It Could Happen Here – Cool Zone Media Rewind: Book Club – "The Orchard of Tomorrow" by Kelsea Yu

Host: Margaret Killjoy
Date: January 4, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Margaret Killjoy presents "The Orchard of Tomorrow" by Kelsea Yu as part of the Cool Zone Media Book Club. The show focuses on fiction relevant to Cool Zone Media's themes—collapse, resilience, and imagining better futures. Margaret reads the short story aloud and reflects briefly at the end. The episode is rich in literary analysis, folklore, and themes of loss, restitution, and hope within a climate-changed, class-divided world.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to the Book Club and Kelsea Yu

Timestamp: 01:10–03:00

• Margaret introduces herself and the Book Club, noting the format: she reads stories aloud so listeners don't have to read themselves.
• She introduces author Kelsea Yu, highlighting Yu's Taiwanese Chinese American background and publications in speculative fiction magazines. Margaret notes, "We are actually living in a golden era of short fiction authorship and publishship. We’re also not in a golden era of Margaret making up words. We’re in a pretty mediocre era of that." (02:50)
• Margaret enthusiastically plugs magazines like Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons for listeners who love speculative fiction.

2. Full Reading: "The Orchard of Tomorrow"

Timestamp: 03:40–54:35 (minus ads)

• Margaret reads Yu's post-apocalyptic, literary SF short story in its entirety, voicing the characters and narrative.

Story Summary:

• The narrative follows Andrea as she returns to her ruined family orchard to seek reconciliation with her estranged best friend Lane after years apart.
• The world is ecologically and socially collapsed—peach orchards are destroyed, soil is infertile, and food scarcity is rampant.
• The wealthy elite, called "dragons," hoard resources in closed preserves while most people starve or struggle.
• Andrea left to work for these elites, trading her labor for security and medicine for her sick mother, a choice that devastated Lane and severed their friendship.
• Andrea tries to connect with Lane through shared folklore, specifically stories of Sun Wukong and the Peaches of Immortality from Chinese mythology.
• The story uses the orchard's lost peaches as both a literal and allegorical device—touching on memory, hope, privilege, and what’s worth fighting for.
• Andrea ultimately reveals she’s left the dragons and stolen two precious items: a bundle of key agricultural notes and a fertile peach pit, offering a tiny chance to restore the orchard—and, symbolically, hope and agency.

3. Myth and Personal Memory as Tools of Resistance

Timestamp: Throughout reading, especially 16:30–19:00, 34:45–40:00

• The stories of Sun Wukong stealing the peaches of immortality serve as an allegory for class dynamics and justified rebellion.
• Margaret draws out the resonance: “People wrote stories about fruit trees, built legends around them because they mattered. You were right to dream, Lane.” (49:45)
• Themes of the past as an imperfect but vital inspiration for a damaged future recur. Andrea admits, “There are two things I learned there in the dragon’s enclave. First, that the fruit of today never tastes quite like the fruit of yesterday... And second... They keep really good records on how to care for their precious things.” (47:10–47:55)

4. Class, Complicity, and Regret

Timestamp: 35:00–42:00, 44:00–47:00

• Lane voices anger and betrayal about Andrea's years in the dragons’ employ: “How did it feel to work for them? To help them preserve the fruits they plundered from us, from farmers like your grandparents?” (36:42)
• Andrea struggles with guilt but also the complexity of her own choices: “I wish I could say that I regret my choice to leave. I can’t, not when that choice gave my mom three more years. But I shouldn’t have said the shit I said just to make myself feel better about what I was doing. I shouldn’t have stayed for five years after she died.” (46:05)

5. Hope Amidst Collapse

Timestamp: 48:00–end of reading (~54:00)

• The small hope embodied by the peach pit and the knowledge to regrow it is central: “Our world is never going back to what it used to be … but with a lot of effort and a little luck, maybe you and I will be the first to taste the peaches from the orchard of tomorrow.” (52:43)
• Lane’s cautious acceptance and the two friends walking away together close the story with healing, possibility, and a commitment to “try again.”

6. Host’s Reflections

Timestamp: 54:35–56:30

• Margaret commends Yu’s writing for being clear without being heavy-handed: “You just know [what the allegory means]. And it’s also not heavy-handed. I think this is an amazingly well-written story.” (55:07)
• She recommends Yu’s other work, especially stories with similar themes in Clarkesworld, Reckoning, and Fantasy. She also mentions Yu’s books Bound Feet and It’s Only a Game, as well as the upcoming novella Demon Song, which also draws on Chinese folklore and Sun Wukong.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Margaret (on the value of story sharing):
  “Sometimes we read stories that are like the perfect story for Cool Zone Media Book Club. Sometimes we read stories like the one today.” (01:28)

• Lane (on betrayal and class rage):
  “All the things I thought we could do to change the world… Sometimes I wonder why bother? We’re too small to change anything. We’re too insignificant to do anything but do what we can to survive.” (44:00)

• Andrea (on personal culpability and system constraints):
  “Unlike me. I reach out to grab her sleeve. Lane, wait.” (08:55)

• Lane (on grief and loss):
  “Too many nights I lay awake wishing I’d gone with you.” (45:02)

• Andrea (on reclaiming hope):
  “Maybe someday the peaches will return here, but there are pockets of the world that will still be able to grow them, or places that will be able to grow them for the first time. This isn’t the only peach pit, or the only fruit we want to bring back to the world. Outside the dragon's protective little bubbles. There are many of us.” (50:30)

• Margaret (on the clarity of Yu’s allegory):
  “I usually have so much to say about these stories and one thing I like about this writing is that it’s just clear… you don’t need to really dig in to be like, ‘oh, I wonder what this one little thing here means?’ Or whatever. You just know. And it’s also not heavy-handed.” (55:00)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:10 – Book Club intro and author bio
• 03:40 – Start of story reading
• 15:34 – Story resumes after ad break (mythology, Sun Wukong context)
• 54:35 – Reading ends, host shares thoughts and recommends further reading

Tone and Language

Margaret’s tone is warm, slightly self-deprecating, and deeply engaged with both the literature and the themes of social justice, collapse, and hope. The story’s tone is mournful but determined, with an undercurrent of resilience in the face of tremendous loss.

In Essence

This episode of Cool Zone Media’s Book Club offers a heartfelt reading of Kelsea Yu’s "The Orchard of Tomorrow," embracing the power of myth, memory, and unlikely rebellion in the ruins of a broken world. Yu’s story, as voiced by Margaret, explores the tensions between survival and principle, regret and restitution, and ultimately makes space for new hope—even if, as the episode poignantly notes, “the world is never going back to what it used to be.”