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kacyj503's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
michellehenriereads's review against another edition
4.0
In this post-apocalyptic world, a group of leaders has divided the survivors into two cities. These leaders knowingly do what they must for survival even if it includes lying. This is what I would call an idea book instead of a character-driven story, and is a social commentary.
Here are some of the themes I saw, but these are not comprehensive because there's so much to unpack.
Violent media.
How are we consuming media in our culture? When violence is part of our entertainment, we are feeding on it. In the city of Rise, the people literally sustain themselves by eating footage of the ongoing war.
This was a hard one for me to wrap my head around because I was being too logical and thinking we needed real food to survive. Once I figured out the violence was their meal, I tried to suspend my disbelief to go with the story.
Propaganda.
How are we influenced by our government? What about fake news? Foreign powers are continuing to try and influence other countries as seen through Brexit and the US presidential elections. (And yes, I'm aware some people also deny these allegations which is another side of propaganda.) In this way, Rise & Shine reminds me of Orson Well's novel 1984.
Environment.
How are our actions affecting our environment? We talk about our carbon footprint, climate change, oil spills, protecting the oceans, and renewable energy as a few examples. This subject is a moving target. In this novel, Allington has created a world that seems to have been destroyed by acid rain and possibly other catastrophes. The common man is frightened by the sight of vegetables.
When the conflict is changing between Rise & Shine, the two cities, the leaders approach it through manufacturing a new war. Even though this war is a parody of the real thing, people will die for their cause, and the side that will win is predetermined. How mixed up is that? How different is our world from this satire?
Relationships.
Do we value the veneer of acceptance for others but hide our true feelings? This might be something that others don't agree with as being part of Allington's commentary. I noticed when an individual was arrested, the police force was excessively polite. So polite that their feelings were hurt when the accused called their conversation an interrogation instead of something more sedate. Do we hide behind a veneer? Are people becoming unnecessarily upset? There are cases of social injustice that we want to root out, but where does politeness come in? I'm not sure there is a solid answer to the questions I've posed here, but I do think the author is trying to make a point.
Rise & Shine gave me the opportunity to consider the state of our world. Allington's vision is one I hope to never see, but he does a masterful job of highlighting problems. Your interpretation is open when the author doesn't spoonfeed you every answer. What you see may be different than what I saw.
I felt like it took to the 50% mark of the book to get a solid handle on what was going on. Hopefully, this review will give you a leg up to know what to expect. This book is written for adults and reflects adult themes, relying heavily on politics and violence (though surprisingly, little violence is on the page). There is no graphic sex, but plenty of F-bombs.
If you enjoyed Rise & Shine, you could try reading The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, another book that delves into society's ills.
Here are some of the themes I saw, but these are not comprehensive because there's so much to unpack.
Violent media.
How are we consuming media in our culture? When violence is part of our entertainment, we are feeding on it. In the city of Rise, the people literally sustain themselves by eating footage of the ongoing war.
This was a hard one for me to wrap my head around because I was being too logical and thinking we needed real food to survive. Once I figured out the violence was their meal, I tried to suspend my disbelief to go with the story.
Propaganda.
How are we influenced by our government? What about fake news? Foreign powers are continuing to try and influence other countries as seen through Brexit and the US presidential elections. (And yes, I'm aware some people also deny these allegations which is another side of propaganda.) In this way, Rise & Shine reminds me of Orson Well's novel 1984.
Environment.
How are our actions affecting our environment? We talk about our carbon footprint, climate change, oil spills, protecting the oceans, and renewable energy as a few examples. This subject is a moving target. In this novel, Allington has created a world that seems to have been destroyed by acid rain and possibly other catastrophes. The common man is frightened by the sight of vegetables.
When the conflict is changing between Rise & Shine, the two cities, the leaders approach it through manufacturing a new war. Even though this war is a parody of the real thing, people will die for their cause, and the side that will win is predetermined. How mixed up is that? How different is our world from this satire?
Relationships.
Do we value the veneer of acceptance for others but hide our true feelings? This might be something that others don't agree with as being part of Allington's commentary. I noticed when an individual was arrested, the police force was excessively polite. So polite that their feelings were hurt when the accused called their conversation an interrogation instead of something more sedate. Do we hide behind a veneer? Are people becoming unnecessarily upset? There are cases of social injustice that we want to root out, but where does politeness come in? I'm not sure there is a solid answer to the questions I've posed here, but I do think the author is trying to make a point.
