Ian Patterson and Inez Ray — Fruits of our Labor & Buzzard

Third Place Books welcomes Ian Patterson and Inez Ray for a conversation on their new dystopic novels, Fruits of our Labor (Shiraki Press) and Buzzard (Bindery Books).

Fruits of our Labor presents a near-future America where women have just gained access to asexual reproduction; three converging perspectives tell the story of a profound societal transformation.

Library Journal calls Buzzard "a modern cousin of The Handmaid's Tale." In 2086, corporations are monitoring fertility. Abortion is illegal. And the last woman alive who can perform the procedure is in hiding.

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A new world is emerging, one parthenogenetic birth at a time.

It's 2049 and American women have legally recognized human asexual reproduction. Samara yearns for freedom from her dying relationship, and a child of her own-fully her own. Yet as parthenogenetic birth takes hold and the role of men in the survival of the species wanes, protest and outcry sweep across the nation.

It's 2062 and Sierra, one of the first "partho princesses", is bullied relentlessly as she grows up and seeks her own place in this new pressure cooker of evolving gender roles and norms.

It's 2085-the aftermath of the "Days of Horror", a period of violent backlash from displaced men-and a professor of history looks back on the rise of PG birth in an attempt to understand, and communicate, the full impact of this era of genetic and political upheaval.

Together, these three converging perspectives tell the story of a profound societal transformation that asks what it means to have autonomy, who reaps the rewards, and who the future is for.

In 2086, corporations are monitoring fertility. Abortion is illegal. And the last woman alive who can perform the procedure is in hiding.

Seven years ago, midwife Mae Bastet was arrested for infanticide in the fractious Arizona Territory for providing health care to women in need. She was torn from her sons and sent to Buzzard—an experimental private Pr*son deep in the Sonoran Desert, run by the paramilitary corporation Obsityan.

Desperate to reunite her family, Mae tries to keep her head down, swallow her Pr*son-issued hormone supplements, and do her job as a glorified school nurse to Obsityan’s army of teenage drone pilots. But when mysterious, improbable pregnancies begin cropping up in her charges, she uncovers a web of secrets that has the power to destroy Obsityan. Mae must choose: stay complicit in Obsityan’s crimes or hold fast to her midwife principles and risk never seeing her sons again.

Buzzard is a ferocious dystopian debut that traces the possible trajectory of our current political and technological reality—and the power of our deepest human bonds.

Ian Patterson is an award winning author of science fiction, horror, and poetry. His work aims to critique capitalism, inequality, and environmental destruction by centering philosophical discussions in the trappings of fast-paced, genre-bending narratives. He believes all people should have bodily autonomy, equality, freedom, and that a more just future can be built on compassion and empathy. He can usually be found on his bike somewhere in the mountains of Colorado, or spending time with his family and his two cats.

Inez Ray is a California-born, Irish-Chicana writer. She holds a bachelor of arts in creative writing from San Francisco State University and has been a doula and midwife assistant for over a decade. When not inviting readers to consider the future of humanity, she is parenting her children, dancing with her partner, or throwing a stick for her two dogs. Buzzard is her first novel.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events.