Set in antebellum Virginia, the novel tracks interconnected lives in a county shaped by slavery and unexpected ownership dynamics, including Black Americans who themselves become slaveholders.

Six distinct narratives, each written in a different voice and set in a different time and place, are arranged so that echoes between them imply moral and causal connections across eras.

A small collective of guerilla gardeners called Birnam Wood accepts backing from a charismatic tech billionaire to undertake a project on neglected farmland.

Set in the near future, the novel traces efforts around an institutional body created under international agreements whose mandate is to secure the rights of future generations.

Set across the span of a single year, the novel follows multiple interlinked characters and institutions as environmental degradation and pollution escalate in the United States.

Sarah Crowe moves from Atlanta to an old rural Rhode Island house and finds an unfinished manuscript left by a former tenant — a parapsychologist fixated on an ancient oak on the property.

In a near-future coastal setting, scientists discover a hyper-intelligent octopus species and confront what that intelligence means for ethics, exploitation, and human self-understanding. The discovery triggers corporate and political interests, forcing choices about study, containment, and contact.

On a forested alien world, an occupying human logging colony treats the native population as subjugated labor. Tensions escalate after an especially brutal crime, and a native leader mobilizes resistance against the colonists.

Set around 1959 and the Congo's decolonization era, the novel follows an American missionary household transplanted into a rural African village.

Set in a future ruined city overrun by biotechnology, the story follows a scavenger named Rachel who collects genetic experiments and discarded engineered organisms. The city is dominated by a massive engineered grizzly, and Rachel discovers an unusual sea-anemone–like creature she names Borne.

Set in a near-future America broken by economic collapse, climate effects, and violence, the novel follows Lauren Olamina, a young woman who records her experiences and develops a practical belief system called Earthseed.

Several loosely connected characters across different eras encounter anomalies that call into question the nature of reality, time, and memory.