So I drive until first light and only stop when the plain turns black and there鈥檚 nothing between us and the horizon but clinkers and ash.

I pull up. Drop the sidescreen. The southern air is mercifully still this morning, and that鈥檚 the only stroke of luck we鈥檝e had in days. I know what wind does to an old fireground. In a gale, the ash can fill your lungs in minutes. I鈥檝e seen comrades drowning on their feet. Clambered over the windrows of their bodies.

I wrap the scarf over my nose and mouth. Hang the glasses from my neck. Crack the door. And step down. Testing the surface as gently as I can. Ankle-deep. To the shins at worst. No sound out here but the whine of our rig鈥檚 motors.

Stay there, I call.

I know she鈥檚 awake, but the child, slumped in the corner of the cab, does not move. I walk back gingerly to check the trailer. Everything is still cinched down as it should be 鈥� the maker, the water, pods and implements 鈥� although the days of hard running have left my greens in disarray. The leafier edibles are windburnt, but overall the losses seem manageable. I tap the reservoir to fill my flask. Then, with the glasses, I scan the western approaches. No plumes, no movement. We鈥檙e clear.

Tim Winton鈥檚 post-apocalyptic new novel is terrifying and brilliant

A man and young girl drive across a scorched Australian outback in Juice, an extraordinary new sci-fi novel where nothing is what it first seems, says Emily H. Wilson

I try to swipe the dust from the films and panels, but it鈥檚 pointless. In a minute or so every generating surface will be furred with ash again. I just need the turbines to trickle in enough juice to get us across.

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Back at the cab, I thump my boot heels on the step and climb in. She hasn鈥檛 moved, and why that should be both a relief and vexation is beyond me.

We鈥檙e okay, I tell her. We鈥檒l make this.

She gazes out across the scorched land.

This place, I say. It was all trees once. I flew across it. When I was young.

She blinks, inscrutable.

It went on and on. Trees beneath us for hours. The smell 鈥� you just wanted to eat the air.

She maintains her silence.

Have you flown?

Nothing.

I know you鈥檝e been at sea. Just wondered if you鈥檇 been up in a stat.

She shifts and tilts her head against the sidescreen.

It鈥檚 really something.

She offers no sign of interest. Sits back, leaves a smear of sun paste on the glass.

But just once, I say, I would鈥檝e liked to fly for the sake of it, not because I was on my way to somewhere horrible.

The sun appears. Molten. Slumped at the edges. Liquifying before us like a burning blimp. Until it rises. Breaks free of all comparisons to become its unmistakable self. Something reassuring. And terrible.

I talk too much, I declare. And you? You never say a word. Once upon a time I never said enough. So I was told.

She gives me nothing.

I know you hear me. You follow my language.

She rubs at the glass and manages to spread more grease than she removes.

Listen, I say. Those men back there, we lost them. No one鈥檚 coming for us. This morning we need to get across this ash. It won鈥檛 be nice. But on the other side there鈥檒l be fresh country. We鈥檒l move and camp the way we did before. Okay? Until we find ourselves a situation. There鈥檒l be somewhere. We鈥檒l be alright.

The child cranks her head further away. When I take my scarf and tear a long hank from it, she turns back at the sound. I pull the rest of the fabric across my nose and mouth and bind it around the skirts of my hat. And although she flinches, she does not resist when I do the same for her. There鈥檚 still dried blood on her brow where she beat herself against the dash. Her pale blue eyes seem more luminous above the mask.

There, I say. Cuts the stink a bit anyway. One day we鈥檒l scrub this cab out. And you won鈥檛 just be watching, believe me. So. You set? There鈥檚 water here. We鈥檒l eat on the other side.

I lift the sidescreen and set the rig into motion. Trundling just fast enough to make way, but slow enough to avoid stirring up a blizzard of ash.

On and on we go, hour after hour, over country as black as the night sky, across a fallen heaven starred with eruptions of white ash and smears of milky soot.

The vehicle staggers and wallows but keeps on until I鈥檓 down to reserve power. And then, as the midday sun drills in through the murk, I see new colours 鈥� tan, silver, khaki, bone 鈥� and the surge of relief that goes through me is almost deranging.

At the first solid ground I let the child out to privy. She seems energized by the freedom. Though when she鈥檚 done, she baulks at being hustled back into the rig so soon. I don鈥檛 manhandle her. But I do corral her. And I speak to her sharply. Because I鈥檓 tired. And still useless at this. And I really need to put some distance between us and that fireground. So when we finally get moving, the mood in the cab is low, and I鈥檓 sorry for it, but soon I have reason to be glad because when the batts finally give out, a hard gust comes in from the south, and the whole rig shakes on its axles.

I climb down stiffly. The kid gets out. I point to the dirty pillars rising into the sky in the distance behind us.

Look, I say. We could have been in the middle of that. But we鈥檙e out and upwind, see? That鈥檚 not just a lucky escape. That鈥檚 us being smart.

I crank out the shade. Set the array.

She watches the ash clouds twist northward. As the wind stiffens, they boil against one another. Then she follows me to the trailer. Watches as I dole out some mash. Accepts the dixy and the spoon. On her haunches, with her back to the wind, she swats away the skirts of her hat and eats. Avidly.

We can鈥檛 just be lucky, I say. You and me, we have to stay sharp.

She鈥檚 already licking her mess tin clean. I take it from her, give her mine, and while she eats I unlash my swag and roll it out beside the vehicle. Then I take down the bedroll I鈥檝e improvised for her. Unfurl it next to mine. Not so close to make her worry, but near enough to keep an eye on her.

We鈥檙e all out of push, I say. Machine and creatures alike. So let鈥檚 sleep.

She shovels the last of the mash into her mouth, licks my dixy clean and the spoon also. Gets up, sets both back on the trailer and returns to sit, cross-legged, on her swag. She gazes east, the tail of her hat stirred by the wind.

Suit yourself, I say.

And then I鈥檓 gone. Out.

鈥斺赌�-

Sometime in the afternoon I wake to a faint keening. And for a moment I think I鈥檓 home. With an ailing hen downstairs. The whole flock at risk of contagion. Catastrophe in my compound. And I know I should get up, go straight to the growhouse, but when I open my eyes there鈥檚 just the awning shimmying in the wind above me and I鈥檓 here, on the dirt, so far south from home. And it鈥檚 the kid. Her face smeared with tears. Weeping. For the woman, I imagine, and God knows how much else besides. I reach for her, but she cringes away, so I leave her be and yield, once more, to sleep.

When I wake again the shadows of the vehicle and its trailer are long as safety ropes. The waif kips on. I clamber up, sore and creaky, to get us underway again.

漏 Tim Winton

This is an extract from Juice by Tim Winton (Picador), the February 2026 read for the 快猫短视频 Book Club. You can buy a copy , and sign up to read along with us here

My grandparents were born at the end of the 19th century, in the era of the horse and cart. My mum and dad grew up in the machine age of mass production. And I was a child of the space age.

Despite the trials of world wars and the spectre of nuclear annihilation that followed it, this was a dispensation of steadily increasing prosperity, safety and mobility. For my family, at least, it was an experience of liberation and improvement, a trajectory that reinforced faith in human progress. For each succeeding generation, prospects were enhanced. Life got better.

Well, that arc of improvement stopped with my kids. You could call it the end of a dream. But really, it鈥檚 the death of a communal delusion.

The world I was born into is not the one I鈥檓 passing on to my grandkids. The conditions of safety I inherited will not be granted to them. This is the most confronting fact of my life.

The reasons for this awful diminution of prospects are well known. The world has sickened because of the way we鈥檝e generated energy to drive all this prosperity and improvement. The arc of progress we once lauded hid an underbelly of despoliation, oppression and theft. All that success was bought at the cost of a scorched Earth.

