Winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Awardwinning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.

An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planets finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behindhopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago. After all this time, theres no telling how theyve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.

N. K. Jemisins Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Audible narration by Jason Isaacs (Star Trek: Discovery)