Rise & Shine gave me the opportunity to consider the state of our world. Allington's vision is one I hope to never see, but he does a masterful job of highlighting problems. Your interpretation is open when the author doesn't spoonfeed you every answer. What you see may be different than what I saw.
I felt like it took to the 50% mark of the book to get a solid handle on what was going on. Hopefully, this review will give you a leg up to know what to expect. This book is written for adults and reflects adult themes, relying heavily on politics and violence (though surprisingly, little violence is on the page). There is no graphic sex, but plenty of F-bombs.
If you enjoyed Rise & Shine, you could try reading The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, another book that delves into society's ills.
lillyofthenally's review against another edition
3.0
I would’ve given it a 5 star rating had I understood what’s the ‘morale’ behind it. All post apocalyptic / sci-fi have some sort of ‘morale’ in the end right? Like a fable ?
I liked the authors writing very smooth and easy to read.
The book remind me a bit of Fahrenheit 451 but it’s a bit less clear and more ambiguous.
I didn’t understand if Walker was a ‘good’ guy or ‘bad’ guy - a bit of both probably. An antihero.
Saved the people and gave them a substitute to food by watching war videos of a fake war.
A war that the two leaders Walker and Barton created. Why? Because they believed they needed enemies to survive. It’s all a farce really
Reminds me a bit of the situation of Lebanon now (2020 mid economic crisis) the fake propaganda, people starving and the leaders giving the people footage of themselves defending their parties and vowing to their people that they’re defending their rights - their religions and beliefs.
Though Walker was a better man doing what’s best for his people - what he thinks is best for his people and it ended up killing him slowly. The propaganda he knows is fake will never satisfy his hunger.
I liked the authors writing very smooth and easy to read.
The book remind me a bit of Fahrenheit 451 but it’s a bit less clear and more ambiguous.
I didn’t understand if Walker was a ‘good’ guy or ‘bad’ guy - a bit of both probably. An antihero.
Saved the people and gave them a substitute to food by watching war videos of a fake war.
A war that the two leaders Walker and Barton created. Why? Because they believed they needed enemies to survive. It’s all a farce really
Reminds me a bit of the situation of Lebanon now (2020 mid economic crisis) the fake propaganda, people starving and the leaders giving the people footage of themselves defending their parties and vowing to their people that they’re defending their rights - their religions and beliefs.
Though Walker was a better man doing what’s best for his people - what he thinks is best for his people and it ended up killing him slowly. The propaganda he knows is fake will never satisfy his hunger.
finan's review against another edition
1.0
This book lacked any real storyline and failed to explain the abstract concepts in the book. I was waiting for this book to engage me with a plot twist and it never did.
cleverfoxwithcoffee's review against another edition
dark
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
mel_ross's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
4.25
rachelledushane's review against another edition
4.0
The sort of book that you finish reading and continue to think about for days, weeks and months to come!! I’m sure I will be re-reading this one in the very near future!!
tasmanian_bibliophile's review
5.0
‘The end, when everything seemed lost, turned into the beginning.’
Two city-states are all that have survived after eight billion people have perished. The world is now so environmentally toxic that there is no longer any food. So how do the survivors, living in the city-states of Rise and Shine survive? By watching televised footage of their perpetual war. Their emotional responses to violence sustain them. Except that, once a survivor becomes desensitised and can no longer respond with appropriate emotion, they begin to starve to death.
The two city-states have annual peace talks:
‘PEACE: not this year, maybe next year.’
But it is all a charade. In the meantime, a small group is secretly (and illegally) trying to grow food from seeds. They are hoping to establish a non-toxic alternate food source.
We do not know what disaster befell the world. Everyone has a theory or two about what happened, but who can you trust? All we know is that the world is almost entirely bereft of animal and plant life, and there is toxic rain. Nothing is simple: if you cannot trust your leaders, who can you trust? Survival becomes a matter of existence from one day to the next.
‘Each of them had taken a city and declared a war of survival on the other.’
