Wild Hare

WILD HARE IS LISTED ON KIRKUS REVIEW AS ONE OF THE BEST INDY BOOKS OF 2019

" Wild Hare is a fast paced work of apocalyptic and dystopian fiction penned by author Laura Koerber. Combining such varied concepts as fantasy and magic with climate change and political domination is no mean feat, but the plot of this adventurous tale does just that," Readers' Favorites

Starred review in Kirkus Review:
"The story manages to weave together a complex tapestry of themes, from climate change to poverty to what qualifies as morality in a world that’s facing catastrophe. The prose is clear and concise throughout, giving readers a sense of each scene and character through the protagonist’s eyes.
A wrenching, complex novel that any fantasy fan would do well to pick up."

In the year 2032, the US is a one party kleptocracy and the forests are on fire from climate change. Bobby Fallon, half human and half nature spirit of the wild hare clan, fights to protect his little part of the North Woods in Wisconsin. This is an except:

“The world is coming to an end, but my personal life is okay, I guess.”
That was my response to Arne’s “How’re ya?” greeting. Then I pushed the oil rags and cigarette butts off the seat of his old pickup truck and climbed in. Arne is used to sour comments from me, so he just threw the truck into gear, gunned the engine, and smirked: “Someone’s got a bee up his butt this morning.”
I let a half mile of clear cut rumble past the window while I thought about my shitty mood. I guess I was in an even shittier mood than usual. The low-hanging, pinkish-gray smoke in the sky was getting on my nerves in a quietly grinding way like bad music or the smell of diesel oil: the kind of irritation that puts you in a crappy mood without you noticing how you got there.
We bounced down Highway 3, dodging potholes, while I contemplated the butchered landscape and wondered grimly if we were going to be on fire right there in Chippewa County soon. I didn’t need a weather report to know it was unusually hot for August. The whole summer had been hot and dry.
Back when I was a kid, I used to enjoy the ride to town because of the way the road wound around through a mosaic of wetlands and forest and lakes. There used to be lots of moose back then too: big, somber, stupid animals. I’d kind of admired the moose because they were so much better at parenting than my folks had ever been.
Mostly gone now: the forest, the marshes around the lakes, the moose.
Some of the clear cut patches have grown back as stands of skinny pines and firs packed together like toothpicks in a box: not a real forest because the animals can’t live in it. Not even a memory of a real forest. The ugly fake forest outside the truck windows pissed me off as much as the smoke. Every fucking thing was reminding me how fucked we all were. Then Arne asked, “What’s the point of being a fucking fairy if you can’t just wave a magic wand and get shit done?”
Yeah, I’m a fairy. No, not that kind. I’m half-human, half-forest spirit from the wild hare clan. There used to be lots of us, but most of the full fairies have either died or moved away with the demise of the forest.