'The Handmaid's Tale' - Margaret Atwood 1985.

'The Handmaid's Tale' was a bit of a disappointment for me. I came across the title in a list of the best dystopian novels and I thought the premise was brilliant; a world where most women are infertile, and the fertile ones have been reduced to a single function 'breeding'. I must have skimmed over the next part of the blurb which reads "but even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs" which should have tipped me off to the major issues I would have with this book. Having read another of Atwood's novels, 'Alias Grace', many years ago I should have also had some clues about what to expect from her writing style, however in all cases I was oblivious.

The premise is certainly not a unique one, the first similar example that springs to mind is Children of Men, but 'The Handmaid's Tale' focuses on an anti-female backlash against the feminist movement during the 1980's rather than simply rising infertility.

The chapters jump around in quite a strange manner which is not explained until the post-script, but the main flow of the story is that in the early 80's a group (of men presumably) took over the United States of America, and took away the rights of women. This began with taking away their jobs and bank accounts, and then extended to segregation of fertile and infertile women, and a complete restructuring of society to suit a very strange vision of the reproductive future of America. The protagonist is called 'Offred' which can be read as 'of Fred' meaning 'Fred's Handmaid'. As the handmaid allocated to Fred by the government Offred must wear a very bizarre red outfit, live in his house (with his 'blue' infertile wife) and hopefully bear his child after which she will be transferred to a different man.

While there are a lot of feminist ideas and issues raised throughout the novel, overall it is oddly anti-women. The only strong female characters, particularly the main champions of feminist ideals pre-takeover, are cowed and broken. The indecisive, frustrating protagonist eventually surrenders her fate to the various men who dominate her life 'legally', 'covertly' and 'emotionally'.

Despite the disappointment that this was not the book I thought it would be, I did enjoy reading it. Atwood's style in this case is abrupt, taking odd turns and branching off on tangents, and often is without a clear sense of timeline. The post-script, which explains the odd style, really made this book for me. It added so many additional dimensions and made me re-think so much of what I had read.

I have had a few people mention to me that they read it in high school, so I would love to know what you take on it is. Did you enjoy it? Was it ruined by high school English? What were the inevitable 'lessons' to be learnt from it?

Love it, Read it,
LR

'The Day of the Triffids'- John Wyndham 1951

This book was a purchase from a quaint little second-hand bookshop in Yungaburra, whilst on holiday in North Queensland. I thought this novel would be similar to 'War of the Worlds' which I read earlier this year, but surprisingly it had few similarities to H. G. Well's famous alien invasion novel.

Oddly enough 'The Day of the Triffids' had some interesting parallels to 'Windup Girl', in that it deals with the fears of the time. Wyndham writes to the biggest fears of the 50s, the threats of satellite weaponry and the Soviet Union, while 'Windup Girl' dealt with peak oil, genetic modification and threat of global corporations.
Perhaps this explains why I found Windup Girl so frightening, and Day of the Triffids so 'quaint', as by tapping into the fears of the times dystopian novels may lose the menace as they age. I'm not certain of this, but I am certain that dystopias are written with the fears and issues of the time in mind, whether consciously or unconsciously.

The plot of this novel is really a 'love despite all odds' taking place in England after a 'meteor shower' blinds most people, except those who were accidently unable to look outside at that time. The protagonist was in hospital with bandages across his eyes and awakes to a silent world. In addition to the chaos one can expect in a world where most people are suddenly blinded, the strange, aggressive, plants called 'Triffids' which had been appearing over the last few years begin to take advantage of the population's blindness.

'The Day of the Triffids' is not a book with an overly happy ending, but I really enjoyed reading it. It was a great tale, with all the markers of a solid novel. I don't often read books more than once, but I think I may read about the Triffids again in the future.

Love it, Read it,
LR

'Deadline'- Mira Grant 2011.

'Deadline' is the second novel in the 'Newsflesh Trilogy' of zombie novels by Mira Grant, and if you haven't already read 'Feed' then I suggest you start there before diving into 'Deadline'.

If I had written this post last night at 2am when I finished 'Deadline' it would have consisted of "No way, she [Grant] didn't, oh no she didn't, ah" and so-on, interspersed with mutterings about "too many cliffhangers for one person to handle" and finished off with "best book I have read all year". However, I have a nights sleep and a few hours of perspective and though those sentiments are still valid I have toned them down a little.

Anyone who has read my original review of 'Feed' will realise that I was totally smitten. I ordered 'Deadline' almost immediately after finishing 'Feed', and intended to savour it over a few weeks reading. That didn't happen. Despite having work and social commitments I still finished 'Deadline' in less than 24 hours. I enjoyed this novel immensely, despite it being missing some of the characteristics which made me love 'Feed'. By focusing only on main character Shaun, rather than the original shifting perspective, the tone of the novel was quite different. The other shift was away from what I saw as using zombies as an allegory for various other 'real-world' issues manipulated to control population through fear. While the theme of control through fear is still prominent, as the storyline moves deeper into determining the specifics of the manipulation it becomes less and less of an allegory and more of a whole-world-conspiracy story. While I did miss the focus on the truth, integrity and reporting of 'Feed', as long as the next book can void the many whole-world-conspiracy clichés I think it will still be a great read.

There were a few irritating points throughout 'Deadline', beginning with the repetition of the opening scene. While I understand that opening with a similar [read: almost identical] scene is a stylistic decision I think it was poorly executed. In addition, the repetition of some phrases and actions throughout the novel became irritating. This included constantly explaining how blood-testing units operate and their results, and mentioning whether or not the members of the group wanted snacks when someone went to the kitchen. The second one may sound silly, but no one EVER wanted anything, and yet every time a character goes to the kitchen this is repeated, and since a large portion of the book has them holed up in a house, it happens fairly often.

