Tool of War by Paolo Bacigalupi

Tool of War is the final installment in Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker trilogy. The last installment, The Drowned Cities was written over five years ago, making remembering the story line, challenging. The series is set in post-apocalyptic America which has been destroyed by civil war and global climate change that resulted in many coastal cities destroyed by rising seas. Many parts of the continent have descended into brutal conflict with the use of child soldiers. This third installment focuses on Tool, known as Karta-Kul, a half man, half beast, an augment, genetically designed for war and for blind obedience.

The novel opens with Tool, the genetically designed man-beast having just defeated the Army of God and now  ruling over the Drowned Cities, "a coastline swamped by rising sea levels and political hatreds, a place of shattered rubble and eternal gunfire."  

However, Tool has managed to organize his own "pack". He knows all his soldiers, their smells, their sounds because his ears and his sight are far better than any human's. He can hear the triumph of his army as they defeat the Army of God soldiers trying to overtake his palace.

Tool  watches the final moments of a battle from the rotunda in a shattered marble palace, the waters of ocean lapping against the front steps. When quiet falls on the ruined city, Tool is questioned by the young humans who follow him as to what happens next for the Drowned Cities. Tool never moves on to rule the cities because his life and that of those around him vanishes in an instant of fire and hell.

High above the Pacific Ocean in the dirigible Annapurna, General Caroa hunts a specific augment. His analyst, Arial Jones, a brilliant, young but new recruit is eager to please her senior officer. Jones works in the Mercier Corporation's Global Strategic Intelligence Center and she has tracked the augment Caroa is seeking to the Drowned Cities. Caroa orders Jones to fire six Havoc 5's at Tool in order to kill him. While the missiles with their incredible firepower and chemicals completely destroy everything and everyone, Tool at the last minute senses the missiles and attempts to escape.

Meanwhile on board the Raker, a clipper sitting in the harbour, Mahalia is thrown onto the deck from the blast. Mahalia had been supervising the loading of artwork onto the clipper when the blast occurred. The palace is leveled, blackened and on fire, the marble steps liquefying due to the heat. Mahalia realizes her old friend Tool has been killed in the attack and grieves deeply because he helped save her and restart her life. She also knows they have to get the Raker out of the harbour because Tool's surviving soldiers will try to take the ship for their own. Captain Almadi reluctantly agrees to sail the damaged ship up the coast, even though a category three hurricane is bearing down on them. Tool having sensed the attack, dove into the waters by the palace. Although on fire and terribly injured by shrapnel he manages to cling to the clipper ship as it sails out of the harbour.

On the Annapurna, General Caroa celebrates what he hopes is the end of a nightmare - the death of the augment known as Blood and the hope of a promotion to Mercier's Executive Committee. But Caroa's celebration is short-lived as Junior Analyst Jones calls him to the Strategic Intelligence Center on the command deck. There Jones shows Caroa evidence that the augment has unbelievably survived the Havoc missile attack. By tracking the augment's heat signature, they see him beneath a clipper ship. Caroa orders Jones to hit the ship but she tells him they have no remaining missiles. When the video feed breaks up due to the storm, Caroa orders Jones to find the ship so they can destroy it.

Tool has lost his pack, the soldier boys he commanded in securing the Drowned Cities. As the storm deepens and the ship begins to founder, Tool hauls himself aboard. There he sees his old pack, Mahalia, Ocho and others attempting to save their ship, struggling with the mast, unable to raise the sail. Tool with his brute strength saves the ship. Eventually the Raker anchors in a small cove, and Mahalia attempts to treat Tool's horrific wounds. She uses all the StimGrowth packs and liters of cell knitters on Tool. Ocho believes Tool will die but Mahalia tells him this is the kind of war Tool was designed for. On the deck of the Raker, Tool tells Mahalia and Ocho that Mercier who owns him is trying to kill him and that they are in danger. He agrees to stay with them until they arrive at Seascape Boston where he will seek out medical help.

On the Annapurna, Jones' conscience is troubled over the innocent lives destroyed in the Havoc attack. Determined to limit the casualties while still doing her job she discovers the identity of the ship and its probable destination. When Caroa orders the Strike Raptors, Jones finds a way to prevent them from being used and instead convinces Caroa to use the Stitch and Ditch kill squads for a cleaner kill.

At Seascape Boston, Mahalia, Ocho, Stick and Stork and Tool  hide out in an ancient brownstone while Van gets the meds Tool needs to heal. After a Stitch and Ditch squad take out the wrong augment, Mahalia and Ocho realize Tool is still being tracked. Tool is beginning to heal from the meds but he is still not himself. He tells Mahalia that she and her crew need to leave before Mercier attacks again. However, it is too late as their building is quickly surrounded. Although Mahalia is determined to fight alongside Tool, he knows this is a fight they cannot survive.

Can Tool overcome his conditioning to fight for the freedom he believes his kind deserve, to protect the humans who are his pack and end the conflict between himself and his creator, General Caroa forever?

Discussion

Tool of War completes the Ship Breaker trilogy by continuing the sage of Tool, the half man-half beast or augment created by General Caroa. The Ship Breaker series has offered readers the opportunity to consider several contemporary issues such as the use of child soldiers in war, the global influence of large corporations and the potentially destabilizing effects of catastrophic global climate change. 

In Tool of War the  issue of genetic manipulation of embryos in which human embryos are grossly modified using various animal DNA is considered. In the novel, such creatures are called "augments" of which there are many types (for example gorilla-dominant augments) and are used as combat soldiers and slaves, although society doesn't regard them as such. They do the grunt work in the post-apocalyptic society of the series. "They were everywhere: helping ships off-load freight, hauling strong boxes of cash for merchant transfers, muscling clear paths for corporate princesses. The augments stood sentry outside the embassies of the trading companies, and knelt in temples alongside humans..." In the dystopian world of Tool of War both humans and augments have been conditioned to treat one another a certain way with humans believing they are completely under control and the augments genetically altered and conditioned to be loyal unto death. That is until General Caroa was tasked to create a "better" augment.

Caroa designed, bred and trained Tool because battles with military augments were often ending in stalemates. So under the direction of Mercier, new, magnificent warriors, "Stronger, better, smarter, faster." were developed. "We needed creatures that were hypercompetent. Natural engines of strategy, tactics, learning, violence, stamina, fearlessness. Tolerant of poisons and chemical attacks. Resistant to fire and cold and fear and pain..." One of the best was an augment Caroa named Blood but who also goes by other names, Karta-Kul and Tool. Unlike previous iterations of augments, Tool has the ability to break from his conditioning to be loyal and he also has the ability to influence other augments to renege on their conditioning. Caroa recognizes the danger; the augments could then begin to turn on humanity.

General Caroa reveals to Analyst Jones that Tool has already turned on him once. Jones doesn't believe this because "Augments are obedient! They can't break free of that! They pine and die without their masters. Everyone knows---" But Caroa states, "What if everything we know is wrong?...Think, Jones, of all the augments on the Annapurna right now. Our incorruptible, fearless Fast Attack Claws and Fists. Imagine all that loyalty. Gone." As Caroa tells Jones about Tool,  "If our friend recovers sufficiently, I fear that we will bear witness to humanity's extinction."  However, at this point, Caroa notes that Tool "...is not operating as he should...He has capacities that he is not using, and I don't know why. Is it a ruse? Some trick? Or maybe he's lost the skill?"

Unfortunately for General Caroa and the Annapurna, Tool is able to tap into his abilities. As he begins to recover from his injuries, Tool suspects "Something his creators had done to him, to ensure control." is preventing him from accessing his strength. "Tool felt new blood surging through the fibers of his muscles, filling him with strength. But still it was walled off from him, as if thick sea ice covered the ocean of his capabilities, and he was left peering through to it, knowing the power that lurked beneath the surface, but unable to chip through to its depths. Something held him back from using his true strength." 

However, Tool begins to rebel against his conditioning but he finds it difficult to overcome his genes and conditioning. His inner conflict becomes the main theme of this novel. When he is attacked in Seascape, Tool fights his intense desire to surrender. " Tool was seized with a powerful urge to surrender...He could actually feel his muscles fighting to make him surrender...As if he were possessed by the will of his masters." He succeeds but his struggle costs his human friends their lives. He rescues Mahalia and tells her, "There will be no ore running, or hiding. I have run from Mercier for years...Now I will hunt, as I was always meant to. Now I will war, as I was designed to."  Mahalia questions if Tool will be able to overcome the conditioning bred into him, despite Tool's assertions that he will not succumb again.

In Seascape, Tool begins to see the augments as they really are, as slaves."They lived among humans as slaves, and thought of themselves as anything but. Disgusting that they did not see themselves for what they were." Jayant Patel, Nita's father insists that Tool is property and that since he is owned by Mercier he needs to be returned. Tool however refuses to comply and demonstrates why Mercier fears him - he is able to resist his training and is capable of influencing other augments to do the same. "My creators do not fear my individual rebellion. They fear the uprising that I will inevitably lead." This suggests that Tool is determined to lead the augments in an uprising.

How augments are seen by humans in this post-apocalyptic world is revealed in a conversation between Nailer and Nita. Nailer tells Nita that Tool is unlike other augments, because he views humans as people, "Not masters. Not owners. Just people." However Nita realizes that humans do not view augments the same way. "...You treat your augments well, but they aren't people. And they don't ask to be treated just like people. They don't demand things the way people demand things..." This is what makes Tool different.

