THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT is a Library Journal Best Books of 2025 pick
December 12, 2025 § 2 Comments
Stunned, thrilled, and obviously over-the-moon happy to learn that The Afterlife Project has been selected by Library Journal as one of their Best Books of 2025! This comes as a complete surprise, but it’s a true honor and I’m so pleased that it’s going to help this novel reach a larger readership.
Earlier in the year Library Journal gave the book a starred review, which you can read in full here.
The Toronto Star reviews THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 22, 2025 § Leave a comment
This one goes into the category of truly fantastic news: In a fascinating weekend book round-up headlined “Waiting on the End of the World,” one of Canada’s premier newspapers, the Toronto Star, published an overwhelmingly positive review of THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT!
Quick excerpt: “It’s a relatively simple idea, but Tim Weed makes it into something special with first rate nature writing and a story that underlines how connected we all are to our human and physical environment—which can be a source of resilience even as everything falls apart together.”
Read the rest of the review & round-up here.
New interviews, reviews, and book roundups featuring THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 20, 2025 § Leave a comment
This interview with LA-based journalist, gamer, and film buff Paul Semel was especially fun because the conversation ranged into questions of film influences, including my ideal casting choices for the main characters of THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT. Read the whole interview here.
Quick excerpt: “In terms of influence, film and TV weren’t as important as other books, but my guess is that movies like Interstellar, Contact, and Arrival sort of gave me permission to pursue a story foregrounding the kind of “big” ambitious topics I was interested in, like space-time, general relativity, and the future of humanity, while TV series like Battlestar Galactica reminded me that when the survival of the human species is an open question, it can generate high stakes and robust dramatic tension. And the popularity of the great nature documentaries, like Planet Earth, showed that the awesome spectacles of life on Earth could be intrinsically riveting for mass audiences.”
Very cool: THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT was featured in a new scifi books roundup at Transfer Orbit, a newsletter run by Vermont writer Andrew Liptak that provides regular look at the latest news within the science fiction community, featuring analysis and commentary and updates about fiction, writing, and the future of reading.
Also very cool: THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT was featured in a best beach reads roundup by The Cullman Times in Cullman, Alabama—with the article also syndicated by the Rome News-Tribune in Rome, Georgia. Making inroads in the American south!
I also loved this notably glowing review from Shannon at It Starts at Midnight.
Quick excerpt: “This is hands down one of the most thought-provoking books that I have ever read. Which is saying something, because thought-provoking books are kind of my thing . . . I have so much to say about this book, but I equally want to tell you no more. Because this is the sort of story that needs to be experienced to be appreciated.” Read the whole review here.
I enjoyed reading this thoughtful and generally positive (if at times slightly grudging ;)) review from the Washington Independent Review of Books.
Finally, I very much appreciated this review of the audiobook on Instagram from @bookboundblogger.
Quick excerpt: “I am very picky about my sci-fi books. This one hit the mark! It didn’t feel like reading a novel. It felt like witnessing a slow‑motion disaster unfold with stunning imagery and quiet heartbreak. The science felt authentic. The emotion was raw. The tension never let up. It gave geography class, climate awareness, and gut‑punch storytelling all in one, but never preachy or feeling like an info-dump. Just deeply human.” Read the whole review here.
Big Blog Round-Up: recent interviews, reviews, and features about THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 6, 2025 § Leave a comment
It has been such a pleasure as well as a humbling honor to receive a whole slew of positive attention from these amazing fellow novelists and book bloggers in the days following the official launch of The Afterlife Project. My profound gratitude goes out to you all. Highly recommended to click through, read the blogs, and subscribe.
An online interview with Mark Stevens for his blog, Don’t Need a Diagram. A highly accomplished mystery and thriller novelist himself, Mark is also one of the best literary citizens I know. His questions were acute and thought-provoking, leading to what was for me a highly substantive and enjoyable discussion about dark fiction, climate change, National Geographic, paleoclimatology, short fiction, and the solace of geological time. The interview is followed by a very perceptive book review.
