Claire Rudy Foster

In a future where rain is a luxury enjoyed exclusively by the ultra-rich, the world’s only umbrella-maker is framed for the high-profile murder of the quadrillionaire patriarch who controls the earth’s last natural resources. Beautiful and horrific, The Rain Artist is pitched as Succession meets The Fifth Element and asks the question of how art and artists can thrive under commercialized capitalism.

“... an otherworldly, Atwood-esque dystopia.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine

The Rain Artist started as a short story published in O: The Oprah Magazine and was included as a notable story in the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022 anthology by editors Rebecca Roanhorse and John Joseph Adams. The novel is the first in the Clepsydra Series, set in the immediate future of our mutating planet. Read the short story: “What If Rain Was a Rare Commodity?” at Oprah Daily

The Rain Artist is a debut stand-out, with praise from Benjamin Percy, Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine, Foreword Reviews, and many others. With comparisons to Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. LeGuin, N.K. Jemisin, and more, The Rain Artist is an instant classic, destined to be enjoyed again and again.

“A glimpse of a mad-hatter, horror show of a future that feels all too possible. Foster is a more soulful Philip K. Dick, as focused on the inner lives of the troubled, colorful characters who inhabit this novel as the high-concept, adrenaline-fueled mystery that will keep you turning the pages.”
—Benjamin Percy, author of The Dark Net, The Dead Lands, and Red Moon