"In her debut novel Tilt, voted one of Scientific American's best fiction books of 2025, Pattee explores this hypothetical day through the eyes of Annie, a Portland local who is nine months pregnant and shopping for cribs at IKEA when disaster strikes. Through the novel, Annie goes on an epic journey to get home and in doing so makes some profound discoveries."
"I came to this idea, like so many writers, because I live in Portland and I'm a climate journalist. I was at IKEA, and the idea came to me; I knew that I wanted to write something hyperrealistic, not realizing how hard of a challenge it would be to write a nonfiction fiction book about something that hasn't happened yet."
Annie, a Portland resident nine months pregnant, is shopping for a crib at IKEA when a major Cascadia earthquake strikes. She embarks on an arduous journey through a devastated city to return home, facing collapsed infrastructure, aftershocks, and social upheaval. Scientists estimate at least a 37 percent likelihood of such a temblor in the next 50 years, underscoring realistic hazard probability. The account emphasizes that a large quake is not universally fatal and highlights survival strategies, resilience, and the importance of accurate scientific grounding in imagining disaster scenarios.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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