HEARTS OF A VANISHING CITY

A group of citizens challenges the government’s virus narrative in Davies’ dystopian novel, one in a series.

Over the last century, humanity has survived a series of “outbreaks”—the exact number is disputed—that have nearly wiped out civilization. Now, fear of the Zoribiatus virus (which turns victims into the zombielike “near-dead”) is used by the government to control the remnant population clustered in the cities. Only “dissenters,” who think the government is lying, are willing to risk wandering the countryside. Many residents of the capital resist the government’s rules in their own ways. Zayd Baba, a factory floor supervisor, takes on a lucrative under-the-table job smuggling contraband between cities. Mora Rossi is a poor student but a lover of literature from the old world—and of Omen, the raven (whose species is purportedly extinct) that visits her sometimes on the roof of her building. Amy Park is a medic and aspiring scientist who has just washed out of a prestigious laboratory program and is willing to break the rules to be with her lover. Moe Simons mans a remote energy station and works with the dissenters to undermine the government. As each character’s search for the truth about the virus leads them inevitably into conflict with the powers that be, they must decide how far they are willing to dissent—particularly if it means separation from the people they love. Davies has constructed a world of impressive depth, one shaped by the mutual maturation of the virus and the measures taken to contain it: “Viruses evolve. Zoribiatus hid and changed, and when it reemerged in the fringe communities, spreading out like tendrils through the main infrastructure, the Institute changed, too.” The cast is large, and the plot takes a long time to get going, particularly if the reader is expecting the “creeping hordes of diseased people clamoring for an unsuspecting populace” teased at the outset. While not entirely satisfying as a stand-alone novel, fans of the other books in the series will no doubt enjoy this expansion of the universe.

A thoughtful and richly rendered novel about censorship, authority, and liberation.