After the situation between Global Patel and Mercier is resolved, Nita's views regarding the augments change. Designed and trained to do tasks that normal humans could not, Nita and her fellow humans never gave the augments a second thought. "Now she couldn't help feeling there was something wrong with the very language used to describe augments. Words like ownership came easily when a creature was grown from handpicked cells, developed  in a creche, and purchase from a selection of other augments." She notes that despite their animal characteristics, they feel loss and success and she acknowledges they are people. This leads her to agree to help Tool.

Tool knows he will never be at peace unless he destroys Caroa. Tool's final confrontation with Caroa is filled with uncertainty as Tool struggles between his conditioning, his love for Caroa and his desire to be free. It is graphic and brutal. But when that is accomplished, Tool feels the weight of Caroa's death and he admits to himself, "The killing of Caroa had not been easy on his mind." In many ways Tool, half-man, half-beast, is more human than Caroa and those who created him. He spares Jones, realizing that like him, she is struggling to survive, that she is a flawed creature too, and to free Mahalia, Ocho and the others from the Raker. He is by far the most interesting character in this series, and evolved into the focus of the novels.

Tool of War is a brutal telling of the cat and mouse game between General Caroa and Tool. It's an unrelenting dark story with no comic relief. Yet the novel ends on a hopeful note. Does Tool lead his rebellion against humanity? We don't know and aren't told in the Epilogue. The title of the novel is a double entendre: referring to both Tool by name but also by his function as a war weapon.

Bacigalupi, brings back several characters from the first book, Shipbreaker. Nailer Lopez, now an engineer on a tanker, is shocked to once again encounter Tool. Tool who helped Nailer, is satisfied to see that he has grown into a strong, assured young human as has his friend Nita Patel, the rich girl he saved in Ship Breaker. Although they have changed much, Tool places his hope in them.

Tool of War offers a thrilling conclusion to the Ship Breaker series. Bacigalupi is a master storyteller who does not disappoint!

Book Details:

Tool of War by Paolo Bacigalupi
New York: Little, Brown and Company  2017
373 pp.

The Last Star by Rick Yancey

Note: those who have not read the novel should NOT visit Rick Yancey's website as there is a major spoiler by a fan on his home page.

The Last Star begins with Cassie, her little brother Sam (Nugget), the human-alien Evan Walker, Ben Parish (Zombie), Dumbo and Megan hiding out at Grace’s well stocked house. Cassie furiously confronts Evan telling him she doesn’t understand WHY the aliens killed off the human population using such cruel methods when they could have done it differently. Evan tells her that they could have lived with humans indefinitely, sharing their knowledge and bringing peace and order to the world. He tells her he wanted to do it differently but they wouldn't listen. He tells her that for ten thousand years they have had immortality. “An existence without pain, without hunger, without any physical needs at all. But immortality has a price. Without bodies, we lost the things that come with them. Things like autonomy and benevolence. Compassion.”

Ben Parish (Zombie) tells Cassie he doesn’t buy Evan’s explanations, that Ringer was right, that there is something that doesn’t add up about all this. “Ringer was right Cassie. This doesn’t make a lot of sense. He kidnaps a human body so he can murder all the unkidnapped human bodies. Then one day he decides he’d rather murder his own kind so he can save all the unkidnapped human bodies. And not just murder one or two of his kind…All of them. He wants to destroy his entire civilization, …For a girl. A girl!” Ringer didn’t understand why aliens who don’t have bodies need a planet and why they came for ours.

Ben wants to go with Dumbo to the caverns to find Ringer and Teacup. However both Cassie and Evan think he should wait until Evan blows up the mother ship. Evan tells them he needs to blow up the mother ship because on the spring equinox the ship is set to unleash bombs over the entire world that will destroy every city on Earth to complete the cleansing. This is the last step before the launch of the 5th Wave. Before the bombs are unleashed all the Silencers will be brought on the ship.

Meanwhile Ringer (Marika) who has now been enhanced with the 12th System, a nanotechnology that allows her superhuman abilities is allowed to escape the military base. Razor killed Teacup because he knew that Ringer would never leave her. He wanted her to be free to do what she needs to do. When Vosch does not come after her Ringer goes back because she believes that she needs to kill Evan Walker. Ringer knows that Vosch is human and he tells her that he is necessary to facilitate the radical intervention to save mankind. "...we were doomed to destroy ourselves and our home. The only solution was radical intervention. Destroy the human village in order to save it." Vosch tells Ringer that it wasn't enough to just destroy all of humanity, but that it had to change human nature.

He assigns another woman, Lieutenant Constance Pierce whom Ringer hates to accompany her to find Evan. In a briefing with Vosch and Pierce, Vosch reveals that a reconnaissance flight has discovered that Dumbo, Poundcake, Sullivan, Nugget, Walker and Zombie are holed up in a house about fifteen miles southeast of Urbana. However, two nights ago two people left the house heading towards the caverns. Ringer tells Vosch they are heading to the caverns to look for her. He tells Ringer that she and Pierce will be dropped in ahead of their arrival and that Pierce's job will be to bring back Evan Walker. Vosch wants Walker because his program is no longer functioning and he wants to know why. He tells Ringer once he has Walker she and her friends will be free to go. Ringer knows however that Vosch intends to kill all of them. He gives her a green capsule - a modified bomb similar to the one the child in wheat carried but six times more powerful. She refuses this at first. When Vosch asks Ringer what is the lesson of the child in the wheat, Ringer tells him that it is to kill trust and love in humans. No one can trust anyone, not even a child. "Without trust there's no cooperation. And without cooperation there's no progress. History stops." Vosch states "The answer to the human problem is the death of what makes us human."

In the C-160 Ringer tries to explain what is happening to Pierce who believes she is an alien. "Everything you think is bullshit. Who you think you are, your memories,all of it. Before you were born, they embedded a program in your brain that booted up when you hit puberty...You've been infected with a viral program that literally rewired your brain to 'remember' things that didn't happen. You aren't an alien consciousness here to wipe out humanity and colonize Earth. You're human. Like me. Like Vosch. Like everyone else. " Ringer tells Pierce that if she believes she will return to the mother ship and the 5th Wave will finish off humans she is mistaken. Instead she will be fighting the army she's created until there are no bullets to fight with. Without trust and cooperation, a perpetual Stone Age will be born which mankind will never progress out of because no one will ever trust anyone else. Constance's refusal to believe her leads Ringer to decide she has to kill Pierce and she has to kill Walker too. They are dropped in near a farmhouse and Ringer and Pierce quickly separate. Ringer experiences nausea - her second bout since returning to Vosch and she wonders if there's something wrong with the 12th System. Outside the farm, Ringer meets a priest who seems kindly enough at first. But when Ringer tells the priest she's a Silencer he attacks her. Ringer realizes that Constance was here to neutralize a Silencer. He beats Ringer and is able to penetrate into her mind discovering what happened to her, Razor and Teacup. He also tells her there is another and asks her if she knows of its existence.(This is a reference to her unborn baby.)

Back at the house, with Zombie and Dumbo gone, Cassie's little brother Sam takes an M9 Beretta he has found and hides it in the belt of his pants. Sam decides he will watch over Megan and also Evan. Evan and Cassie make love.

Meanwhile Zombie and Dumbo reach Urbana where Dumbo is shot in the back. Zombie manages to get him to a safe place, pack his wound and then sets off to find the killer. He discovers an old lady living in a boarded up room with cats. He wants to shoot her but it isn't until she attacks him that Zombie realizes he's found the Urbana Silencer. He barely survives the encounter - a cat eating old lady silencer who's been enhanced. Zombie returns to Dumbo and tells him has to leave him but promises to return.  Zombie arrives at the welcome center buildings outside the caverns where he sees a priest. After setting off a grenade, Zombie falls into a pit containing hundreds of decomposing bodies. In the pit someone calls his name and tells him to play dead. The priest peers into the pit and tells him to not be afraid, to climb out not knowing that Constance is also in the pit. She pulls the priest into the hole and blows his brains out. Out of the pit Zombie meets Constance and Ringer. Ringer lies to Zombie about how Teacup died and about who Constance really is, telling him that Constance was in the caves and that the priest began to kill people. Eventually she realized that the priest was a Silencer.

Zombie fills her in on what happened to the squad. Although Zombie is leery of Constance she wins him over by pretending to be vulnerable. They travel into Urbana and find Dumbo who has crawled out of the building Zombie left him. Dumbo dies and Zombie buries him.  Zombie wants to kill Constance but Ringer doesn't allow him even though she knows what Constance is. The three travel back to Grace's house where Constance almost immediately attempts to kill Walker. She grabs Sam when she offers him her hand to shake but takes him hostage. However Constance is killed by Sam who uses the gun hidden in his pants. Ringer wants to kill Evan but Zombie refuses and she shoots him in the thigh.

Since Constance was being tracked, Vosch knows their location and the group finds itself attacked by a Black Hawk helicopter firing hellfire. Zombie, Cassie, Sam, Megan and Evan head to the basement but Evan decides to surrender because he knows Vosch wants him. The helicopter removes Evan while three hundred meters from the house, Squad 19 is waiting to move into the house. However Ringer takes each of the kids who belong to the squad down.

Zombie watches Ringer bury the young kids and asks her what happened to her as she is no longer the person her remembers. She tells him that she is enhanced like Evan, Constance, the priest and the cat lady and that she is also pregnant - which she asks him to keep secret. Zombie brings Ringer into the basement to Cassie, Sam and Megan and tells her that Evan got on the chopper and that Ringer has killed the strike team. Ringer explains to Cassie and Zombie (Ben) what she believes has happened. She tells them that the mother ship is possibly automated and that the aliens may not even be on it and maybe never were. It's also possible that the aliens who sent the ship might even be extinct.