Quick excerpt: “My hope for this novel is that it will offer a sense of solace, and even a kind of optimism about the future . . . to show how important it is to slow down and really try to understand what we currently have and what we stand to lose.”
An online interview with Cliff Garstang for his regular blog feature, “I’ve Got Questions.” Cliff is also a fellow novelist, author of the excellent The Last Bird of Paradise and several other books, and another very good literary citizen. Long ago we spent a very memorable week together in Tepotzlán, Mexico, taking a writing masterclass with the great American novelist Russell Banks. This brief interview touches upon the inspiration for The Afterlife Project, some of the food and music I associate with the book, and the potential of fiction to play a role in saving the human species.
Quick excerpt: “Fiction, more than any other art form, enables a reader to experience the world from within a consciousness that’s not their own. Imagining alternative lives and alternative futures—sometimes very dark ones—from the relative safety and comfort of the bedside or a favorite reading chair, putting ourselves in the position of fictional characters as they confront tense and difficult challenges, and then processing those experiences and the emotions they evoke into wisdom or at least working theories about life, is a cathartic, healthy, and uniquely human practice.”
I’m gobsmacked by this glowing review on @tamsparks’ influential book blog, Books, Bones & Buffy. Here’s an excerpt: “Tim Weed’s latest novel is a gripping and emotional time travel/post apocalyptic adventure with a fair amount of science backing everything up. It’s also full of themes like found family and even a bit of romance, but mostly it’s an ode to our planet’s natural wonder and beauty, as well as a cautionary tale about humanity’s downfall. Weed masterfully tells his story in two timelines with a great deal of distance between them—more than 10,000 years!—and it’s surprisingly effective.”
Very much enjoyed writing this guest post for Chuck Wendig’s powerhouse literary blog, Terrible Minds: “Five Things I Learned While Writing The Afterlife Project.” This post touches on the surprising power of dark fiction, one-way time travel, the nature of time, the fate of humanity, and more. My thanks to Chuck for the helping hand he regularly offers to less well-known authors. His is a blog every novelist should bookmark and read regularly, not only for the trademark madcap sense of humor, but also for its deep underlying wisdom.
Quick Excerpt: “Dark fiction isn’t for everyone, but if you like it—if you’re drawn to the writing of Stephen King, for example, or Shirley Jackson or Margaret Atwood or our own Chuck Wendig—then it’s possible that you’re the kind of reader for whom the horrific offers a particular kind of reading pleasure. Because let’s face it: there’s power in darkness. It’s an essential source of narrative drive for one thing—what keeps the pages turning—and it’s also a healthy response to personal stress and the ongoing shit-show of current events.”
My friend and Boston writing colleague Crystal King created a fascinating pairing for a book giveaway on her highly recommended substack, Tasting Life Twice. Quick excerpt: “The Afterlife Project pulled me into a chilling future that felt all too real, with a story so original and propulsive I couldn’t put it down.”
A very nice review from M.K. Tod on her blog, A Writer of History. M.K. is a Canadian historical novelist whom I first met back in 2014 when I published my first novel, also historical, Will Poole’s Island. At the time she asked me to write something about world-building in historical fiction — but it turns out those insights, as M.K. points out, are also very applicable to writing about the future!
Finally, this thoughtful review from Dr. Laura Tisdall, author, historian, and senior lecturer at Newcastle University (UK): “I was utterly immersed in The Afterlife Project, which covers some grim ground but . . . finds unexpected hope . . . And unlike so many recent eco-fictions that seek to show, as this does, that humans are merely a part of nature and not the be all and end all . . . Weed avoids nihilism, recognising the value of humanity but also its fragility. Highly, highly recommended, especially for MacInnes fans.”
Seven Days reviews THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 4, 2025 § Leave a comment
This penetrating and wise review is a particular honor; Seven Days is a venerable journalistic institution here in my home state of Vermont. My thanks go out the reviewer, Margot Harrison, who is a novelist herself, and whose insights therefore carry a particular charge for me.
My favorite excerpt below, though I recommend that you read the whole review here.
