A LOVEREADING “INDIE BOOKS WE LOVE” SELECTION
“Afterburn is a highly considered dystopian fiction that pitches personal conflict alongside societal ones and creates an evocative and captivating read.”
LoveReading, February 2026
“A sharp, precise, and quietly brutal SF tale…Lovers of speculative fiction driven by moral tension and character consequence will find much to admire here.”
The Prairies Book Review, January 2026
“Sci-fi adventure, family conflict, and political suspense are seamlessly fused in Michael Green’s compelling prose. Afterburn is the best kind of literary entertainment, a wise, enthralling guide to the gravity-free reaches of the human psyche.”
–Melissa Pritchard, author of Flight of the Wild Swan and A Solemn Pleasure
Afterburn is a speculative fiction thriller in the vein of American War by Omar El Akkad or Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It is 2070, and the American dream has been replaced by containment zones, surveillance drones, and endless wildfire. Inside the Gypsum detention center, Alton Lucas lives a lie, concealing his mixed heritage from the white supremacists he is imprisoned with.
His cover is blown not by the inmates, but by the state. Desperate to stop a new wave of insurrection, the government weaponizes Alton against the insurgency’s leader: Alex Weber, now known as Hagen. Years ago, Alton, Alex, and Kiara were inseparable, bonded by a shared obsession with space travel. Now, they are on opposite sides of a civil war.
To stop Alex, Alton must become something else entirely. Augmented with lethal technology and stripped of his agency, he is sent into the mountains to hunt the only family he has left. But as Alton peels back the layers of Alex’s plan, he discovers that the target isn’t the White House or the capital—it’s the upcoming Mars Colony Launch.
Afterburn is a visceral journey into a future where identity is a weapon and nostalgia is a trap. From the squalor of prison camps to the promise of the Red Planet, Alton must decide if he will let the world burn to join his friends—or if he has the strength to let them go.
Michael Green is a writer and professor living in Tempe, Arizona, where he earned his MFA in Creative Writing at Arizona State. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Salon, Digital Trends, StudioBinder, and Pop Matters, among others. Library Journal named his three volume edited encyclopedia, Race in American Film: Voices and Visions that Shaped a Nation, a Best Reference work of 2017. He teaches film studies, focusing on science fiction, for UCLA Extension.
