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.
Prominent book blogger picks THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT as a favorite science fiction book of 2025
December 9, 2025 § 3 Comments
It’s an honor to be in such excellent company as one of Tam Sparks (of Books, Bones & Buffy fame) Favorite Science Fiction books of 2025!
“A thrilling and immersive adventure story, The Afterlife Project combines complex, thoughtful themes with relatable characters and bittersweet emotion . . . 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. . . Please do yourself a favor and consider reading The Afterlife Project, which deserves every bit of praise it’s received and is one of the best books I’ve read so far this year.”
See the whole list here.
Write on Four Corners with DelSheree Gladden: radio & podcast interview
September 25, 2025 § Leave a comment
Another in a series of highly enjoyable radio and podcast appearances in the aftermath of the publication of The Afterlife Project!
This thirty minute conversation with fellow novelist DelSheree Gladden on KSJE radio in Farmington, New Mexico will be especially interesting to writers, I think. Topics include climate fiction, the depth and complexity of fictional characters, the creative and research origins of The Afterlife Project, the bracing challenge of writing fiction that comes alive on the page while also getting at a deeper truth, balancing scientific research with story elements, Hemingway’s iceberg theory of fiction, revision as re-inhabiting stories like a vivid dream, the challenges and joys of teaching fiction, the power of literature, and the impact of stories on human affairs, the value of experiencing dark alternative futures, the enduring appeal of novels, and more. Listen here.
“Messengers of the Eternal: Trees in Life & Literature” – new essay up at The Revelator
August 6, 2025 § 2 Comments
Such an honor to see this essay published at The Revelator, a beautiful and well-edited publication of the Center for Biological Diversity. I’ve been working on these ideas for quite some time; the essay gets at some ground truths for me about trees in fiction and also in the real world. I hope you enjoy it! Here’s a quick excerpt, and the full essay is here.
“Tolkien’s forests, similarly — where many of his most dramatic and evocative chapters take place — are gripping embodiments of this urgent wrestling match between darkness and light. The Old Forest, just beyond the borders of the bucolic Shire, is host not only to terrifying ring-wraiths but to uncanny and sometimes ravenously hostile ancient trees — and things get even worse in Mirkwood. But amid these forests of terror and danger there are also glades of joyous poetry and light, such as the alluring waystation of Rivendell and magical Lothlórien, where the cathedral-like spaces between the trees are filled with dappled golden light and the celestial music of elves.”
Burlington Free Press book round-up & a new interview at Cleaver
July 24, 2025 § Leave a comment
Just getting back from the inspiring whirlwind of The Afterlife Project book tour and almost missed a few things:
The Burlington Free Press featured The Afterlife Project in their “Summer Reading Guide of Books By Vermonters.” Needless to say, it’s an honor to be included!
Also an honor, and a conversation I very much enjoyed having, is this interview with Andrea Caswell, editor of the well-known Philadelphia-based literary magazine, Cleaver.
We discuss climate fiction, deep time, research, the novelist as archaeologist, weaving together multiple timelines, the inspirations for The Afterlife Project, and more. Check it out, I think you’ll enjoy it!
THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT is one of New Scientist’s top books of the month
June 7, 2025 § Leave a comment
Such an honor to see that THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT has made this list in New Scientist, one of my favorite weekly popular science magazines.
In these troubling times, good communication about the latest trends and discoveries in science and technology is more important than ever, and New Scientist is among the very best. The fact that they also cover the latest fiction is an added bonus!
“What Does a Million Years Mean to You?” New booklist essay up at Literary Hub
June 4, 2025 § Leave a comment
Very happy to have this piece up at LitHub, one of my favorite literary on-line venues.
Excerpt below:
“The deep-time perspective of all these books has given me a better vantage point on the current moment, not only as it relates to the trajectory of the human species but also to the long and varied story of life on Earth. While I do fear that humanity’s circumstances are likely to get worse before they get better, the zoomed-out perspective of deep time has given me surprising new grounds for optimism.
To paraphrase Marcia Bjornerud in Timefulness, it’s not the end of nature we’re looking at, but the end of the illusion that we’re not part of nature.”
Read the whole piece here.
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 Nerd Daily excerpts THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT
June 2, 2025 § Leave a comment
Very pleased and honored to report that The Nerd Daily has published an excerpt of THE AFTERLIFE PROJECT. If you’re curious about the book but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, here’s a chance to dip your toes in.
Tim Weed 