The Fifth Sacred Thing
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| The Fifth Sacred Thing | |
 Cover of trade paperback edition |
|
| Author | Starhawk |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Keith Batcheller |
| Country | United States of America |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Post Apocalyptic |
| Publisher | Bantam |
| Publication date | 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Trade Paperback & Mass Market Paperback) |
| Pages | 486 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0553373803 |
The Fifth Sacred Thing (ISBN 0-553-37380-3) is a 1993 post-apocalyptic novel written by Starhawk. It describes a world set in the year 2048 after a catastrophe which has fractured the United States into at least several nations. The protagonists live in San Francisco and have evolved in the direction of Ecotopia, reverting to a sustainable economy, using wind power, local agriculture, and the like. To the south, though, an overtly-theocratic Christian fundamentalist nation has evolved and plans to wage war against the San Franciscans. The novel explores the events before and during the ensuing struggle between the two nations, pitting utopia and dystopia against each other.
The story is primarily told from the points of view of 98-year-old Maya, her nominal granddaughter Madrone, and her grandson Bird. Through these and other characters, the story explores many elements from ecofeminism and ecotopian fiction.
The title is derived from the four elements of fire, earth, air, and water, plus an additional element revealed as the plot unfolds.
This novel predicts the efforts of corporations to control water; for example, figureheads in Bolivia 'sold' the city of Cochabamba's water rights to Bechtel, a private corporation. The people rebelled and declared the sale both unethical and fundamentally impossible and created the Cochabamba declaration.
In the novel, San Francisco is a mostly pagan city where the streets have been torn up for gardens and streams, no one starves or is homeless, and the city's defense council consists primarily of nine elderly women who "listen and dream".
In 1997, Starhawk wrote a prequel, Walking to Mercury (ISBN 0-553-10233-8).
