Christina Dalcher’s debut novel, Vox, established her as one of those writers who can layer present events onto the future and make it grim, but plausible. In the novel, separation of church and state disappear and one of the first acts of the new government is to restrict the number of words a woman can speak each day. Yeah. Now, she’s back and she sets Master Class in a ... Read More...
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget. A man and his young son are walking on a desolate road surrounded by burnt trees and ashes. In the distance fires still burn. They are headed…where? To safety would seem to be the answer, but in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road there is no safe place. The world as we know it has gone up in flames. ... Read More...
Recursion
Blake Crouch’s new novel, Recursion, has left me stumped. In order to review a book, I need to be able, to some degree, to understand it and in this case I’m not sure I do. It’s about time travel and its impact. Sort of. Maybe. I think… It’s 2007 and Helena Smith is a neuroscientist whose mother has Alzheimer’s. She has spent years trying to devise a way to capture and map ... Read More...
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
It begins with the gathering up of the women. They are herded into what used to be a sports stadium and separated into groups. Based on what? Not race. Not age. No, profession. Doctors recognize fellow practitioners, teachers band together, lawyers huddle. They’re kept for days, even weeks. And then, the executions start. This is the chilling introduction to The Testaments, ... Read More...
The Age of Miracles
It isn’t noticed at first, but on October 6th in some unspecified year of the not-so-distant future the scientific community notifies the world that Earth’s rotation is slowing and that a day has grown to last almost 25 hours. Panic erupts around the globe as people absurdly believe they can run somewhere where it won’t matter, but for middle-schooler Julia it feels less ... Read More...
Vox by Christina Dalcher
Remember two weeks ago when, after reading Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win, I was surprised that a political novel would turn out to be such a trigger for me? Magnify that times ten and you’ll have a picture of my reaction to Christina Dalcher’s dystopian debut, Vox. There’s a new American president, one not suited for the job, but well propped up by the religious right. Within ... Read More...