Cassie is not sure she believes what Ringer has told them; that alien probes found earth a few thousand years ago. After observing humans they decided that we are harmful to both ourselves and the planet and they built a mother ship. The mother ship contained bombs, drones and a viral plague. This along with the use of humans infected with a computer program would be used to wipe out ninety-nine point nine percent of Earth's population. Ringer tells her that her Silencer theory - that a computer program was downloaded into fetuses and activated at puberty to make them believe they were aliens is true and was confirmed by Vosch. What Ringer doesn't understand is why Vosch wants Evan Walker whose Silencer program malfunctioned. The next stage will be the unleashing of bombs to destroy all the cities on Earth but before that pods will be sent to pick up the Silencers. Ringer doesn't know if the pods will actually come, but she does believe that all the cities on Earth will be bombed as cities hold the memories of human civilization. A culture without memories is a dead culture.

Cassie and Ben and Ringer must now decide what to do. Cassie believes that they are now at the point where they are likely to die and that their death should be meaningful. They could flee into the wilderness, but they know eventually the 5th Wave will find them. Ringer tells them that the Black Hawk chopper will be returning to pick up the strike team. Cassie wants to hijack the Black Hawk, fly to the military base and rescue Evan Walker. She also notes this will give Ringer the chance to kill Vosch. They work out a plan, taking the uniforms from the dead strike team and their trackers so the Black Hawk will zero in on them. Before they leave, Ben finds Ringer ready to drink antifreeze to cause her to abort Razor's baby, but he refuses to allow this. He tells her he will be there for her. As the chopper returns, Ben, Sam and Megan hide under blankets so the Black Hawk won't detect their body heat and Cassie and Ringer trick their way onto the chopper. They force the pilot, Bob to fly all of them to the Ohio caverns where they leave Ben, Sam and Megan. Bob flies Cassie and Ringer towards the military base so they can be captured as planned. Ringer knows that Vosch will now be aware of the dead strike team and the commandeered chopper. Cassie and Ringer's plan is the only one that seems to offer any hope to mankind. But what will the cost be? And can they succeed in turning the tide in the war against humanity?

Discussion

The Last Star is an exciting finale to the 5th Wave series by Rick Yancey. Like the previous novels in the series it is detailed, lengthy and intense. It presents readers with the fate of all the remaining characters in the novel. In the Last Star, although the cast of characters remaining has dwindled, the main characters are Cassie and Ringer. It is Ringer who learns what is really happening and who understands how the alien program has functioned, but it is Cassie who out of love for her brother Sam, makes the ultimate sacrifice. And that's the main theme of this novel, the mystery of human love and how it is humanity's most redeeming quality. It turns out, love is the one thing the aliens who were observing Earth could not understand.

Ringer's theories about what is really going on are confirmed when Evan is captured and Vosch reveals to him the truth of the alien invasion. He tells Evan that a mechanical owl visited his mother when she was pregnant with him and installed the program into his developing brain and then returned when he went through puberty to give him the 12th System. Vosch also reveals that there are no aliens on board the mother ship nor inside of him. He brags to Evan about the carefully constructed program designed to save Earth.   "It is completely automated, like your old friend here, designed by its makers after centuries of careful study and deliberation and sent to this planet to wean the human population to a sustainable level. And, of course, to keep it there indefinitely by changing human nature itself...A flawless, self-sustaining loop, an immaculate system in which trust and cooperation can never take root." The goal was to change human nature so that it would be indifferent to the suffering others.

However, unexpectedly Evan reveals a fatal flaw in the alien's plan. Evan's Silencer program, installed in him when he was still in utero seems to have failed as he did not complete his mission of killing Cassie when he found her. Vosch captures Evan because he needs to find out the cause of the failure. After running tests on Evan, Vosch realizes that love - Evan's love for Cassie is what overrode his Silencer program. "She may be right: Love may be the singularity, the inexplicable, ungovernable, ineffable mystery, impossible to predict or control, the virus that crashed a program designed by beings next to which we are no more evolved than a cockroach." And so Vosch decides that his answer to Ringer's claim will be to erase what Evan loves so that he will kill. He will remove Evan's human qualities, erase his memories of Cassie and turn him into a Silencer he was meant to be. He will be a human indifferent to the suffering of others.

Later, when Ringer is lying broken after her encounter with Evan who is now a Silencer, Vosch finds her. He tells Ringer he's been on the mother ship and that he agreed to work the program in exchange for having his consciousness preserved aboard the mother ship. He also tells Ringer that these aliens have "saved" other planets besides Earth. Vosch admits that there was no flaw in Evan's programming, that the aliens simply had no understanding of love and therefore could not develop an algorithm to deal with this factor.

When Cassie and Ringer break into the military base, they find the room where memories are downloaded into Wonderland, a program that stores memories and winnows out the weak soldiers in the 5th Wave. They hope to locate Evan by finding his memories which will tell them what happened to him here. But sifting through all the millions of downloaded memories to find Evan's will take too long, so Cassie courageously has all the memories of people downloaded into her mind including those of Evan before Vosch erased him. From his memories she learns that the aliens had no answer for love, no solution for love. She sees what Vosch told Evan: "They thought they could crush it out of us, burn it from our brains, replace love with its opposite - not hate, indifference. They thought they could turn men into sharks." This was a reference to the alien's belief that in order to save humanity they needed to make men like sharks. Studying Earth they discovered rule the ocean because "their complete indifference to everything except feeding, procreation, and defending their territory. The shark does not love. It feels no empathy. It trust nothing. It lives in perfect harmony with its environment because it has no aspirations or desires. And no pity. A shark feels no sorrow, no remorse, hopes for nothing, dreams of nothing, has no illusions about itself or anything beyond itself."

The major symbol of the mystery of love in the novel is Sam's teddy bear, named Bear.  Sam Sullivan's bear is a symbol of the indomitable force that is love. Cassie marvels that of all the things mankind has accomplished, from inventing poetry to designing rockets to take man into space, the "most wonderful thing of all ...is stuffing wads of polyester into an anatomically incorrect, cartoonish ideal of one of nature's most fearsome predators for no other reason than to soothe a child." Sam's bear motivated Cassie to continue to fight after Sam goes missing in the first novel. She hung onto his bear as a sign of hope and her love for her little brother.

In The Last Star, Sam refuses to take back his teddy, Bear, after having given him to Megan. He is a soldier now and done with toys. Megan has renamed him Captain, but Sam tells her his name is Bear and that he can't have a new name like the rest of the squad because he isn't a part of it -an oblique reference to what Bear really stands for. Bear is love and love has no part of a soldier. However, when Sam tries to give Bear to Cassie before she and Ringer leave for the military base, Cassie refuses. She tells him to keep Bear, that he's very important. "So hang on to him, understand? You take care of him and protect him and don't let anybody hurt him. Bear is very important to the grand scheme of things. He's like gravity. Without him, the universe would fall apart." This is Cassie telling her younger brother that love is the most important thing of all because it is what keeps us human and what holds the world together. He needs to remember what love is and how he was loved by their parents, by her.

This is an important message for Sam because he's lost the ability to trust people - exactly what the alien program wants. At the house Sam feels he cannot trust anyone any more. "There's no way to tell who's human anymore. Evan Walker looked human but he wasn't, not inside, not where it matters. Even people like Megan, who are human - maybe- couldn't be trusted, because you can't know what the enemy has done to them. Zombie, Cassie, Dumbo... you can't really trust them, either. They could be just like Evan Walker." Sam has also lost his faith in God. "He used to pray every night, all the time, and the only answer God ever gave was no...You can't trust God, either. Even God is a liar...All the people who died must have prayed too, and God said, No, no, no, seven billion times, seven billion nos, God said no, no, no." But what is the antidote for a lack of trust in others? Unconditional love.

The fates of all the remaining characters are sorted out in The Last Star. Perhaps the most interesting is that of the character Vosch. Vosch turns out to be the facilitator of the entire cleansing of Earth. He tells Evan, "I have been entrusted with the greatest mission in human history: the salvation of our species. Like you, I've known since I was a boy what was coming. Unlike you, I knew the truth." This suggests that Vosch was given a program that would make him the manager of the cleansing. He also reveals his loneliness to Evan and that only a few knew the reality of the invasion. He sees himself as much a victim as Evan is.

Ringer whose real name is Marika is the one character who seems to have grasped the reality of what is happening. The strategy of the alien programing was to wipe out most of humanity and reset it in order to save the planet and humans. Ringer states, " 'Not enough to level what we built. We'll repopulate. We'll rebuild. To save the planet, to save our species, they have to change us.' She touches her chest. 'Here. If the Others can take away trust, they take away cooperation. Take away cooperation, and civilization is impossible.' " Ultimately it was a battle over the heart of humans, but the aliens were at a disadvantage because they couldn't understand the human heart and its ability to love. The proof of the power of love is in the relationship that develops between Ringer and Ben. She reveals that she can't go on but Ben tells her he will carry her.

The Last Star ends hopefully despite the tragic end of one of the main characters. However the reader is left feeling that this was not a senseless loss because it leads to a turn in the war. The Last Star is well written, filled with sequences that are both thrilling and terrifying. It is a study in human nature, what makes us human, and challenges us to define the purpose of our existence in the universe.

Book Details:

The Last Star by Rick Yancey
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons       2016
338 pp.

The Girl At The Center of the World by Austin Aslan

The Girl At The Center of The World is the sequel to The Islands At The End of The World. Seventeen year old Leilani Milton and her father returned to their home on the Big Island. Three months after The Arrival of the Emerald Orchid, an alien being orbiting the Earth and responsible for disabling all electronic and power grids, Leilani and her family lead a subsistence lifestyle, farming their own crops and rationing everything.

