To that end, Hereafter: A Q&A with August Clarke, author of "Metal from Heaven"

In anticipation of their adult fantasy debut Metal from Heaven (releasing October 22nd from Erewhon Books), we asked August Clarke, author of the indie-bestselling young adult series The Scapegracers, some of our lingering questions of their potent revolutionary ecofantasy. 

CO-OP: Most of the riotously queer cast of Metal From Heaven are devout people of faith in one way or another – which goes against a common grain of assumption in our world. What is most meaningful to you as a writer and human about the queer religious experience? How does that experience translate from our world to Marney’s?

CLARKE: My own religious feelings aside, I think (despite the Opium of the Masses reputation) faith greatly informs how my own leftist feelings appear to me. It seems like maybe faith is a method of thinking and acting toward an absence. A better, freer future does not yet exist, but we must believe it can and will to pursue it. I think religion in second-world fantasy fiction offers huge insights into the social contexts at play in a community, the assumed traditions and values of a people, and so on. Neither Marney’s queerness nor her revolutionary bandit antics are acceptable per the closed orthodox religion of her childhood. Nevertheless! Faith is central to Marney’s project. She flips her traditions inside out and orients her faith toward change, rupture, desire for more. 

CO-OP: The eponymous metal from heaven – ichorite – is, we learn in the beginning, a part of Marney’s body from in-utero exposure to the substance. It’s also a part of almost every manufactured thing in this world. Her relationship with it is traumatic but also a powerful means to her end of revolution; what is within her is so commonplace in the world, in a lot of ways, but also spectacularly distinguishes her from the people around her. How did that dualism develop as you wrote Marney’s character?

CLARKE: It's a worldbuilding concept melding my conflicting desires for an (anti-)heroic main character, as fits a big sweeping revenge story, and a more collectivized perspective voice, as fits the themes! Marney’s condition, being lustertouched, is the pseudo-psychometric ability to feel all the exertion of the work that shaped the ichorite and spend that stored exertion to re-shape it. This is partially to imagine a produced substance as ubiquitous as plastic that resists commodity fetishism (while, by this participation, weirdly reifies it) and also partially to imagine a magic system that arises out of material circumstances, rather than being a metaphysical script that governs it. The ontological experience of being lustertouched is therefore simultaneously alienating and polyphonic; Marney is constantly encountering other people’s memories as sensation, which makes her a pretty zonked out protagonist. 

CO-OP: Marney and her comrades, the Highwayman’s Choir, dream and work towards Hereafter, a social, political, and spiritual utopia of sorts. Where do you see Hereafter breaking through in our own world – here and now?

CLARKE: The Hereafter is the world after labor and hierarchy, when beauty is abundant, war is obsolete, and scarcity is forgotten. We must diligently work toward it. We are never there yet. In the world of this book, being a Hereafterist means a commitment to perpetual change and struggle for the better, even when that struggle fails and fails. To that end, amid the mounting human and ecological catastrophes capitalism and imperialism continuously inflicts on this world, I think glimpses of something like a Hereafter can be found in protest encampments, mutual aid networks, and unionization pushes everywhere. Collective action and solidarity is where it’s at. 

CO-OP: This is a story that begins with an organized labor strike and protest and is being released during a surge of unionization efforts by workers in this nation. We at the Seminary Co-op are now Chicago’s currently only union-run bookstore as of May this year. What lies behind this moment we’re all collectively seeing amongst laborers and as laborers?

CLARKE: Centuries of organizing context! Climate catastrophe! Fascism domestically and abroad! White supremacy and multiple interconnected genocidal projects and land seizures! The history that inspired the beginning of Metal from Heaven—the Bread and Roses strike, the Great Railroad Strike, the Ludlow Massacre, the Pullman Strike, the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Haymarket Massacre, and onward—is our history. Police violence in the name of property defense is ongoing. Big Covid lockdown revealed how undervalued and underpaid work deemed ‘essential’ tends to be. Shit is not good! Still, we have each other. So we stand with each other. 

CO-OP: Please tell us what azurine tastes like. Specifically.

CLARKE: Enormously citric acid-y. An azurine (big blue fictional citrus fruit) is as substantial as a grapefruit, tart and bright like a passionfruit, but sweet enough that it can be snacked upon. Probably, it’d be great with salt or a bit of Tajín. It is torture that they aren’t real. 

CO-OP: Before we go, what are some titles in your Metal From Heaven bibliography? Works you read while working on this, things we should read for a similar taste of what you’ve given us here, or something else entirely? 

CLARKE: So many books informed my thinking about this book, both in the writing process and in retrospect! Non-exhaustively, for fiction I’d recommend The Free People’s Village by Sim Kern, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, The Unbroken by C. L. Clark, The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, Greasepaint by Hannah Levene, The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo, Dhalgren by Samuel Delany, The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, The Swashbuckler by Lee Lynch, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, A Country of Ghosts by Margaret Killjoy, Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, and Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel.

Our endless thanks to August for chatting with us ahead of the release of Metal from Heaven, hailed by Publishers Weekly for its "masterful and tragic exploration of the intersections of violence, faith, sexuality, and power." Personally, we can't wait for this book to be unleashed. Bring your own questions for August to the Metal from Heaven book launch, held at the Seminary Co-op on October 22nd at 6:00 PM. He will be joined in discussion by Tamara Jerée. An audience Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. You can find more details about the event and pre-order your own copy here.