Review 560: Ice

Ice by Anna Kavan
My rating: 2.75 of 5 stars

This is a surreal book with many dream sequences, or hallucinations tossed in that make it hard to know what is real or not. Certainly this was purposeful, but make for uncomfortable reading experience. None of the characters or places are named. The story is about an impending world catastrophe that ices over the planet, meanwhile war is breaking out everywhere.

The narrator is a man who is involved in the war somehow, maybe in intelligence, it isn’t clearly explained. He is haunted by this woman who he almost asked to marry. She is portrayed as childlike, very thin, an albino with silvery white hair, and was raised in such a way that is very docile. He was careful with her, trying to gain her trust, when suddenly this other man married her. Thus the three main characters. This other man is very dominant.

The narrator has these awful dreams about the woman, sometimes they seem to be waking visions of what happened, but he couldn’t actually know this. The narrator often makes statements like “Reality had always been something of an unknown quality to me”, or “it dawned on me that this was reality and the other a dream”. Yet these statements don’t always come with the altered sequence of events.

The narrator can’t stop pursuing her, at times he feels like he is saving her from the other man, or from the imminent emergency. It is cold, snowing artic weather. He travels by boat, plane, or car, whatever means he can get. He ends up in an unnamed town, unnamed country, time and again. He always seems to get arrangements yet it usually isn’t explained how he contacts these people, how he knows to get on this boat at this specific time.

The woman seems to have no say in her life. She is roughly handled by her husband, or this other man, who seems to be her husband, but in different countries. It’s never very clear. He is kept up in a room, not able to leave. Our narrator tries over and over to get to her, to see her, and when he does she wants him to leave her alone. She is often called a girl. It’s uncomfortable to read.

Yet some of this is Kavan blending in her own life into fiction. She had two failed marriages, the men pursued her and she felt she had no say in her life. She travels around during WWII trying to escape the fighting, and this matches the book, although the female is not in control, was Kavan during this time? I don’t know enough about her biography.

The foreword placed this book into the genre of slipstream, not quite science fiction, but blending into other genres. Other authors in this category include J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, and Haruki Murakami to name a few. I think this (new to me) category works well. The book is sometime in an unnamed future, with an ecological world collapse, covering everything with artic snow and ice.

Review 467: Fever

Fever by Deon Meyer
My rating: 4.25 of 5 stars


Good, but a bit too much with the violence aspect.

As the name of this book implies, there was a vast fever, a pandemic that has an such a fast rate of spread and death that nearly 95% of the world’s population did not survive. It was a coronavirus from bats. (The book was published in 2017, before the real coronavirus pandemic.)

The novel follows a teenage boy and his father, Nico and Willem Storm, just after the worst part, when seemingly no one is left alive. They are traveling around their country, South Africa. After a while Willem tells Nico about his plans to establish a new settlement. They met a few people, a woman who has sixteen orphans with her, a man flying a Cessna airplane.

The first people who arrived form a committee, the house they first live in becomes known as the orphanage where the leaders meet. There are always decisions to be made. One of the first people to join was Domingo, a tough man who Nico was relieved his father let him stay. Domingo becomes Nico’s hero to his 13-year-old-self, and as he grows older. Domingo knows how to defend their community, Amanzi.

From the beginning Amanzi comes against people who live by plundering and taking whatever they can find, or by violence against those who have anything. They group together in gangs, steal and brutalize women. Thus, the KTM becomes the enemy.

The focus in the book becomes of this potential violence, then going on patrols, instead of the community building. Perhaps it does make for a more exciting and fast-paced book.

The ending of the book seemed a bit off to me, considering how many pages are in the book, it actually felt rushed. Then part of what was going on in the world was left undone, so it’s left open for a sequel.

After reading this book I looked into the author’s other books, and most are series. Not sure this one will become one as over six years or more have passed and there is no sign of a sequel yet.

Review 430: Shift

Shift by Hugh Howey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sure it's been a while since I read the first book in the series. I absolutely loved that book, was astonished by it. Maybe because of the hype and it started out as self-published?

So, finally I read book two, which is a prequel and yes I forgot most the ending of the book, but figured it wouldn't matter being a book that takes place earlier, leads up to the first book. Perhaps. In the end though, this book was okay but not great. Seemed a little repetitive at times, plodding and really long, unnecessarily so. The book also brought up a LOT of questions, so had to really suspend disbelief. If I had started here, I wouldn't continue. But now I'm two-thirds in and I did buy book three, so I'll keep going.

Oh, and I really disliked the ending of this book. But there's more, so maybe I shouldn't think of it as an ending...

Oh, just read there is a movie or series of Wool? Something to look into!

Review 363: Station Eleven

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked that the horrors of what people had to do at first to survive were left alone, not described, and some characters didn't remember those times. The counting of years was post the major event, the flu that wiped out the mass of population.

This was a book I wanted to read for a long while, happy to have finally gotten to it. Of course, during the recent pandemic I wasn't sure I wanted to explore this fictional world. Happily the real world wasn't nearly as devastating.