Leilani's epilepsy has resulted in her being able to communicate with the Emerald Orchid who returned to Earth to spawn as she has done before. An astronomer, Buzz living at the observatory on Mauna Kea helped Lei talk to the Orchid. The alien along with its baby was about to leave Earth but Lei and her father discovered that the Orchid has the ability to absorb the harmful radiation spewed out from nuclear meltdowns. With nuclear reactors no longer able to cool their fuel rods, catastrophic nuclear meltdowns began occurring all over the planet. Lei while in contact with the Orchid during her seizures was able to witness these meltdowns occuring all over the planet. Yet no excess radiation has yet to be measured. When the Orchids communicated their love of the "sweetness", Lei came to understand that this was a reference to the radiation which they absorb.

While the Orchid's leaving would have allowed the power grid to be restored, the nuclear meltdowns would have left the planet uninhabitable. So Lei managed to convince the Orchid to stay a while longer and to absorb the "sweet" radiation.  Lei's connection with the Orchid is strong but similar to a child holding onto a helium balloon. If she lets go, the Orchid will leave for her home in the depths of space where there are many more like her.

However, Lei's problem is that the longer she keeps the Orchid in orbit around Earth the more difficult it will be to recover from the extended period without power. She needs to get a message out to everyone about the nuclear plants, to tell them to stop trying to save the reactors and to let them go critical because the Orchid can absorb the harmful radiation. The question is how to do this.

Leilani's father, mother, her seven year old brother Kai and her Grandpa are safely hidden in their little valley. Her family celebrates Lei's seventeenth birthday along with Keali'l who is Hawaiian and whose parents died in the first tsunami wave. Keali`l worked for Lei's mother, a biologist at University of Hawai`i and now she's taken him in.

During one of her contacts with the Orchid, Lei finds the Orchid hinting at releasing something which Lei doesn't really understand. At her birthday party, which is attended by Tammy, Keali`l and Buzz, Lei feels ill and her parents worry that she might have appendicitis. However Lei experiences a seizure and realizes that the Orchid is releasing a meteor (Lei refers to this as a pearl) which she wants to send into the ocean. Lei asks the Orchid to send the meteor into the mountain on Hawai`i, Mauna Loa because if the meteor hits the ocean it will cause a tsunami. When she awakens there is an earthquake and a meteor shoots across the sky and into the shield volcano's flank.

Witnessing this, Tami Simpson who is Lei's best friend, realizes that Lei is able to communicate with the Orchid. Lei tells Buzz that she calls the meteor "the pearl". Buzz tells the Leilani's family he will hike up the volcano to check out the impact site and sample the pearl.

At night Tami and Lei meet Keali`l at the breakwater on Hilo Bay. The bay is filled with tsunami debris and the hills around Hilo are dark. Keali'l brings a dive light and the three go diving for slippahs (lobsters). However their diving is interrupted by Hanamen, the sheriff's men,  who fire shots at them and demand their dive light and their bag of lobsters. Lei leads her friends through a hole in the breakwater. One of the Hanamen is a guy named Two Dog. Two Dog and the other Hanamen notice a sailboat passing the bay and decide they are going to attack. Leaving a man behind to watch for Lei and her friends, Two Dog and two men head out after the sailboat. Lei leads Tami and Keali`l through the breakwater but Tami cuts herself badly on a piece of concrete. Fearing she will draw sharks as she is bleeding and having been seen by the Hanaman on the breakwater, Tami begins swimming for the sailboat. The three teens manage to convince the man and woman on the sailboat to pick them up, warning them that people are planning to take their boat.

Marcus who is a doctor and Rachel agree to sail to Onomea Bay where Lei's house is located. Lei tells them her family will help them if they treat Tami's serious leg wound. On the sailboat while talking with Keali`l, Lei has an important revelation that she could use the Emerald Orchid to send a message via Morse Code to others on Earth, by causing the Orchid to dim and brighten. To test the possibility that this might work, she asks the Orchid first to fade then to go back to her normal brilliance. It is successful.

Keali`l stays with Rachel on the sailboat while Lei, Marcus and Tami hike to Lei's home where they fill her parents in on what happened. Marcus tells Lei that Tami must have antibiotics for her leg which has a deep cut that must heal open. The next day Marcus relates his story of escape from Phoenix Arizona to San Carlos, Mexico. Lei and her family stock up Marcus and take him back to Onomea Bay and then she and Keali`l head into Hilo to search for the IV antibiotics Marcus has told them to search for. Finding nothing at the clinic they head to the hospital where the doctor, Dr. Madsen, after learning how she was injured tells them that they must bring Tami in. Tami is brought in and receives the antibiotics she needs because of Keali`l. Lei knows Keali`l has gotten the antibiotics at a great personal price. Meanwhile Lei runs into Aukina, the soldier from the military camp on O`ahu. He agrees to teach her Morse code, although he doesn't know her reason for wanting to learn.

In an attempt to relax, Lei goes swimming at Rainbow Falls and suffers a grand mal seizure during which her contact with the Star Flowers is interrupted by an unknown person telling the Orchid to leave Earth. Shocked, Lei has no idea what to make of this. As Tami's leg heals, Lei begins to learn Morse Code from Aukina and struggles to learn who might be contacting the Orchid. Against the backdrop of the growing tension between the tribes, Lei begins practicing dimming and brightening the Orchid so she can eventually send her message out about the nuclear reactors. But will her efforts be thwarted by the unknown person attempting to convince the Orchids to leave?


Discussion

The Girl At The Center of The World is an exciting sequel that focuses on Leilani's attempt to save her planet and on the survival of her family and friends. There are plenty of descriptions about how the Milton family is working on building a sustainable lifestyle.

However Lei's focus is on a much larger and grander scale. Through her contact with the Orchids she experiences first hand the melt down of nuclear reactors in different areas of the world. "A silent pop of white flashes off the coast of New York. A ball of water crowned with radioactive mist swells along the morning's edge. The atomic poison of this explosion mixes with the fallout of other nuclear disasters that blanket the globe. But my Orchid draws up the venom, neutralizes it." Lei knows the longer the world remains without the ability to make electricity the harder it will be to recover. But her discovery that the Orchids have saved the planet from nuclear fallout means she must eliminate all of the danger from the nuclear reactors before she can let the Orchids leave. She must get the message out to the rest of the world to allow their nuclear reactors to go critical so the Orchid can finish the job of absorbing the excess radiation and then be released. An unexpected development is the introduction of an unknown person who attempts to get the Star Flowers to leave. Lei doesn't know the identity of this person but attempts to block his communication with the mother Orchid and to form a strong bond with her baby.  All her attempts to communicate and reason with this person fail. This sets up a mystery and also a source of conflict that complicates Lei's mission. The resolution to this conflict in the novel is really anticlimactic partly because once the identity of the other contact is revealed, Lei seems to quickly and rather easily convince him to leave and partly because the second storyline is more exciting.

That second storyline continues the conflict hinted at in the first novel between Lei's Tutu who was once a police officer and the sheriff of Hilo who has taken control of the island. Lei's grandfather and the sheriff have a complicated past which comes back to haunt them both. Bands of gangs called Tribes are fighting for control of Puna and Hilo. The sheriff of Hana from Maui who put a gun to Lei's father's head in the first novel is in control in Puna. His Hanamen control the plantations and agriculture. When the sheriff learns about Lei's ability to connect with the Star Flowers he begins to search for her family's farm. This leads to a deadly confrontation which provides the main source of tension for the novel.

Aslan's storyline is unique as is his setting - the exotic islands of Hawai`i. He touches on some of the native Hawaiian culture and beliefs, and of the islands' annexation by America and the desire of Hawaiians to exercise self government. This is main reason for the sheriff's desire to have the Orchids stay. "What we're building here is too important. These Flowers leave, the occupiers --the tourist droves --return. I won't allow that to happen."

Unlike the first novel which focused on survival during the crisis, The Girl At The Center Of The World focuses more on relationships; Lei's relationship with her beloved grandpa who reveals his connection to the sheriff of Hana, her friendship with Tami who is her best friend and the blossoming romance between Lei and Aukina. Aslan ties up all the loose ends neatly - and perhaps too conveniently but the novel ends on a hopeful tone.  Power is gradually being restored and civilization is beginning to return to the world.

The Girl At The Center Of The World is a solid conclusion to the novel and will appeal to those who enjoy a unique science fiction story set in an exotic location. Austin Aslan was inspired to write these two novels while doing his masters in tropical biology in Hawaii.

Book Details:

The Girl At The Center Of The World by Austin Aslan
New York: Wendy Lamb Books     2015
337 pp. 

Will To Survive by Eric Walters

Will To Survive is the final installment in Canadian author, Eric Walters' Rule of Three trilogy about survival in a post-apocalyptic world.

It has been months since the power blackout and the community at Eden Mills has further solidified itself, growing its own food and developing its own security. But it is now plagued by one of its own members, rookie cop Brett who has turned against the Eden Mills group.

The novel opens exactly where the second book left off - Adam Daley has just killed two men intent on making him fly his Cessna to a group of armed ex-military men who have been preying on smaller communities.

Adam's group, led by Herb Campbell had captured Brett and his group which had gone rogue. Brett who was being kept prisoner, escaped, freed the other prisoners and ordered them to kill their guards. He kidnapped Adam and had instructed two of the prisoners, Tim and Owen to force him to fly his Cessna to the Division compound while he and the remaining prisoners traveled on foot to the Division. Before leaving, Brett told Adam that he had killed Herb. Determined not to fly the Cessna, Adam had no choice but to kill Tim and Owen. Will To Survive opens with Adam's mother who in charge of security and her lieutenant, Howie, trying to understand what has just happened.

