Back to Blog
Something awful lord of rigel6/12/2023 The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. “A bold, hypnotic novel, by an author with a genius for the perverse.” It’s a fun ride, and I really never knew what was going to happen next. But even at the book’s loopiest, author Ballard’s writing stays crisp and understandable. At points it’s hard to know whether the main character is seeing things as they really are. The Drowned World starts out as hard science, but gets a little mental. It’s subtle, though-they don’t start digging holes or anything. These surroundings trigger psychological changes in him and others, back to when humans were nothing but shrews scampering away from dinosaurs. Kerans contends with a Triassic-like environment with giant iguanas and mosquitoes the size of dragonflies. (This was written in 1962, so way before the current climate change troubles.)ĭuring a scientific expedition to a sunken London, Dr. Humanity is now collected down in Antartica or above the Arctic circle. In The Drowned World, the sun’s become too hot (130☏ on a good day), and the cities of the world are submerged. East meets West in a clash of cultures brilliantly portrayed in razor-sharp images, tension-building pacing, and sharply etched characters.” “A captivating look at a dystopic future that seems all too possible. What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism’s genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. One of the New People, Emiko is not human instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. There, he encounters Emiko… Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. “ spectacular adventure… one heart-pounding ride… dizzyingly good.”Īnderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies…even if it means he has to become one of them to do so. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society’s ruling class. Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity’s overlord struggles for power. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet.ĭarrow-and Reds like him-are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. He spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |