Fire

"Man versus nature, and the ability of humans to cope under environmental stress, are Stewart’s two obsessions. He is at once a chronicler of the achievements and architectures of modern civilization and an ecological fatalist." — Christine Smallwood, The Nation

"Fire… materializes dramatis personae out of the powers of nature." — Josephine Miles

"This is what Stewart’s work conveys at its best: a sense of humility and an appreciation of the contingent status of our own species, endlessly threatened as it is by a relentless, hostile nature. In doing so, it unsettles our understanding of mankind’s apparent dominion over the earth. In that respect, Stewart’s body of work feels proleptically tailored to an era of catastrophic ecological decline, one in which the earth may very well abide, but our own human prospects look considerably more doubtful." — Matthew Sherrill, Harper’s Magazine

"George R. Stewart’s ecofictions forecasted today’s calamities." — Andrew Schenker, The Baffler