Adam races to Herb's home to discover him very much alive. Suspecting Brett might try to kill him, Herb has been sleeping in his "safe" room - a concrete bunker in his basement. Adam tells his mother, Howie and Herb that Brett forced the rebels to kill the guards. Based on what Adam tells him, Herb states that Brett is trying to instill fear into their community. Adam also tells Herb that Brett has formed an alliance with the colonel and the remains of the Division who have since returned to the compound.

Herb tells them they must act quickly because Brett knows how they operate, their strengths and weaknesses. They decide to change the guard stations and their schedules as well as where supplies are stored. Meanwhile, Herb and Adam take the Cessna up and fly directly to the Division compound because they know that is what Brett is expecting. However Adam and Herb also take along a home made bomb, set to detonate thirty-five seconds after its armed. They touch down only long enough for Herb to set down the armed bomb. The explosion destroys one of the barracks and creates a huge hole in the runway.

Herb, Adam and Quinn who is an ex-Division member do reconnaissance from the Cessna to see what communities exist around them. They discover the refinery near the lake which likely still contains fuel and decide that they will reach out to them in the future. Their flight also takes them over the Division compound which is found to be deserted. An away team is sent to the compound to tear it down and destroy it so the Division cannot return.

Days later the Eden Mills neighborhood is attacked from the burned out condominium tower. Two guards are injured. In the morning Adam goes up in the ultra light while Adam's father and others lead an assault team to the tower. They find that the sniper has abandoned the tower but killed four people so he could use their unit. Adam and Herb believe that Brett is behind the attacks which resulted in the deaths of three guards. While the rest of the group wants to take down the tower, Adam suggests that they extend their wall so that it includes the condo tower. His plan while increasing the number of people they have to feed will allow them to grow more food and provide better protection for the Cessna taking off on the Erin Mills highway.

As this is undertaken, flights over the area reveal several things to Adam and Herb. They discover that there is a group of armed people with motorized buggies and carts who are traveling on the nearby roads. They appear to be well organized and are all wearing similar clothing. They also locate a field of ready-to-harvest potatoes and discover another farmer and his family, taking them into the community. However, a second attack on the Eden Mills community with a rocket propelled grenade makes Herb realize that they must connect with the communities around them, including the people living at the hospital

Adam, his girlfriend Lori and best friend Todd discover another isolated community on an island in the lake. They are forced to land at the island airport where they meet Robert Wayne a colonel in charge of three thousand people living there. After returning to Eden Mill's Adam brings Herb back to the island to meet Colonel Wayne. However, they are contacted by Brett and he tells them he will be attacking the Eden Mills neighborhood again. Adam begins to realize that the only way to protect their people may be to kill Brett. It is an action he does not want to take, but when Brett harms more innocent people, Adam becomes convinced they will only be safe when Brett is dead.

Discussion

Will To Survive is a thrilling conclusion to Walter's Rule of Three series. In the first two novels, Walters laid the groundwork for the events in the final novel by developing the sociopathic character of Brett who was a cop working under Adam's mother in the local police force. At first it seems Herb is able to restrain Brett's bad behaviour, but as the crisis continues and social order breaks down, Brett's true character begins to show. He becomes increasingly violent, killing for pleasure and then becomes determined to seek revenge on Herb and Adam. Brett takes over the Division and turns them into a mobile Mad Max-like force. His attacks on the Eden Mills community evolve into attacks against innocent families in an attempt to breed fear and gain control over the community. Believing he has killed Herb, he is now determined to kill Adam, who he sees as the leader of the Eden Mills community.

In contrast Adam Daley continues to grow into a responsible, intelligent leader under the tutelage of Herb. Adam is the true hero of the situation; he thinks outside the box and tries to live by his moral code, an important part of which is not to kill people. As he confronts the evil threat Brett poses, Adam questions whether he will become like Brett, killing for pleasure. Adam knows that likely the only way to stop Brett is to kill him. "And he was a monster -- a monster I had to kill. And I had to do it without hesitation, without that split second of doubt, without thinking of him as a person. Then I realized that was the way Brett killed. No doubt, no remorse, no second thoughts. In order to kill him, to kill the monster, I'd have to be a monster, too. I'd have to join him. Not just for my own sake, but for the people of this neighborhood and beyond."

When the neighborhood group votes on whether or not to give into Brett's demands, Adam has the deciding vote and he demonstrates courage by voting not to give in. But this is still a struggle for him as he admits after a fight with his girlfriend Lori. "Here I was, stuck between two options; either I was becoming too much like Brett...or I wasn't enough like him and I wouldn't be able to stay alive."

Eventually though Adam does have to kill Brett when Herb is shot in cold blood. The loss of Herb leaves Adam second-guessing his decision to follow his conscience. But Dr. Morgan tells him "That's not who you are. That's not who we are, what we stand for, and you know that." Adam knows he couldn't have killed Brett in cold blood, which is why he never killed Brett until he murdered Herb. Instead he waited until he had no choice.

Adam's hope in humanity and his struggle to see the humanity of those he's fighting against - especially Brett, results in Herb changing how he views others. Herb freely admits that Adam helped remind him of the humanity of others in his final letter.

The only significant plot weakness in Will To Survive is the lack of any hint about what happened to cause the blackout. Despite the Eden Mills community coming into contact with military and other communities almost a hundred miles away no mention is ever made about what happened on a broader scale. For example, the island community which has planes capable of traveling far distances apparently has no idea what is going on. Neither Adam nor Herb seem interested in finding out either. The question is never broached even six months after the blackout when there might have been some news of what happened.

Walters skillfully leads his readers to the exciting showdown between Brett's group and the Eden Mills community. Despite the shocking twist at the end of the novel, the story concludes on a hopeful note with the brief restoration of the highway lights suggesting that whatever cause the blackout for months was soon to be overcome.

The Rule of Three series is highly recommended for fans of survival fiction and reluctant readers who prefer a male protagonist. As usual, the great covers are an encouragement to crack the spine and become immersed in a well thought-out story by an accomplished Canadian author.

Book Details:

Will To Survive by Eric Walters
Toronto: Razorbill    2016
310 pp.

The Islands At The End of the World by Austin Aslan

Set in Hawaii, The Islands At The End of The World tells the story of a father and daughter trying to survive in world devastated by the presence of an alien entity.

Sixteen-year-old Leilani Milton lives with her parents and seven year old brother Kai in Hilo, on the big island of Hawai'i. Her father who was originally from New Mexico, is Dr. Michael Milton, a professor of ecology at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo and white. Her mother is pure Hawaiian and also a professor of ecology at UH at Hilo too. They have only lived on the island for three years.

The story opens on Sunday, April 26 with Leilani surfing with her best friend, Tami. On their way to get ice cream afterwards, Leilani and her father hear the siren warning of a tsunami. A few hours earlier, there was a meteor strike in the northern Pacific, eight hundred miles south of Alaska. Eventually the threat is downgraded.

Leilani, whose name means "Flower of Heaven", is leaving at six the next morning with her father for Honolulu, on the island of O'ahu. She will undergo special tests and a drug trial for her epilepsy. It was epilepsy that resulted in her being dropped from the gymnastics team when she was twelve. That was the age Leilani had her first grand mal seizure. She had been having petits mals for years. Once at O'ahu, Leilani will stop her meds, then started start a trial medication. If the medication works and she has no grand mal she will continue. If she has a grand mal, the trial will stop. All of this is making Leilani very nervous.

Before she leaves though, her grandpa arrives that evening so he can see her off in the morning. Leilani's grandpa is determined to keep alive the cultural practices of his Hawaiian ancestors. He was in the navy and then become a cop on Maui. Now retired, grandpa is Leilani's kahuna or spiritual adviser.  Grandpa tells her that Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of lightning, lava and volcanoes is her guardian spirit.

Their forty-minute flight on Monday, April 27 takes them over Maui, Lana'i, Moloka'i to O'ahu. In Honolulu, they drive to the clinic where they meet Dr. Makani who tells them more information about the trial. Meanwhile, bizarre things begin to happen around the world. Leilani and her dad learn that the U.S. President is recovering from surgery for appendicitis. At the clinic while some tests are being done on Leilani, they learn that the stock exchange has been shut down, the Vice President is missing as is the Prime Minister of Japan, Congressional offices have closed, the Euro has collapsed and several British banks have failed. Trying not to worry, Leilani and her father check into their fancy hotel on Waikiki Beach.

While talking with her mother and Kai, Leilani and her father also watch the President of the United States as he addresses the nation. However, the transmission dies as does their internet connection with her mother and Kai. All they know is that president was trying to tell them something very important and to warn them about something. Leilani experiences a petit mal seizure during which she hears a voice saying strange things in what seems like a dream. "These islands and their sacred tides call me forth." and "Come drift upon me, and spread. Bring me the means of life." Later on Leilani recalls these words and finds them to be strange, since she never dreams or hears things during seizures.

The next morning they awake to a power outage, satellite networks and electronics are inoperative and flights are grounded. At the clinic, Dr. Makani tells them that his neighbour with NOAA indicated that there is some kind of geomagnetic storm or something that is interfering with the Earth's magnetic field. That night from her room at the clinic they notice "a hazy green knot dominates a quarter of the night sky". The next morning a local astronomer indicates that there seems to be a correlation between the green light seen at night and the blackouts and malfunctioning electronics. By Thursday morning, all the equipment at the clinic is not working and the newspaper has dubbed the green cloud the "Emerald Orchid". They also learn that tsunami struck O'ahu's Kailu Bay earlier on Wednesday as well as the area around Hilo on the Big Island. The tsunamis are believed to be due to the Emerald Orchid. Leilani's dad decides that they need to get home and they need to begin looking for ways off of O'ahu now.