With the number of major characters and jumping around in time, it made the book feel there were masses of pages left on the cutting room floor. This easily could have been a much longer work. I kept wondering why the focus was around Arther lealand, the actor who dies of a heartache on stage the day the virus hit? But you need to have an anchor somewhere.

Review 346: The Revivalists

The Revivalists by Christopher M. Hood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With a name like “The Revivalists” you’d expect this cult to be the center of the book, but that is not the case. Instead, we have two parents attempting a cross-country rescue attempt of their daughter. But since this is a post-apocalyptic world, where a devasting virus wiped out nearly everyone this is not an easy task.

There is a long set-up with the main characters, Bill is our narrator who was, or is a psychologist. His wife Penelope went into deep hibernation, barely doing anything other than sleeping and eating for many months, maybe close to a year? Until they heard from their daughter who was caught in California when the virus hit, while they are in New York.

As one may expect in a post-apocalyptic world going cross country they meet a variety of characters, and quickly have to deal with an entirely new world.

The writing was good, and it kept up the momentum where you want to keep reading, finding out what happens next. Although there are parts that bog down, with backstory and occasional social commentary. I had wanted more about the cult, was it formed before or after the devastating virus? How did their daughter get there?

Many questions remain, and the book ended a bit abruptly. Perhaps leaving and opening for a part two. If you’ve read a lot of cross-country travel in a post-apocalyptic world this book may not bring much new to that genre. I’ve not read a lot, but it felt familiar enough. There was enough here to say I’m glad I read it.

Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 324: The Past Is Red

The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After reading (listening) to this book I have since found this contains a short story and a novella.

The audiobook did not indicate this, and it should be announced so the reader/listener doesn’t have the confusion like I did.

The first part of this book we are introduced to our main character, mostly as a child, and where she lives in Garbage Town. We find out about how there is a community of several area on this huge pile of trash that’s floating about a world of water. There is a teasing and lead up to what she, Tetley, does that makes her shunned and alone by everyone.

Part Two now begins anew. It’s the same world but there’s retelling of what was just given before, but much more of the story as well.

As far as the overall story, I enjoyed Part two more than the first, it seemed like all the swearing was toned down, or less of it anyway, and the story arc was more appealing. There was quite a lot of things contained in these stories that was unbelievable, you really had to pretend this is plausible, which I generally don’t like in books. The world seems different, and yet not entirely new. It’s a mash-up of other science fiction that is out there. Yet despite all that I will say this story will stay with me for a while.

The best part of this story is the main character Tetley. She is one of the strongest characters out there.

Thanks to Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for an audiobook review copy of this book.

First thoughts: a bit odd, Part 1 and Part 2 of the book seem like separate novellas.

more thoughts on this soon.

Review 77: The Lightest Object in the Universe

The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a great story, good writing. It's about after the world collapses, what do you do next? How do you rebuild? And how do you reconnect to your loved ones when there aren't planes anymore? Who takes control?

This books gives some great answers to those questions. It's not a new story, first thought that comes to mind is The Postman, but there are others. For that reason it's not a five star, just not unique enough. But it's definitely worth your time to read, that is if you like a little disaster in your fiction.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Gabra Zackman. She did a fantastic job. Although the point-of-view switches characters often, the narrator handled it well without confusing the listener. For myself this was the way to read the book.

Book rating: 4.5 stars

Review 6: Lucifer's Hammer

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

I was disappointed in this, expected some great classic apocalyptic book. Instead it was meh. None of the characters really stuck with me, none whom I cared what happened to them. And the sexism, oh geeeze. I know it's old, written a while ago, but 1977 not the 40's or 50's. There was even this line: "...the only good thing about Hammerfall was women's lib was dead milliseconds after Hammer strike." Hammerfall was the comet that crashed into earth ending civilization, well they called it Hamner-Brown.

There were some good parts, and occasionally it got interesting. And all the focus on sex too...I mean really? Yes, this was seriously dated. It was also long, too long. I've read other books from this era, and I can accept that things were different, but this one seemed out of touch. Maybe it's the sci-fi aspect? Or the writers really didn't like women on equal footing with men, I don't know.

There was also a major aspect of the black power. This one main character was very anti-white, used honkey as a pejorative. This part seemed very fitting for the 70s. I kept with the book, hoping there was something post comet smash, something with the rebuilding of society. I will leave that for anyone who wants to find out, but in the end there was a little there, but not enough to redeem the book for me.

Book rating: 2.5

Note on Audio book narration: This was the first book I listened to that was narrated by Marc Vietor. At first I did not like his narration style at all. It seemed like there was no differiantion between characters. As the book progressed I got used to his narrating style and there were some characters that had a different sounding voice. Still throughout some of the main characters seemed to sound the same and it did cause me to have some trouble to remember which character was whom, for a couple of them. By no means does my impression of writing style and my overall rating of the book was not affected by the narration. I separate those out in rating.

Narration rating: 3 out of 5 stars