The Afterlife Project

Separated by ten thousand years, a team of scientists and their test subject must work together to save the human species―before it’s too late . . .

A best books of 2025 pick by Library Journal and the Toronto Star, The Afterlife Project encompasses a desperate quest for the key to the future of humanity, an impossible love story, and a search for meaning across the inconceivable vastness of geological time.

With humanity facing imminent extinction, the Centauri Project scientists use technology originally designed for interstellar travel to send a test subject ten millennia into Earth’s future. Marooned in an uninhabited wilderness, microbiologist Nicholas Hindman searches for evidence of remnant populations. He has a protocol to follow and is determined to do so to the bitter end―though he knows he’s probably searching in vain, stranded on an uninhabited planet silently orbiting the sun.

Meanwhile, back in 2068 AD, a devastating hyperpandemic has quelled all talk of interstellar travel and thrown the future of humanity into grave doubt. Four surviving members of the Centauri team board a vintage solar-powered sailing yacht for a harrowing and unlikely journey in search of a second test subject. Their destination is a small volcanic island north of Sicily rumored to harbor that rarest of creatures: a woman capable of getting pregnant, thereby ensuring this generation of Homo sapiens isn’t the last. But first they must make it halfway across the post-apocalyptic globe, risking heatwaves, oceanic megastorms, murderous gangs, deranged cult leaders, a volcanic eruption, and the dangerous microbes that continue to circulate through the planet’s atmosphere.

“Riveting and wrenching and suffused with beauty.” — Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars

“This genre-defying novel blends literary fiction, climate science, and speculative imagination in a haunting narrative that spans millennia.” —The Vermont Journal

“The Afterlife Project isn’t just a story about the end of the world as we know it – it’s an exploration of beauty, and love, and hope in the darkness. If you were a fan of Cloud Atlas, you won’t want to miss this one.” — Janelle Brown, New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Paradise.

“A dark yet hopeful story that is engrossing enough to be a beach read . . . Weed reminds us why cli-fi matters.” — Seven Days