But thirty years later, amidst the carefully orchestrated appearance of a new normality, dependent on a perpetual war between the two cities it is not clear how much longer long the current state can survive. Science is important, as is medicine. But maintaining the status quo is the point, and that hardly facilitates any progress. Is there any hope for the future?
Mr Allington packs an entire world into fewer than 250 pages, and it is very unsettling. Why? Because aspects are believable. Look at the damage we are doing to the world, look at the disinformation that surrounds us. Look at our reactions to the current COVID-19 pandemic. What
is ‘the common good’? And who can we trust?
Unsettling reading. A brilliant novel.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Two city-states are all that have survived after eight billion people have perished. The world is now so environmentally toxic that there is no longer any food. So how do the survivors, living in the city-states of Rise and Shine survive? By watching televised footage of their perpetual war. Their emotional responses to violence sustain them. Except that, once a survivor becomes desensitised and can no longer respond with appropriate emotion, they begin to starve to death.
The two city-states have annual peace talks:
‘PEACE: not this year, maybe next year.’
But it is all a charade. In the meantime, a small group is secretly (and illegally) trying to grow food from seeds. They are hoping to establish a non-toxic alternate food source.
We do not know what disaster befell the world. Everyone has a theory or two about what happened, but who can you trust? All we know is that the world is almost entirely bereft of animal and plant life, and there is toxic rain. Nothing is simple: if you cannot trust your leaders, who can you trust? Survival becomes a matter of existence from one day to the next.
‘Each of them had taken a city and declared a war of survival on the other.’
But thirty years later, amidst the carefully orchestrated appearance of a new normality, dependent on a perpetual war between the two cities it is not clear how much longer long the current state can survive. Science is important, as is medicine. But maintaining the status quo is the point, and that hardly facilitates any progress. Is there any hope for the future?
Mr Allington packs an entire world into fewer than 250 pages, and it is very unsettling. Why? Because aspects are believable. Look at the damage we are doing to the world, look at the disinformation that surrounds us. Look at our reactions to the current COVID-19 pandemic. What
is ‘the common good’? And who can we trust?
Unsettling reading. A brilliant novel.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
chelsea_court's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
scribepub's review against another edition
You never knew fiction could do this.
Jane Rawson, author of From the Wreck
A novel of rare visionary brilliance, Rise & Shine blew me away.
Bram Presser, author of The Book of Dirt
Fiercely imaginative and astonishingly written.
Robbie Arnott, author of Flames and The Rain Heron
It should be of interest to fans of satire, surrealism and magic realism. Rise & Shine is clearly inspired by texts such as Brave New World, Catch-22 and even Waiting for Godot. It is an able critique of reality TV, media manipulation, personality politics and ecological catastrophe.
Books+Publishing
Richly imagined and described and close enough to our own world to feel scarily possible. FOUR STARS
Good Reading
Unputdownable.
ANZ LitLovers
An astonishingly imaginative work of speculative fiction.
Elizabeth Flux, Kill Your Darlings
Rise & Shine is a piece of timely, suitably intriguing speculative fiction.
Ben Adams, Herald Sun
[Rise & Shine] could easily be an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Netflix series Black Mirror … Rise & Shine does not shy away from the complex moral terrain of political agency. Carefully, subtly, Allington lets the tension between multiple propositions build: that law and order form a part of collective survival; that service of the people can easily slip into control of the people; that people want a leader; that effective leadership requires multiple perspectives; that people can change; that some people don’t. Allington sustains the tension until the final pages, where he offers a thought-provoking ending worthy of his imaginative take on dystopia.
Naama Grey-Smith, Australian Book Review
Patrick Allington’s Rise & Shine, drops up headfirst into a future in the wake of an ecological catastrophe that claimed the lives of more than eight billion people … The novel strikes a balance between the absurd and the horrific that feels reminiscent of George Saunders’ science-fiction work.
Jack Rowland, The Saturday Paper
There is a definite Kafkaesque air to Allington’s writing, as well as echoes of 1984 and Brave New World … The dialogue is one of the great strengths of Rise & Shine: buoyantly paced, drolly comic and easily absorbing … Rise & Shine is apt reading for our current atmosphere of environmental, societal and economic precarity. It is an undeniably imaginative and engrossing fable.
