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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
On a pleasant summer day, aliens arrive and tell humankind that they have one month to move to Antarctica or else. It's quite a beginning for a novel, and an interesting one, but that's all we get of that. Everyone either moves south or prepares to die without question or resistance. The waters around Antarctica are filled with boats of every description, people are huddled on the shores of the most hostile continent in the middle of its winter, lacking fuel, shelter or clothing, which gives the great real start to the novel, seeing how people came together to...oh, never mind. As soon as people are huddled on shore, the book jumps forward twenty years.
This book is by Tom Rob Smith, who wrote Child 44 and a few other novels centered around the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence during the Cold War. They were thrillers, but ones well anchored in their historical setting, had interesting and plausible plots, and well-developed and complex characters. None of those elements make an appearance in this book.
So what is this book about, since it didn't care to waste time on the alien invasion or in polar survival? Well, since humankind is crowded onto a hostile area with very few resources and no interest in what is happening elsewhere, since people are living in extremely crowded and squalid conditions with barely enough of anything to survive, with all resources strictly controlled and rationed, with any surviving supplies from the rest of the world accessible only to the well-connected, with the end of any sort of representative government, and society controlled by a group of unelected elites, you'd expect that the story would finally gel around a resistance movement. You would be wrong. In this world, scarcity and over-crowding bring docility and contentment to the masses because, the author tells us several times, libertarianism has ended criminality. Also, there are draconian punishments for not being content and happy, but mostly it's a libertarian paradise, don't look to closely at how it works, that's not what this book is interested in.
So what is this book about? Well, because survival is so precarious, and the population dropping, all the scientists left have come together to create weird and terrifying hybrid animals that want to kill the remaining people. Yes, this was the consensus of the the best and brightest -- with aliens occupying most of the world, maybe, although no one has seen any sign of them, with humans desperately in need of a sustainable way to produce the things they need for survival, all the remaining wealth and resources are dedicated to building an enormous underground laboratory to make what they first intended to be small adjustments to the genetic code to make people better adapted to this new harsh environment, but now that all ethical considerations are considered moot, the scientists get over-excited and just keep one-upping themselves withcreating new animal hybrids, each one smarter, stronger and more able to survive and kill everyone. Do I need to tell you how this ends? Because, honestly, I gave up 85% of the way through. None of this made any sense, especially, as it was written, the scientists weren't the bad guys. Also, since there was no more representative government, all the various world leaders opened a bar together. That was kind of interesting.
This book is by Tom Rob Smith, who wrote Child 44 and a few other novels centered around the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence during the Cold War. They were thrillers, but ones well anchored in their historical setting, had interesting and plausible plots, and well-developed and complex characters. None of those elements make an appearance in this book.
So what is this book about, since it didn't care to waste time on the alien invasion or in polar survival? Well, since humankind is crowded onto a hostile area with very few resources and no interest in what is happening elsewhere, since people are living in extremely crowded and squalid conditions with barely enough of anything to survive, with all resources strictly controlled and rationed, with any surviving supplies from the rest of the world accessible only to the well-connected, with the end of any sort of representative government, and society controlled by a group of unelected elites, you'd expect that the story would finally gel around a resistance movement. You would be wrong. In this world, scarcity and over-crowding bring docility and contentment to the masses because, the author tells us several times, libertarianism has ended criminality. Also, there are draconian punishments for not being content and happy, but mostly it's a libertarian paradise, don't look to closely at how it works, that's not what this book is interested in.
So what is this book about? Well, because survival is so precarious, and the population dropping, all the scientists left have come together to create weird and terrifying hybrid animals that want to kill the remaining people. Yes, this was the consensus of the the best and brightest -- with aliens occupying most of the world, maybe, although no one has seen any sign of them, with humans desperately in need of a sustainable way to produce the things they need for survival, all the remaining wealth and resources are dedicated to building an enormous underground laboratory to make what they first intended to be small adjustments to the genetic code to make people better adapted to this new harsh environment, but now that all ethical considerations are considered moot, the scientists get over-excited and just keep one-upping themselves withcreating new animal hybrids, each one smarter, stronger and more able to survive and kill everyone. Do I need to tell you how this ends? Because, honestly, I gave up 85% of the way through. None of this made any sense, especially, as it was written, the scientists weren't the bad guys. Also, since there was no more representative government, all the various world leaders opened a bar together. That was kind of interesting.
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was absolutely incredible. Atmospheric, provocative, just amazing.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Well. That's not exactly what I was expecting.
From the blurb I thought this was going to be a surivalist novel, with people struggling in the bleakest part of the world whether they are suited to it or not. What I got was - not that. I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't say where it goes, but it really surprised me.
The time jumps and things did put me off a little as well - I'm not the kind of reader who enjoys putting things like that together - but they weren't too bad, as they mostly focused on different people each time so the reader doesn't have to constantly reassess people. They were all very clearly marked as well, it's not the kind of story that makes you guess!
I'd like to have known more about the aliens, but I understand they weren't the point, they were just a device. I did have a suspicion about them but I'll never know if I was right or not! I'll just pretend I was.
This is certainly quite a tense read, but I was never on the edge of my seat - weirdly given the subject matter, I wasn't desperate to know what was going to happen next. I definitely did enjoy it though, it was nice to have a less paniced read.
Highly recommend, but be aware that what you think you're getting isn't what you're actually getting!
From the blurb I thought this was going to be a surivalist novel, with people struggling in the bleakest part of the world whether they are suited to it or not. What I got was - not that. I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't say where it goes, but it really surprised me.
The time jumps and things did put me off a little as well - I'm not the kind of reader who enjoys putting things like that together - but they weren't too bad, as they mostly focused on different people each time so the reader doesn't have to constantly reassess people. They were all very clearly marked as well, it's not the kind of story that makes you guess!
I'd like to have known more about the aliens, but I understand they weren't the point, they were just a device. I did have a suspicion about them but I'll never know if I was right or not! I'll just pretend I was.
This is certainly quite a tense read, but I was never on the edge of my seat - weirdly given the subject matter, I wasn't desperate to know what was going to happen next. I definitely did enjoy it though, it was nice to have a less paniced read.
Highly recommend, but be aware that what you think you're getting isn't what you're actually getting!