An engrossing, character-driven cautionary look at a stark possible future.
In Bernard’s interconnected short stories, communities and individuals struggle to survive in post-apocalyptic Ohio.
The horrors of climate change, two pandemics, social media, nuclear war, and infertility define “Late-K,” or the “desperate end-stage for the world.” In these 10 stories, taking place between 2012 and the 2060s, the remaining denizens of the Ohio Valley face the darkness and ambiguity of this new, simpler, more brutal reality. Among them is Hestia, a young woman tasked to handwrite copies of the crumbling texts of yesteryear, who is caught up in the village of Andeferas’ superstition and prejudice—which finds a target in an aging neighbor. Meanwhile, Safiya Kamal has become the Cleopatra of the Ohio River, commanding a fleet of vessels that move supplies, and is involved with the Brothers of the True Vine, a strange religious order involved in child trafficking, slavery, and rape. Cameron Caldwell, a former assistant district attorney, seeks (along with others) to investigate and end such despicable practices. All the while, nature undergoes a resurgence as humanity begins to foster a new, more sustainable relationship with it (“The engine they removed, of course, ran on either gasoline or diesel. As far as I know, Weston has no intention of reverting to those fossil fuels, even if he could find and refine them”). Though a sequel to Late-K Lunacy (2018), this novel stands comfortably on its own, with a firm focus on the survivors rather than the catastrophe; its characters’ origins and motivations are presented candidly and with great pith. The dry, wordy dialogue comes up short in comparison, lacking the idiosyncrasies and slang societies often develop or any dialects common in Appalachia. The worldbuilding is otherwise thorough, emphasizing the dangers of the newly wild and resource-depleted environment while showing how new customs develop and how the fears of the pre-apocalyptic world govern decisions. Miller’s black-and-white illustrations further cement the setting, and readers familiar with the Ohio River area will find many recognizable touchstones.
An engrossing, character-driven cautionary look at a stark possible future.Pub Date: April 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781989048870
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Petra Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.
As Ireland devolves into a brutal police state, one woman tries to preserve her family in this stark fable.
For Eilish Stack, a molecular biologist living with her husband and four children in Dublin, life changes all at once and then slowly worsens beyond imagining. Two men appear at her door one night, agents of the new secret police, seeking her husband, Larry, a union official. Soon he is detained under the Emergency Powers Act recently pushed through by the new ruling party, and she cannot contact him. Eilish sees things shifting at work to those backing the ruling party. The state takes control of the press, the judiciary. Her oldest son receives a summons to military duty for the regime, and she tries to send him to Northern Ireland. He elects to join the rebel forces and soon she cannot contact him, either. His name and address appear in a newspaper ad listing people dodging military service. Eilish is coping with her father’s growing dementia, her teenage daughter’s depression, the vandalizing of her car and house. Then war comes to Dublin as the rebel forces close in on the city. Offered a chance to flee the country by her sister in Canada, Eilish can’t abandon hope for her husband’s and son’s returns. Lynch makes every step of this near-future nightmare as plausible as it is horrific by tightly focusing on Eilish, a smart, concerned woman facing terrible choices and losses. An exceptionally gifted writer, Lynch brings a compelling lyricism to her fears and despair while he marshals the details marking the collapse of democracy and the norms of daily life. His tonal control, psychological acuity, empathy, and bleakness recall Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). And Eilish, his strong, resourceful, complete heroine, recalls the title character of Lynch’s excellent Irish-famine novel, Grace (2017).
Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780802163011
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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