“Remembering a trip to Dinosaur National Monument as a child, when he first sensed the “otherworldly vastness of geological time,” Nick reminisces about a vanished world in which humanity’s own extinction was already foreshadowed:
‘From Dinosaur they drove west, into the heart of fossil gas extraction country, stopping for another picnic dinner at a highway pullout: cheddar cheese, summer sausage, and more of those improbably fat blueberries. Light and shadow; the golden-red dusk still hazy from the forest fires; the tall orange flames of the flaring wells like monumental torches arranged across the desert landscape.’
In such passages, Weed reminds us why cli-fi matters: The tools of fiction, including elegiac literary prose, empower him to push past numbing statistics and bring home the impact of environmental crisis on the individual.”
THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT receives a starred review from Library Journal
March 31, 2025 § 1 Comment
“Rousing seafaring adventure, combined with contemplative musings on life wrapped around a compelling romance make this a fascinating tale that is difficult to put down; the combination of dire ecological challenges and imaginative future discovery combine in this very engrossing read from Weed.” — Library Journal
This is a big deal, and should really help get the word out about this book. My humble and profound gratitude to all the great folks at Podium Entertainment, Page One Media, Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, and to the many of you who have already preordered or posted early reviews. The Afterlife Project comes out June 3, 2025; the paperback original, audiobook, and ebook are available for preorder now.
THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT is a Middlebury Magazine Editors’ Pick
March 10, 2025 § 1 Comment
It’s an honor to receive this notice from my alma mater, with a nice little book review as well. Here’s a pull quote:
“The dangers [the characters] endure along the way are set against an unfolding and impossible love story across the vastness of geological time, as the scientists work to keep humans in existence. It may sound like an end-of-the-world tale, but it defines the strength and bravery of human beings and what they will do to preserve this precious thing we call life in the face of overwhelming odds.” — Middlebury Magazine
Kirkus Reviews’ verdict on THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
December 12, 2024 § 2 Comments
A real shot in the arm in the form of this highly favorable review by Kirkus!
This is something every novelist hopes for (you really never know with Kirkus) and to have it happen this early in the process feels like a good omen.
The novel comes out on June 3, 2025, but allow me to suggest (for various reasons, most having to do with the vicissitudes of publishing algorithms) that you preorder it NOW at your local independent bookstore or via Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or (for audiobook) Audible
New longlists/shortlists
September 9, 2021 § Leave a comment
A cynic might say something like “always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” but I’ve never been a cynic and I’m pleased to report these recent honors:
Semi-Finalist, 2021 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize, for a novel, THE HAVANA STANDARD
Finalist, 2021 Southern Humanities Review Editors Chapbook Prize, for a novelette, AMONG THE MONOLITHS
Honorable Mention, 2021 Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition (Mainstream/Literary), for a short story, VIRGIN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Honorable Mention, 2021 Cisco Writing Club, Annual Summer Writing Contest (Short Stories), for a short story, SKIN MONKEYS
None of these works has been published yet. Stay tuned!
Two new reviews for A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing
January 17, 2019 § Leave a comment
So pleased to see that positive reviews for the collection continue to trickle in. The two most recent are from the Midwest Book Review and Trout Fisherman, a magazine based in Great Britain. Both reviews are excerpted below. You can read more excerpts and follow links to ALL known reviews here.
“This collection of stories by Tim Weed is grounded in the specificity of its settings, all of which contain hazards of one kind or another: a mountain lake, a jungle peak, an Amazonian river, a prairie giving way to construction, a seashore suddenly overcome by the tide, a city stuck in the past, a snowy slope (or two). But it is also full of mystery, and much of the mystery is cosmic . . . It is written so deftly, with such a light touch, that suspense builds in each story like a gathering storm.” — Patrick Joyce, Midwest Book Review
“Like other talented writers in this genre, Weed is not hampered by the brevity of the medium . . . His denouements are unpredictable and sometimes even merely hinted at, leaving the reader to fall back on his or her own imagination as to how the tale ends, which sounds frustrating but is actually quite a tantalizing device.” — Trout Fisherman (UK)
Order the paperback, ebook, or audiobook at your favorite independent bookstore or IndieBound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Audible. Limited first-edition hardcovers can still be ordered from these fine independent booksellers!
Tim Weed 