The world is already 1.5掳C hotter than it was when my grandparents were born. On current settings, we鈥檙e tracking to double that level of heating. A world as hot as ours is already chaotic and deeply challenging for ecosystems and the creatures that depend on them. A planet with twice our level of heating is a nightmare we should avoid at all costs. Because it means some parts of the globe will be all but uninhabitable. Many millions of humans will die. Billions will live in conditions of misery.

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Some of them will be my descendants. That鈥檚 the hook for me. The idea that my safety and mobility might have been bought at the price of their suffering. That upsets me. Juice is my family nightmare.

Tim Winton鈥檚 post-apocalyptic new novel is terrifying and brilliant

A man and young girl drive across a scorched Australian outback in Juice, an extraordinary new sci-fi novel where nothing is what it first seems, says Emily H. Wilson

Now there may be places on our planet where the reality of our burning world can still be overlooked or evaded. Australia is not one of them.

In north-west Australia, where I live, the climate has already grown extreme. Yesterday it was 50掳C. Because of increased storm intensity, homes are almost uninsurable.

When people ask me why, so late in my career, I鈥檝e published a dystopian novel, I must temper my response and mask my irritation. They want to know why I鈥檝e changed tack, why I鈥檝e suddenly switched genres. Well, the thing is, I haven鈥檛. What鈥檚 changed is not my writing 鈥� it鈥檚 the world around me. The real question is, at this moment in history, how can I not write like this? What sort of an artist would I be if I ignored the conditions of life around me?

Is Juice a dystopian novel? You can call it that if you like. But this assumes there鈥檚 something fantastical, or outlandish, about it. And I don鈥檛 see it that way. Not with millions of humans living in dystopian conditions already. All over the world people are starving, fleeing conflict and climate extremes. In almost every instance, the horrors they face are the legacy of fossil capitalism. Sometimes I think we use the word dystopia as an opiate. It serves as a softener, an instrument of distance. And I don鈥檛 think we can afford it.

Juice is set generations from now in north-west Australia. The hard work of avoiding the worst of climate breakdown has not been done and after heating by 3掳C, the world has tipped into feedback loops that make it hotter still. Nation states have collapsed. Human settlement has retreated from the equatorial regions, and those who persist at the margins 鈥� say, the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer 鈥� must live several months of the year underground. They鈥檙e actually pretty good at it. But it鈥檚 very tough.

Like most of my novels, it鈥檚 a story of family. It鈥檚 about the pressures of loyalty and liberty, geography and history. So, hardly a departure. And if it鈥檚 speculative in its framing, its speculations are not just scientific or climatic but moral and deeply personal. I鈥檝e forced myself to imagine the lives my grandkids鈥� children will lead. Right here, in a landscape I love and have defended for most of my adult life.

To me, it鈥檚 a logical, emotional and imaginative extension of the world I know. Supplemented by the science and climate modelling, it reflects my experience of living in the Pyrocene in a part of the world that鈥檚 always been climatically extreme but is now on track to becoming uninhabitable.

The world of Juice is harsh. Its people are hardy and stoical. Out of tradition and stubbornness, they hold on at the margins of habitability. But as conditions deteriorate, families are forced to migrate southward in the hope of finding cooler air and viable settlements.

That鈥檚 not speculation. In northern Australia, it鈥檚 already happening. And the people being forced to migrate like Steinbeck鈥檚 Okies, are our poorest citizens. So I鈥檓 just turning the dial a little.

For all that, the greatest challenge my characters face is not climatic 鈥� it鈥檚 human. For as our hero discovers, the most valuable assets are not shelter or food or even water, but civility. This, I guess, is the heart of the novel.

What makes life sustainable is a shared sense of the common good. Fossil capitalism, the global force that curdled these people鈥檚 world, is contemptuous of that ethic. To survive, my characters must rekindle it and treasure it. And so must we. Whether we can, of course, is the real matter of speculation.

漏 Tim Winton

Tim Winton is the author of Juice (Picador), the February 2026 read for the 快猫短视频 Book Club. You can buy a copy , and sign up to read along with us here