Jack Callil, The Age
In his first novel since the Miles Franklin-nominated Figurehead in 2009, Adelaide writer Patrick Allington again vividly paints a dystopian future that pushes the reader to explore the human condition … This is a Day of the Triffids for our times.
Kylie Maslen, The Adelaide Review
[T]he novel is certainly effective in highlighting contemporary issues of government surveillance, political manipulation and the pervasive impact of fake news.
Colin Steele, The Canberra Times
[A] witty piece of thinking from the Adelaide-based author, reminiscent of the thought play found in spec fiction authors such as China Mieville … Rise & Shine is an intriguing addition to a series of recent speculative Australian authors whose work eschews the dominant realism of Australian literature.
Ed Wright, The Australian
Allington’s debut is set in a future Australia devastated by climate change and nuclear war ... An interesting novel that looks at a society that struggles with the effects of ecological and nuclear disaster and that clamps down on any dissent from what has helped humanity survive. Fans of dystopian science fiction will find this tale, from a new voice from Australia, of interest.
Booklist
Jane Rawson, author of From the Wreck
A novel of rare visionary brilliance, Rise & Shine blew me away.
Bram Presser, author of The Book of Dirt
Fiercely imaginative and astonishingly written.
Robbie Arnott, author of Flames and The Rain Heron
It should be of interest to fans of satire, surrealism and magic realism. Rise & Shine is clearly inspired by texts such as Brave New World, Catch-22 and even Waiting for Godot. It is an able critique of reality TV, media manipulation, personality politics and ecological catastrophe.
Books+Publishing
Richly imagined and described and close enough to our own world to feel scarily possible. FOUR STARS
Good Reading
Unputdownable.
ANZ LitLovers
An astonishingly imaginative work of speculative fiction.
Elizabeth Flux, Kill Your Darlings
Rise & Shine is a piece of timely, suitably intriguing speculative fiction.
Ben Adams, Herald Sun
[Rise & Shine] could easily be an episode of Charlie Brooker’s Netflix series Black Mirror … Rise & Shine does not shy away from the complex moral terrain of political agency. Carefully, subtly, Allington lets the tension between multiple propositions build: that law and order form a part of collective survival; that service of the people can easily slip into control of the people; that people want a leader; that effective leadership requires multiple perspectives; that people can change; that some people don’t. Allington sustains the tension until the final pages, where he offers a thought-provoking ending worthy of his imaginative take on dystopia.
Naama Grey-Smith, Australian Book Review
Patrick Allington’s Rise & Shine, drops up headfirst into a future in the wake of an ecological catastrophe that claimed the lives of more than eight billion people … The novel strikes a balance between the absurd and the horrific that feels reminiscent of George Saunders’ science-fiction work.
Jack Rowland, The Saturday Paper
There is a definite Kafkaesque air to Allington’s writing, as well as echoes of 1984 and Brave New World … The dialogue is one of the great strengths of Rise & Shine: buoyantly paced, drolly comic and easily absorbing … Rise & Shine is apt reading for our current atmosphere of environmental, societal and economic precarity. It is an undeniably imaginative and engrossing fable.
Jack Callil, The Age
In his first novel since the Miles Franklin-nominated Figurehead in 2009, Adelaide writer Patrick Allington again vividly paints a dystopian future that pushes the reader to explore the human condition … This is a Day of the Triffids for our times.
Kylie Maslen, The Adelaide Review
[T]he novel is certainly effective in highlighting contemporary issues of government surveillance, political manipulation and the pervasive impact of fake news.
Colin Steele, The Canberra Times
[A] witty piece of thinking from the Adelaide-based author, reminiscent of the thought play found in spec fiction authors such as China Mieville … Rise & Shine is an intriguing addition to a series of recent speculative Australian authors whose work eschews the dominant realism of Australian literature.
Ed Wright, The Australian
Allington’s debut is set in a future Australia devastated by climate change and nuclear war ... An interesting novel that looks at a society that struggles with the effects of ecological and nuclear disaster and that clamps down on any dissent from what has helped humanity survive. Fans of dystopian science fiction will find this tale, from a new voice from Australia, of interest.
Booklist