Can machines rewild us?<\/p>\n
An AI breakthrough connects a team of scientists with a wild dolphin, but progress is neck-and-neck with climate breakdown. Class differences are only the first challenge when romance blooms between college girls at a soil remediation site. A forlorn drone seeks reassignment after his human companion dies\u2014but a reckless band of rebels has other plans.<\/p>\n
T. K. Rex\u2019s debut collection explores a turbulent timeline where the role of intelligent machines changes alongside nature and humanity, in thirteen tales from the climate crisis and beyond. This is the world of The Wildcraft Drones.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the Grungle.<\/p>\n
Squawker and Dolphin Swimming Together – 7
\nThe Flowers Where Five Eighty Used To Be – 28
\nForty-Seven Vacant Floors of Ur – 44
\nWe Require Your Assistance – 53
\nFinally an Excuse to Fire Selina Fong – 56
\nRanch Once Known as \u201cCowschwitz\u201d Rematriated to Tachi Yokuts – 62
\nA Tent Where the Buffalo Roam – 65
\nA Holdout in the Northern California Designated Wildcraft Zone – 73
\nSelected copy from the promotional materials of Grungle Goods, purveyors of affordable quality goods from the Agricultural Jungle – 89
\nFortyounce and the Seabitch of Strip Mall City – 91
\nThe Roots in the Box and the Roots in the Bones – 126
\nDavu the Explorer and the Druid T\u00eda Yara – 161
\nThe Last Wildcraft Drone – 183<\/p>\n
T. K. Rex<\/strong> (they\/she) is a science fiction and fantasy author from the western states, whose short fiction can be read in Roses & Wildflowers<\/em>, The Fabulist<\/em>, Reckoning Magazine<\/em>, and many other places. They\u2019re an alumni of the Clarion writers workshop, a twenty-year denizen of San Francisco, and a friendly acquaintance of spiders. T. K.\u2019s full bibliography, socials, and newsletter can be found at tkrex.wtf.<\/p>\n Meet a future where dolphins scheme, drones grieve, and rewilding reshapes what\u2019s possible in Rex\u2019s debut short story collection. Coming May 2026.<\/p>\n “The Wildcraft Drones presents a fascinating future: hopeful, flawed, and ever-changing as characters continually fight for something better. Rare as morel mushrooms, sweet as acorn bread, and unexpected as BBQ-flavored crickets, it will provoke you to imagine new possibilities and find their seeds in roadside blackberries.”<\/p>\n \u2014 Ruthanna Emrys, author of A Half-Built Garden<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cCreating together a good Anthropocene is going to take persistence, resilience, wit, tolerance, love, and technology. These exciting stories combine all these values, and give us a much-needed vision of how things could turn out well, despite the many dangers we are facing. They gave me hope and made me laugh\u2014 what a great mix!\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Kim Stanley Robinson, author of The Ministry for the Future<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “T.K. Rex\u2019s gentle prose is dense with sly humor, sharp metaphor, and an abiding love for the natural world. These stories challenge us by showing us the logical conclusion of late-stage capitalism \u2013 spiraling natural disasters, a mushrooming police state \u2013 but they also show the endless promise of resistance and hope, of love and lust, of rewilding and regrowth. These characters \u2013 both human and adorable drone \u2013 will stay with you long after you\u2019ve finished reading (and re-reading) this visionary book.”<\/p>\n \u2014 Cynthia G\u00f3mez, author of The Nightmare Box and Other Stories<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cT. K. Rex\u2019s tales of climate refugees, sentient drones, and multispecies networks pull no punches about the hardships to come, yet leave me feeling hopeful and inspired all the same. Essential reading for the Anthropocene.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Sarena Ulibarri, author of Another Life<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Customers outside of CA\/US: due to supply chain issues, worldwide shipping of print books is currently slow and expensive. We recommend shopping with your local indie bookstore. If you do order a print book from us, it will be shipped from the closest print facility to you and will therefore be printed on standard paper and will not include the goodies we send with CA\/US orders.<\/p>\n