Circular Motion: New Scientist Book Club discussion on a near-future climate fiction

The New Scientist Book Club talks with author Alex Foster about Circular Motion, a near-future novel in which the Earth spins faster and days shorten, triggering political, ecological, and social fallout. Foster explains his intent to explore coping with a world that feels out of control, the climate change undercurrents, corporate denial, and the human scale of crisis through protagonists Tanner and Winnie. The discussion covers the book’s physics, the symbolism of the airship circuit, and the disturbing sky shell financed by advertising, all framed within a pre-apocalyptic mood that emphasizes change over doom.

Introduction and premise

The interview with Alex Foster centers on Circular Motion, a near-future novel where the planet begins to spin faster, shortening days from nearly 24 hours to fractions of an hour by the end. The narrative follows two main characters, Tanner and Winnie, as they navigate the political, ecological, and sociological fallout of this planetary acceleration. Foster describes his core aim as capturing the anxiety and resilience people feel when the world seems to be spinning out of control, while leaving space for interpretation beyond a single allegory.

World-building and physics

Foster explains that his background in economics and dialogue with physicists informed the imagined physics. He performs rudimentary calculations — for instance, how shifting day lengths would alter gravity in different cities — but makes deliberate creative editorial choices to emphasize resonance with modern life. The world features airships enacting a global circuit that speeds the planet rather than countering its rotation, a choice driven by corporate momentum and the reluctance of firms to backtrack on their strategies.

Technology and consequences

A central, disturbing idea is the shell that covers the sky to control climate as conditions deteriorate. The shell is financed by pervasive advertising, turning the sky into a perpetual billboard and transforming the experience of nature into a commercialized, finite resource. Foster highlights the irony of labor and resource expenditure in constructing the shell, a task depicted as loud and physically arduous, even as it consumes the time and energy that could be directed at solving real-world problems.

Themes and reflections

The discussion situates Circular Motion within a broader discourse on climate change, corporate denial, and the speed of modern life. Foster frames the book as pre-apocalyptic rather than post-catastrophic, focusing on ordinary people who want to do good but feel trapped by systemic constraints such as labor markets and the allocation of talent toward the world’s problems. The novel explores how different responses to crisis — ethics, self-preservation, and opportunism — collectively intensify the crisis, offering a nuanced meditation on how crisis shapes behavior and belief.

Character development and psychology

Through Tanner and Winnie, the book foregrounds the human micro-scale: how people derive meaning, how careers and ambitions align or clash with moral aims, and how social systems constrain personal choices. Foster discusses his own experience in economic consulting, noting how the desire to contribute to meaningful work intersects with real-world labor markets and the difficulty of aligning personal vocation with global needs.

Influences and craft

The author cites Isaac Asimov and Catch-22 as influences, the latter offering a lens on systems that persist even as participants lose faith in them. The conversation also touches on how the book blends big ideas with intimate life stories, ensuring that the science and the social critique remain grounded in characters’ experiences.

Conclusion and future work

Looking ahead, Foster emphasizes that he does not want to be pigeonholed into one genre and anticipates continuing to write about political concerns, even as his voice remains that of a consistent writer. He also shares science fiction recommendations and reflects on the balance between climate realism and narrative propulsion. The discussion ends with a note of cautious optimism, centering the idea that the world can change and that individual and collective actions matter, even as we confront a crisis that is not neatly resolved in fiction or in reality.