Leilani is released from the clinic but their attempts to leave Waikiki are hampered when Leilani has another seizure. Again she dreams and hears a strange voice, "These islands are here for me, and I crave what they will offer. It is a good thing...I am Leilani. Spellbound, I blossom." By Friday chaos reigns. There are gasoline shortages, the National Guard and coast guard have been deployed, there is no way off the island for tourists, and no communication with the outside world. The government decides to send tourists to the Marine Corps Base at Kaneohe Bay to be evacuated by navy ships to the West Coast. First they try to leave via one of the smaller island airstrips, Kalaeloa Airport, but discover they can't book a flight until the following Tuesday. Talking with people at the airport, Leilani and her dad learn that the military is simply shuffling people around. Leilani's father decides to try to find someone to take them to the Big Island by yacht or sailboat. This also is unsuccessful. Leilani witnesses the brutal murder of a man who is caught stealing a boat and this brings on yet another seizure. Again Leilani dreams and hears a strange voice. "This is right. I am here. It is time. And this one spits fire. It oozes heat. This one has not warmed before. I will linger, then as I have done on other shores, and we both shall have our fill."

Two days later, on Monday morning, Leilani wakes in the hotel room in Waikiki. Their hotel is now under attack by gangs who are after the tourists. Waikiki has been looted and buildings are on fire. The Emerald Orchid now dominates the sky at night, complete with lightning bolts and meteor showers. Their attempt to reach Kaupa Pond is thwarted when they are diverted by the military to the Marine Corps Base. Arriving by bus at Kailua, Leilani and her father are forced to surrender their backpacks and food and are eventually placed in a makeshift camp. They are told to they will be called when their turn comes to be transported by helicopter to their home on the Big Island. While waiting, Leilani meets a handsome soldier, Aukina. As conditions deteriorate in the camps, Leilani decides to induce a seizure in the hopes they can get out of the camp. But like the other seizures, Leilani continues to hear voices. "You are Leilani. I am Leilani. Suckle. Gather your strength...Time to linger and grow strong on the heat."

Leilani's father now becomes determined to break out of the camp. Aukina tells Leilani that people on the islands are breaking into factions according to race. The Sovereign Nationers want to secede from the United States. He reveals that all the military are taking potassium iodide tablets in anticipation of the radiation fallout after the nuclear reactors fail. He tells them that the military is out of fuel and that what is left is being conserved for a special action. He wishes he could take her with him. The only thing he can do is provide Leilani with wire cutters. After stocking up on food from the warehouse, which Leilani breaks into, they flee the camp into the night.

The first place they flee to is the abandoned home of the chancellor of UH Hilo. After cleaning up and getting some rest, they are warned to leave. They manage to steal a boat, but Leilani's father is shot during the escape. They head towards Moloka'i but when they run out of gas, Leilani and her father now risk being smashed against the rocks of the island. Leilani manages to jump onto a ledge and eventually pull her father to the safety. Then from the direction of Kalaupapa, an outrigger canoe comes to rescue them. They are taken to a clinic on the beach where Leilani's father is operated on and she receives stitches for a gash on her forehead. The older man who rescued her tells her that he is a healer. Identifying himself as Uncle Akoni, he abruptly questions Leilani about her epilepsy and suggests to her that maybe her epilepsy is an "opportunity". 

As they both recover from their ordeal, they find Akoni's community a refuge. Akoni begins dropping hints to Leilani, referring to the Emerald Orchid as a ship that likes the radiation or "hotness". After four days, Akoni indicates that he must go to deal with other factions on Moloka'i. Akoni indicates that things might begin to get worse and he offers Leilani and her father a way to get to Maui. He tells Leilani's dad that through a ham radio, they have confirmed that nuclear reactor meltdowns are occurring all over the world as power systems fail and there is no means to cool the reactors. These meltdowns will continue as more and more reactors fail. However the strange thing is that no radiation has been detected. Akoni tells them that they cannot even read normal amounts of radiation. It is at this point that Akoni reveals what he knows to both Leilani and her father; that the Emerald Orchid, whatever it is, is preventing a catastrophic nuclear winter from happening. He tells Leilani that people with epilepsy like himself and Leilani can "hear" the Emerald Orchid and he begs her that upon her arrival in Hilo, to go up the mountain, listen and try to contact them.

As life on the islands begins to unravel further, the military abandons the islands and Leilani and her father struggle through the last part of their journey, Leilani begins to understand what is happening to her planet and how they are tied to the Emerald Orchid. She realizes she may be the only one who can save her dying planet.

Discussion

The Islands At The End Of The World is a story of journeys - human and alien. It is well-written piece of science fiction that uses the alien-comes-to-earth trope but with a twist. Instead of the aliens being highly intelligent beings, those of the Emerald Orchid are compared to sea turtles who follow their instinct to migrate to their ancestral breeding grounds. In this case that ancestral home is the atmosphere of the planet Earth. The first foreshadowing of this comes when Leilani and her father are on Moloka'i watching a sea turtle. Her father mentions that "some turtle species cross the entire ocean to lay their eggs...When the supercontinent of Gondwanaland was just breaking apart, the turtles would simply swim across a narrow strait, lay their eggs, and then head back home. Over the next hundred-or-so million years, the continents drifted apart, about an inch a year. The turtles went about their business, doing what they used to, what their parents used to do, each generation unaware of the imperceptible change. Now they cross oceans. And they'll be here still, following their ancient paths, inch by new inch, long after we're gone."

It is this exchange that helps Leilani to piece together the circumstances behind the Emerald Orchid five weeks after its appearance. It is while resting at a small plot of marijuana plants and smoking pot, that Leilani and her father have a detailed discussion of the "Emerald Orchid." They both notice that the Emerald Orchid has changed and seems to be made of two entities. It reminds Leilani of the jellyfish she's seen at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Remembering "those dark seizurescapes, the snatches of imagery, the voice, the echoes of thought flowing through with my own consciousness" results in Leilani realizing that the "Emerald Orchid" is alive and that like the sea turtles, it has come to Earth to give birth.

"I only put this together just now! But it is a ... cosmic sea turtle! It was born here. It's just returned to lay its eggs, or spawn, or whatever it does. It's feeding on the atmosphere. That's how it works!"

Leilani's father believes the "Emerald Orchid" may be the explanation behind the mass extinctions throughout Earth's history. For both Leilani and her father, this realization is overwhelming. "I catch a glimpse of my father's wonder: if our terrestrial turtles will cross oceans, unaware of the drifting continents, then how much grander are these creatures, who voyage between worlds?"

But the Emerald Orchid is different from Earth's sea turtle as evidenced by its response after Leilani makes contact and explains that they need it to stay and "to take up all the hotness until it is gone." Although the "Emerald Orchid" and its young one want to leave, they want also to help. "I want the depths, but I want to do the good thing more. The good thing is to stay." They decide to stay and feast on Earth's radiation, so that they can grow strong and so that Leilani can protect her young.

The story of Leilani and her father's journey back home is told entirely from Leilani's perspective. Her narrative is broken into five parts named after the Hawaiian islands. Fortunately for the reader, Aslan has provided basic maps both of the Hawaiian chain of islands as well as maps at the beginning of each new section that help to place the events for readers. At the beginning of their journey, Leilani and her father's world is encompassed by the Hawaiian islands. The islands located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean give the sense of isolation. By the end, they have a sense being a part of something much larger and much grander. In particular, Leilani has felt socially isolated because of her epilepsy; she was dropped from the gymnastics team and doesn't yet have her license because her doctor hasn't yet signed off on it. She's also of mixed ancestry on an island that prides itself on full-blooded Hawaiian ancestry. However, in this new world, Leilani's epilepsy is a gift that saves her world and her mixed blood is a call to all to co-operate in order to survive.

It's easy to recognize that author Austin Aslan lived on the Hawaiian Islands. The novel is filled with fascinating historical, geographical, cultural tidbits as well as some references to Hawaiian mythology. All are woven into the story seamlessly, both informing and engaging the reader.

One theme that appears early on is the conflict in Hawaiian society between the white and Hawaiian races. One group, whom grandpa refers to as "Sovereign Nation people" want the islands to be governed by those who are pure Hawaiians. While Leilani's grandpa acknowledges that "The seizure of Hawaii by the U.S. military was a despicable act." he is willing to recognize that people like Leilani's father who have married Hawaiians and now live on the island are just as much Hawaiian as he or Leilani's mother. This conflict becomes more dominant in the novel as conditions on the island worsen and civil authority collapses.

Overall, The Islands At The End Of The World is a debut novel well worth reading. Aslan has planned a sequel, ready for publication in 2016.

Book Details:

The Islands At The End Of The World by Austin Aslan
New York: Wendy Lamb Books      2014
358 pp.

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig

Before the blast, they say there'd been sermons about fire, about the end of the world. The fire itself gave the last sermon; after that there were no more.

The Fire Sermon is a dystopian novel about a world completely destroyed by a cataclysmic event and the survivors divided against one another. The blast four hundred years ago had destroyed everything, scorching the earth, filling the rivers with ash. Time was divided into Before and After.

