolled.
‘We’re almost at the first stop,’ Churchill continued. The ship slowed, and they could see two of the hands on deck, dropping a yellow cylinder over the side. It was decorated with a painted, toothy grin. ‘There goes Bruce. It’s a side-scanning sonar autonomous ROV. We use it to gather high-resolution assessments of the fish populations. If you come over to the big screen here, you can see one of our very first Sea Orchard sites.’
Grace breathed out in amazement as they drew closer. ‘I helped set this one up back when I worked here. Look how well-established it is now!’
‘If we switch to the cameras,’ Churchill added, ‘you can see the cloud of small fish that live by each leg. Further out, there are bigger fish, and further out again, the big predators.’
As they spoke, Dave took pictures of the underwater scene and of Grace’s delighted reaction. Ling asked, ‘And this was all inspired by oil rigs?’
Churchill replied, ‘Yes. The fish populations around the old rigs are fantastic, better than these sometimes. It’s a real treat to see it. Whale sharks, barracuda, all sorts.’
‘What was here before?’
‘Very little. The area was heavily trawled. Even the mud worms were struggling.’
Ling turned to Grace, already looking less green. ‘How many were you involved with?’
‘I was involved in the first dozen stations, before the Futility thing took off. But it was nothing like this!’
‘We’ve installed hundreds of these,’ Churchill reported with pride. ‘Up and down the coast, and around the island.’
‘The former island, I think you should say,’ pointed out Ling. ‘Hasn’t the island become a peninsula ever since Fairhaven was established?’
Churchill acknowledged the fact. ‘But the whole surrounding area has become a big fishing centre, and it has more than compensated for the loss of the mud flats between the island and the mainland. For the first time in decades, we’re seeing young people joining the fishing industry.’
They cruised on. Bruce zig-zagged below them, guided by one of the crew. Clouds of fish filled the screen.
‘How is the fishing done?’ asked Ling.
Churchill touched the screen, bringing up a multi-coloured diagram. ‘We keep a detailed data model of the entire population. The system allocates a numbered lane to each fishing crew, and it’s all monitored by GPS.
‘As for feeding – we drop rice straw into buoyant pipes 20 to 50 metres long, like spars. The straw decomposes, and is eaten by the smallest creatures, and this population, at the bottom of the food chain, feeds the bigger fish.’
Grace added, ‘The surrounding sea has, in effect, become a huge marine protected area. Plus, it’s a massive carbon sink.’
They pondered for a moment, until Ling broke the silence. ‘All right, you know I have to ask: who is paying for all of this?’
Grace replied, ‘The original seed capital came from a group in Kuala Lumpur, but it has now become a self-funding proposition. Sea Orchards gets both fishing revenue and income from selling “blue carbon credits” to companies.’
‘How long is the payback period?’
‘Once the pillars settle in? On average, the Sea Orchards take six months of operation to pay back the energy input, and it takes a year for them to mature to that stage.’
Churchill flipped a switch on the console. ‘It’ll take a couple of hours for us to reach the work area. You should rest while you can.’
‘Yes,’ said Ling. ‘I think I will.’
‘I’ll be on the front deck,’ Dave grinned, ‘taking pictures.’
‘Fairhaven: A Novel of Climate Optimism’ by Steve Willis and Jan Lee was published by Habitat Press in 2024. This excerpt is published with permission of Habitat Press.
Where to Read
Online eBook:
● PayHip
● (first ten chapters) Substack
Paperback (buy online):
● United Kingdom: Amazon UK
● United States: Amazon USA
● Malaysia: Habitat Penang online shop
● Hong Kong: Bookazine online shop
About the authors:
Steve Willis is an engineer and innovator with decades of experience providing solutions to environmental problems for large-scale industries. The start of the COVID lockdowns gave him pause to think carefully about climate solutions, what was needed and what it would take to get there. This led to a collaboration with the GreenStories team to produce the No More Fairy Tales, an anthology for COP27. Five stories from this anthology have been developed into the novel Fairhaven: a Novel of Climate Optimism. Steve continues to work on large-scale climate solutions, currently developing a CO2 sequestration mineralization process which can be deployed at the million-tonne scale.
Genevieve Hilton has worked in corporate affairs and sustainability in the Asia Pacific region since 1994. She previously led ESG and communications in Asia Pacific for Lenovo, as well as Corporate Citizenship and External Communications Asia Pacific for BASF. Since taking a step back from the corporate world in 2022, she has become a full-time sustainability activist and writer.
Under the pen name Jan Lee, she is an award-winning science fiction writer. She is the co-author, with Steve Willis, of Fairhaven – A Novel of Climate Optimism (Habitat Press UK), a winner in the Green Stories contest. Her work has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and recognized several times in the “Writers of the Future” contest. She also is Editor-in-Chief of The Apostrophe, the quarterly magazine of the Hong Kong Writers Circle.
She currently acts as a senior advisor for a number of environmental and social activist organizations, as well as co-chairing the Energy & ESG Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong.
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