Having another go at concepts and themes he explored in previous books, Kunstler delivers an entertaining if not overly...
This fourth and final installment of Kunstler's speculative World Made by Hand series envisions a post-apocalyptic America struggling to put itself back together through a fractious convergence of political, ideological, and religious forces.
As spring approaches, the upstate New York town of Union Grove is facing its usual shortage of food, what with the trade route to Albany having been blocked by all-powerful, feudal-minded landowner Stephen Bullock. And there are even more crucial needs, such as a vaccine to save the 8-year-old daughter of town mayor Robert Earle's girlfriend from tetanus (his wife died of encephalitis)—and more sperm-bearers to repopulate the area. Such is the shortage of men that physically endowed movement leader Flame Aurora Greengrass picks up Elam, a none-too-bright war veteran, in a bar. (Her father, Glen Ethan Greengrass, one-time public radio personality, founded the superliberal, all-inclusive, anti-establishment Berkshire People's Republic.) Though marauding gangs lurk outside of town, ready to do in innocent people—not to mention innocent cows—there is relatively little violence here. Attention is paid to yeoman efforts by Robert's son Daniel to start a newspaper, with Karen Grolsch, the "duck boss" at a local farm, as his aspiring reporter. The book's reflection of America has a kind of fun-house mirror effect in producing scenes that echo a distant American past while speaking in a contemporary tongue. "The USA is toast," utters one nonbeliever. There are plentiful pop cultural references—including The Big Lebowski, Pete Seeger, and Meet the Press. "We don't have any use for Jesus," says Flame. "We're not in the twelfth century."
Having another go at concepts and themes he explored in previous books, Kunstler delivers an entertaining if not overly captivating account of an American society reinventing itself in the wake of a terrorist attack.Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2492-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.
Set in the future and reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, this novel dramatizes a story of vengeance, warfare and the quest for power.
In the beginning, Darrow, the narrator, works in the mines on Mars, a life of drudgery and subservience. He’s a member of the Reds, an “inferior” class, though he’s happily married to Eo, an incipient rebel who wants to overthrow the existing social order, especially the Golds, who treat the lower-ranking orders cruelly. When Eo leads him to a mildly rebellious act, she’s caught and executed, and Darrow decides to exact vengeance on the perpetrators of this outrage. He’s recruited by a rebel cell and “becomes” a Gold by having painful surgery—he has golden wings grafted on his back—and taking an exam to launch himself into the academy that educates the ruling elite. Although he successfully infiltrates the Golds, he finds the social order is a cruel and confusing mash-up of deception and intrigue. Eventually, he leads one of the “houses” in war games that are all too real and becomes a guerrilla warrior leading a ragtag band of rebelliously minded men and women. Although it takes a while, the reader eventually gets used to the specialized vocabulary of this world, where warriors shoot “pulseFists” and are protected by “recoilArmor.” As with many similar worlds, the warrior culture depicted here has a primitive, even classical, feel to it, especially since the warriors sport names such as Augustus, Cassius, Apollo and Mercury.
A fine novel for those who like to immerse themselves in alternative worlds.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-345-53978-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.
In the first volume of a trilogy, a fresh cataclysm besets a physically unstable world whose ruling society oppresses its most magically powerful inhabitants.
The continent ironically known as the Stillness is riddled with fault lines and volcanoes and periodically suffers from Seasons, civilization-destroying tectonic catastrophes. It’s also occupied by a small population of orogenes, people with the ability to sense and manipulate thermal and kinetic energy. They can quiet earthquakes and quench volcanoes…but also touch them off. While they’re necessary, they’re also feared and frequently lynched. The “lucky” ones are recruited by the Fulcrum, where the brutal training hones their powers in the service of the Empire. The tragic trap of the orogene's life is told through three linked narratives (the link is obvious fairly quickly): Damaya, a fierce, ambitious girl new to the Fulcrum; Syenite, an angry young woman ordered to breed with her bitter and frighteningly powerful mentor and who stumbles across secrets her masters never intended her to know; and Essun, searching for the husband who murdered her young son and ran away with her daughter mere hours before a Season tore a fiery rift across the Stillness. Jemisin (The Shadowed Sun, 2012, etc.) is utterly unflinching; she tackles racial and social politics which have obvious echoes in our own world while chronicling the painfully intimate struggle between the desire to survive at all costs and the need to maintain one’s personal integrity. Beneath the story’s fantastic trappings are incredibly real people who undergo intense, sadly believable pain.
With every new work, Jemisin’s ability to build worlds and break hearts only grows.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-22929-6
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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