From the bards, Cassandra and the people of her time learned that "other nations, across the sea, sending flame down from the sky" had caused a fire that consumed everything and exposed everyone to radiation. Afterwards came the Long Winter. Her father told her that "If there'd once been other lands, across the sea, there were no longer, as far as any sailor had lived to tell." There were rumours of Elsewhere, countries across the sea as well as an island where Omegas lived free of Alpha oppression.  Cass's father warns her not to ask questions about the Before, Elsewhere or the island. The people from the Before had delved too deeply into things and brought destruction upon themselves. Anything from the Before was taboo, the Electric and any other technology, most of which was destroyed in the blast.

Those who survived  the blast were deafened and blinded. Three generations after the blast and after the Long Winter during which there were almost no births, twin births began happening. The twins were always one boy and one girl, with one being robustly perfect and called the Alpha while the other twin, the Omega having some kind of imperfection. The twins were forever linked; "twins came in pairs and they died in pairs." Extreme pain, serious illness, accidents and loss of consciousness in one twin would lead to the other experiencing the same. The Omega twins were always infertile; only Alphas could produce children but they continued to produced twins. Once one of the twins was identified with a defect they were sent away to special settlements where they lived a subsistence lifestyle. The settlements were located on the least fertile land. Some Omega's who could not survive in the settlements were allowed to live in refuges near the large Alpha towns where they were fed and housed by the local Councils. They could not be allowed to die since that would mean their Alpha would die too.

While most of the defects in Omegas were physical, some Omegas had an unseen defect; the ability to have visions of both future and past events. On the outside both Zach and Cassandra appear to be physically perfect. But while her twin, Zach slept through the night, Cassandra would have dreams of large cities, of storms that would arrive the next evening and of the blast. Cass knew that her difference needed to remain hidden, otherwise she would be identified as a seer and they would be "split". And so her parents waited for their defect to become apparent so they could identify one as Omega and one as Alpha and send the defective one, the Omega twin away. Zach becomes increasingly impatient as the years pass as their status as unsplit twins prevents him from becoming part of the Alpha society. As unsplit twins, Zach and Cass are marginalized in their village, Zach being unable to attend school and the two of them taunted.

Although some parents did not want to send away their Omega child, most were happy to get rid of the Omega which they considered poison and freaks. When they were thirteen, their father fell sick with a fever and his twin, Alice was sent for. Alice lived in abject poverty in the Omega settlement she was confined to. Eventually both Alice and Cass and Zach's father die, leaving Zach in charge. The first thing Zach does is to have a Councilman come to their home and brand Cass with the Omega symbol on her forehead. Four days later Cass is sent away to live in Alice's cottage in the settlement. Cass lives there for six years before she is taken away to the town of Wyndham. In those six years Zach's life changes drastically. After an apprenticeship at the council in Wyndham, he became a Councilor. Also during this time conditions for the Omega's began to deteriorate; Omega's were forced out of long-held settlements, Alpha raiders stole cattle and destroyed crops, leading more and more Omega's to seek out the settlements. Cass's mother comes to visit her and tells her that Zach is becoming a powerful Councilor known as the Reformer. Because there are strong rivalries between the Councilors, her mother warns her that people will try to get to Zach through her. She tells Cass that many Councilors keep their Omega twins in the Keeping Rooms beneath the Council chambers at Wyndham. And this is exactly what Zach does to Cass.

Six years after arriving at the settlement, Cass is kidnapped and taken to Wyndham where she is placed in one of the Keeping Rooms. At first she is occasionally allowed out onto the ramparts of the mountainside fort. The only person who visits is an Omega woman called the Confessor who attempts to get Cass to reveal her visions to her in order to help Zach. The Confessor is able to penetrate Cass's mind and learn that she knows about the island but Cass refuses to tell her anything about her visions. Even when she shows up with a map and tries to enter more deeply into Cass's mind, and even when Zach threatens her, telling her that there are worse things being done to Omega's at the fort, Cass does not relent.

Soon Cass begins experiencing new more frightening visions of glass tanks with tubes and wiring, and eventually bodies, suspended in a viscous liquid that seemed to slow everything until even the waving of their hair was lethargic. From each drooping mouth, a tube...Most had their eyes closed, but even those few with open eyes wore entirely blank expressions,..." The dreams of the tanks continue for three years but then change when Cass begins seeing an empty tank and then herself in one of the tanks. Desperate to get out of her cell she sends Zach a message begging him to allow her outside for ten minutes in exchange for information about an important dream. When Zach takes her outside however, Cass manages to trick him, locking him inside and finding her way into the mysterious tank room. There she finds hundreds of tanks with human beings in them who seem to be half alive. However one of the tanks contains a young man who seems alert. Cass after a great deal of effort manages to break the tank and extract the man from the tank. Together the two of them escape the compound and flee into the wilderness. The boy who is Cass's age has no memory of his life before being in the tank. The fact that he is missing an arm means he is an Omega. Cass names him Kip and together they decide to try to find their way to the island the Council is so determined to locate. It is a journey that will lead to both uncovering Zach's sinister plan for the Omegas and one of them making the ultimate sacrifice.

Discussion

The Fire Sermon is yet another dystopian novel in a genre that has dominated young adult fiction for the past five years and continues to do so. Its plot is typical - a post apocalyptic world so devastated that the survivors must make impossible decision to survive. In Fire Sermon the survivors of "the blast" are born in pairs, one perfect (Alpha) twin and one (Omega) twin with a defect. The Omega twins, who are considered the carriers of the "poison" from the blast that ruined their society, are isolated from the Alphas. The Omega twins are all but starved and abandoned, and the only thing keeping them alive is that their death will kill their Alpha twin. Like most societies in a dystopia, information is strictly controlled. The people are told that any contact with technology from the Before is taboo and this is strictly enforced by punishments. However most of the Omegas and the Alphas do not know that the Alpha leaders are using whatever Before technology they can to implement a "final solution" of sorts - where all the Omegas are placed in tanks in a sort of stasis so that the Alphas can live a life unencumbered by their weaker twin. It is a society that is turned on itself. Alphas against Omegas and the pursuit of perfection.

Into this story, inject the themes of family, loyalty and acceptance.  One of the dominant themes is that of acceptance and looking for what we have in common instead of focusing on our differences. Cass begins to understand this when her Aunt Alice, her father's Omega twin is brought to their home, very sick. While nursing her, Zach asks her what is wrong with her because her defect is not readily apparent. Alice explains her minor physical defect but she also astutely points out to Zach "If we were all so drastically different from Alphas, darling, why would they need to brand us?"

When Zach visits Cass in the Keeping Rooms he tells her that they have only one life between them, that this is the way the world works. Cass challenges him to change the world. "...You said you want to be a big, important person and change the world. It didn't occur to you that we were changing the world, every day day we weren't split?"

Unlike the Council, the Assembly, Zach or Owen, Cass doesn't want to take sides. She wants all people, the Omega's and the Alpha's to live in harmony. When a vision reveals to Cass that the Alpha's are planning to attack the Omega island, Cass is determined to convince the Omega leader, Piper, not to fight them. She tells him that it's a fight they cannot win because for every Alpha they kill, an Omega will die. When he responds that this is the same for the Alphas once again she reiterates that he is "only ever looking at half the story."

When the attack comes Cass states, "For me, each was a two-fold dying. With each Alpha soldier killed, I felt, and sometimes saw, an Omega on the mainland fall...Each of the deaths had its echo, and I saw them all..." 

This also leads Cass to attempt to get Piper and Zach to view their twins in a different way. When Cass meets Piper's Alpha twin, Zoe, she begins to understand that because he and his twin have been working together, "he must know what it was to see your twin as something other than an opposite." Cass knows that Piper and Zoe's experience of living together along with her and Zach's thirteen years unsplit are proof that life could be different if enough people want to change it. When Zoe defends the idea of the island, Cass tells her that no matter how many islands they find, the problem remains: the Alpha's view of the Omegas.

Despite the harshness of Cass's post nuclear world, there is still plenty of care and love. The Omega's build a society based on love in contrast to the Alpha's utilitarian approach.But Cass is a determined heroine, fighting to try to unite her broken society and believing that the twins, sharing that bond of family can somehow unite and work together to make a better world.

Readers will find Fire Sermon and engaging read, despite its predictability and lack of a cliffhanger ending. Fire Sermon is part of a trilogy, with the next book due out in 2016, so readers will want to check out the second book to see where Cass's travels take her next.



Francesca Haig taught creative writing at the University of Chester before her debut novel, The Fire Sermon garnered her a good deal with HarperVoyager of the U.K. Haig says her novel originated with the idea of twins who shared a fatal bond and from that concept she developed the rest of her story. Haig was keen to include many characters with disabilities as a way of reflecting the diverse society we live in.

Book Details:

The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig
Toronto: Gallery Books     2015
370 pp.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running, not staying, but facing.
Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity.
And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield.

The story opens with Cassiopeia Marie Sullivan's first person narration which describes the waves of the alien invasion and then her hiding in the wilderness. She is one of the last survivors of the human race. It began with the appearance of a huge green ship in orbit around the Earth. For ten days nothing happened while people speculated, fretted, and wondered why the aliens did not make contact. The attack came in waves. 

The first wave was a electromagnetic pulse that knocked out everything - cell phones, electricity, car and airplane engines. Nothing worked. Cars stalled on the roads, planes plummeted to earth. Half a million people died. The second wave was the creation of an earthquake that caused a massive tsunami. Forty percent of the earth's population lives within sixty miles of a coastline. Three billion people perished. The third wave was an Ebola-like outbreak, spread by Earth's three hundred billion birds. The fourth wave was the "Silencers" or those who are aliens inhabiting human bodies whose job it is to kill the remaining humans.

Cassie's father, mother and younger brother Sammy had stayed through the first three waves, barricaded in their home. However, when her mother died from the Red Tsunami, Cassie's father decided to leave and head for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, over one hundred miles away. When they arrives at a refugee camp twenty miles from their home, Cassie, Sammy and their father waited to see what would happen. Then one day a grey drone appeared, followed later by troops who separated the children from older teens and adults. This resulted in Cassie becoming separated from Sammy. She then witnessed the mass murder of all the adults but manages to escape.

The novel picks up the story with Cassie's current situation, hidden in the forest. Cassie realizes that she cannot stay hidden forever, that she will eventually be hunted down and that she wants to keep her promise to Sammy to come get him. She decides to make her way back to the Wright-Patterson Base where she believes Sammy has been taken. However, despite her care in traveling, she is shot and wounded by what she suspects is a "Silencer" - an alien who looks like a human who kills those who remain. Seriously wounded, Cassie is surprised when he lets her go. However, further into her journey, she becomes stranded during a snowstorm and is rescued by a stranger.

Meanwhile, although Cassie assumes seventeen-year old Ben Parish is dead, he is in fact barely alive, suffering from the Red Plague. Ben is a boy that Cassie liked prior to the alien invasion. He narrates his story beginning with his arrival at Wright-Patterson Airbase after the soldiers clean out the tent city next to the base where he has been staying. They save his life and he is encouraged to find the will to fight against the aliens. He learns from the doctor there that the aliens have infected certain people and that these people are now activated into hunters to kill the remaining humans - the fifth wave of the invasion. The preceding four waves were merely to whittle Earth's 4 billion population down to a manageable size for annihilation.

Parish, along with many other children, are trained to be soldiers and are told that they can help fight back against the invaders. They are tagged with a small capsule that allows them to be tracked and are told that the aliens are inside some humans and that with the use of a special headset they can be detected and will glow green. Those who are not infested will be red. From the very beginning all of their training reinforces this understanding, giving them no reason to question otherwise. Parish, who used to be a high school jock and who is deeply depressed over the loss of his sister and his family, is gradually trained into a proficient soldier. His unit includes a young woman named Ringer who is a crack shot, several young boys named Dumbo and Flinstone, a young girl named Teacup and a little boy named Nugget who is in fact, Cassie's brother, Sammy.

When their training is complete, Parish, who now goes by the name, Zombie, along with his unit (excepting Sammy) are sent on a mission into a city. They are given special headsets that glow green indicating a person is infested with an alien and are told to take out anyone who registers as "infested". However, Ringer begins to realize that the situation doesn't make sense and soon figures out that they are being used by the aliens as the 5th Wave - humans who are trained and duped to kill those humans who have survived the previous four waves of attack. Ben and Ringer must decide what to do as Ben knows he needs to return for Nugget whom he promised he would not leave behind.

During the time that Ben and Sammy are at Wright-Patterson Airbase, Cassie awakens to finds herself being cared for at an isolated farmhouse in Ohio. Her caretaker is a handsome young man, Evan Walker, who claims to be the sole survivor of his family. The house is Evan's family's farmhouse, but soon many things about Evan just don't add up. Cassie soon begins to realize the truth of what he is too. This is complicated by the fact that Cassie begins to fall for Evan, all the while struggling between attempting to trust him and wanting to kill him for who he is and what she's sure he's done.

Cassie tells him she must go back to get her brother, even if it means her dying in the process. Evan who is in love with her, decides to debrief her on the base so that she will have a reasonable chance of succeeding. How will Cassie sneak into a death camp for humans, that is surrounded by drones and soldiers controlled by advanced alien technology?

Discussion

Rick Yancey is an adult writer whose previous works have been immensely popular. The 5th Wave which is the first in his new YA series, feels like a mix of original Star Trek (Return to Tomorrow) and the television series V which ran in the 1980's and deals with humans battling malevolent aliens intent on taking over Earth. Of course these storylines - the aliens so advanced they have no physical body and are only a consciousness, and the alien invasion that sees a few good aliens side with their human prey, are a common trope in science fiction literature and movies.

The novel is narrated in several voices; 16 year old Cassie, Sammy, 17 year old Benjamin Parish who is a boy Cassie had a crush on before "The Arrival", and Evan Walker, a mysterious stranger who helps Cassie. The first part of the novel, narrated by Cassie is excellent, capturing the reader's interest with the fascinating backstory of the appearance of the aliens and their gradual assault on Earth. However, the novel slows considerably when Yancey goes into great detail regarding Ben Parish's training at Wright-Patterson. Readers will find this part of the novel slow going, but the detail here is important, because the author is setting up the events that lead to the climax of the novel.

All of this is used to create a twist in the plot which leads to a heart-pounding climax and sets the stage for the next novel. It's like a game of chess now; with the aliens in check and the humans awaiting their next move. And the odds are stacked against the humans.

Cassie is the strong-willed, courageous heroine in this novel. Her relationship with Evan is the dominant one is this first novel. It creates a great deal of suspense because the reader knows who Evan is but doesn't yet know his motive for helping Cassie and because Cassie isn't completely certain who he is. The end of the novel sees Cassie meet up with her crush, Ben Parish, who has changed considerably since their high school days, only months ago. He is now a hardened soldier bent on revenge. Yancey has set up the possibility of a love triangle between Ben, Cassie and Evan in the next installment.

My only complaint about this book was when Yancey first switches his narrator. The novel is broken into different sections separated by black title pages. The second section, titled Wonderland is confusing because the reader assumes they are still reading the narration by Cassie when in fact the story is now being told by Ben's point of view.

Like many recent young adult novels, The 5th Wave is long, a whopping 457 pages. But those pages are filled with a mixture of horror, suspense, romance, grit and action that keeps the reader engaged throughout. The reader wants the humans to win, but the odds against them are so high that this creates the tension necessary for the next book!

Book Details:
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Toronto: G.P. Putnam's Sons   2013
457 pp.

The Age Of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

"We didn't notice right away. We couldn't feel it.
We did not sense at first the extra time, bulging from the smooth edge of each day like a tumor blooming beneath skin....

Summer ended. A new school year began. The clocks ticked as usual. Seconds beaded into minutes. Minutes grew into hours. And there was nothing to suggest that those hours, too, weren't still pooling into days, each the same fixed length known to every human being."

Eleven year old Julia wakes on a Saturday morning that begins like many other Saturday mornings in the past; her friend Hanna is over for a sleepover, she has a soccer game in the morning, and her parents are at the dining room table reading the newspaper. But this Saturday is soon unlike any previous Saturday nor like the ones that are to come. Julia and her mom and dad, along with everyone else learn that the Earth's rotation has gradually been slowing and the days are getting longer. No one knows for sure why this is happening or specifically what will happen as the days lengthen. All they know is that if the earth's rotation continues to slow they can expect radical changes in the weather, earthquakes and tsunamis, possibly mass plant and animal die-outs with  the oceans shifting toward the poles.

Each of the characters respond to the impending crisis in different ways. Julia's mom, a former actress begins hoarding food and other necessities, and she soon begins suffering from slowing syndrome. Her father, a doctor, generally a more calm and cerebral person, seems to be coping well until Julia makes a shattering discovery about where her father has been spending time. Her grandfather at first believes the situation is a diversion from military action in the Middle East. Julia, who tends to be quiet and watchful, has more and more difficulty fitting in with her classmates. It seems, crisis or not, being eleven years old is just a difficult time of life.

As the days get longer, society divides into people who live on "real-time" and those who follow the 24 hour clock. For the latter like Julia's family, this eventually means getting up at night to catch the bus to go to school in the dark or trying to sleep during the day in full sunlight. In San Diego, California, where Julia lives, as the days lengthen, the sun bakes the plants and crops. Birds begin dying, the oceans change, foods that were once common become scarce, forests die and catch fire and insects proliferate.

Humankind continues to struggle on however, as do Julia and her classmates in their own little corner of the world. But gradually society begins to fall apart. More and more children stop attending school, and things that people once took for granted no longer exist. Food must be grown in greenhouses and power, rationed. Despite all this, Julia meets her first boyfriend, Seth, and they struggle along together trying to understand what has befallen them, what their place will be in society, and what the future holds for them. Some of the discussions between Seth and Julia are particularly haunting; they are a generation facing the possibility of no future in a dying world. And so they ask one another which way they would prefer to die. Walker does a great job of focusing on Julia's reality; that of an eleven year old dealing with the inexplicable loss of her best friend, the alienation of her classmates, a first crush, and her mother and father's struggling marriage. This is typical pre-adolescent fare set in an apocalyptic time.

The Age of Miracles follows in detail a year of Julia's life as the catastrophe deepens when the Earth's rotation gradually slows and the days get longer and longer. The last chapter tells how things have fallen apart and generally what life is like on Earth for Julia as an adult of at least 23 years of age and other survivors. It is a tale of survival and adaptation yet the ending is depressing and provides no closure for the reader. In some ways it reads like a eulogy to a dying world.

Overall, this was good read but I felt in some ways Karen Walker did not develop this story to its full potential. Slowing of the earth's rotation, especially to the extent revealed in this novel, would have profound effects on the earth and all life inhabiting the planet. Walker tries somewhat to convey this but often it comes across in Julia's narrative as vague and muted. Other times we feel the full force of what Julia and her family are experiencing especially when the birds begin to die off and also later on when the magnetic storms begin to batter the atmosphere.The Age of Miracles is really two storylines; a coming of age and an apocalyptic disaster that mostly works. In the end though, the reader is left feeling distraught and hopeless.

Book Details:
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Toronto: Bond Street Books       2012
272 pp.