One of the biggest improvements in 'Deadline' was that the entire book was relevant to the plot and contributed to both building suspense and characters, rather than the dragging, irrelevant first section of 'Feed'. This was a major plus, and did not mean the sacrifice of the wonderfully unforgiving nature of the plot. Grant has no qualms about killing off main characters, or inflicting mental trauma on others, and this really adds to the overall tension.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and highly recommend the series, especially if you like zombies. I'm off to play Left 4 Dead 2, and pretend I'm Georgia Mason, wish me luck.

Love it, Read it,
LR

'The Windup Girl'- Paolo Bacigalupi 2009

'The Windup Girl' is one of the most genuinely frightening dystopian novels I have ever read. While many dystopias are frightening for their sometimes bizarre abstraction from our current reality, or huge disasters or cataclysmic events leading to dramatic change, 'Windup Girl' frightened me as it was (in my opinion anyway) based on a quite plausible premis; human expansion reaches it's peak when oil reserves are depleted fully, resulting in conflict over food production, consumption and distribution. Bacigalupi imagines this to be followed by aggressive, competitive, genetic engineering of food for maximum 'calories' by huge transnational (but particularly American) corporations, referred to as 'genehacking'. Apparently there is a whole genre of this kind of dystopia, it is referred to as 'biopunk' and I am definitely looking forward to exploring it a lot more!

The novel is set in Thailand in the 23rd Century and only alludes to the conditions of people in other parts of the world. The setting is beautifully realised, tying together elements of the current Thai system, such as the royal family and traditional religious/cultural practices, with some 'futuristic' elements such as the use of genetically altered Elephant-like creatures to generate power. One thing which I found a bit irritating about the book was the use of various Thai, Chinese and Japanese words. While it is not a prominent as in 'A Clockwork Orange' for example, I did find it difficult to remember the meanings of some of the Thai words. This is probably a personal preference, as the Thai/Chinese/Japanese terms do add colour to the language, and help to differentiate between how various characters see the world.

I was not immediately drawn into the narrative of 'The Windup Girl', and could not see why one of the minor characters gave the book its title. However, as the novel progressed the characters began to interlink and the main thrust of the narrative became clearer, culminating in one of the most breath-taking climaxes I have read in a long time. I had to take breaks from reading between the last 4 or 5 chapters so that I could fully digest the complexities of the unfolding situations.

That 'The Windup Girl' is a debut novel was a complete surprise to me, as it was written with such finesse. I can see why it is so highly praised and won both the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards for Science-Fiction writing. I am definitely going to be watching out for more novels by Bacigalupi, and intend to track down some of his short stories as soon as possible.

If you are interested in other dystopian novels I have read and  recommend, then have a read of my review for 'A Brave New World'. But remember that 'The Windup Girl' is now at the top of my list of dystopian favourites.

Love it, Read it,
LR

'Brave New World '-Aldous Huxley 1932

Ultimately I enjoyed this book. As a story it has all the elements of an entertaining reading experience, and it is deserving of its status as a 'classic'.

In summary, it is slightly older, slightly weirder and slightly less well-known than George Orwell's 1984, but I compare the two because they both are dystopian novels. Huxley's vision of the future is, to the best of my knowledge, unique for it's time, and a long time afterwards. It is a book with a bleak vision for the future of humanity. Much bleaker and more frightening than Orwell's world of censorship and coercion and perpetual war, is Huxley's vision of a population manufactured into castes, educated to desire, willingly drugged into compliance. This subversion of will is really what frightened me about 'Brave New World', there is no way to resist when you are constructed from conception to comply. Although the population of 1984 were deceived through propaganda there was the (albeit very small) possibility of resistance.

Aside from their prominent status as classic dystopian novels, part of the reason I draw so many comparisons between Orwell and Huxley is this comic. Stuart McMillen has interpreted a section of Neil Postman's book 'Amusing Ourselves to Death', and all of the text is a direct quote from the book. While I am fascinated by Postman's conception of humanity and our descent into distraction via media and communication technologies I don't think the comic really represents either Huxley or Postman's work accurately.

The comic implies a passivity in humanity which isn't present in Postman's writing, and to equate twitter, facebook and reality TV with some of the mind-numbing social distractions of Huxley's world is a stretch. While facebook et al., may be argued by some to be 'mind-numbing social-distractions', we do not use them and engage with them because we have been sleep-taught by the government to do so. We still retain agency, the ability to choose to engage, something unthinkable in Huxley's world. I think this is a really important distinction, and while reading Brave New World I found very little, beyond the superficial distractions of the society, which would indicate we are living in 'Huxley's World'.

As a closing note, aside from 1984 and Brave New World, some dystopian novels I have read and would recommend are: Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep, The Forever War and Jennifer Government. (A couple of these probably would also fall into 'post apocalyptic').

Love it, Read it,
LR

'Feed'- Mira Grant 2010.

I must first admit that I have a soft spot for zombie books, and apocalypse books in general, which is what originally made me buy this book online. Mira Grant's book 'Feed' did not disappoint, it had a sizeable helping of gadgets and gore which is expected of this kind of book, but what made me love it was all the unexpected angles on inquiry into society.

The first surprising thing was the setting, or rather the time of the setting, 20 years after the 'Rising' is not you usual starting point for a zombie novel. In the genre the good (who could go past 'World War Z'?) and the bad (I want 5 hours of my life back- 'Married with Zombies') seem to have all, or at least most, of their action taking place during the main 'rising'.

My favourite part about reading this book was thinking of it as an allegory for the US fear-mongering in response to the threat of terrorism. Yes, my university degree impacts on how I read zombie novels, and I am well aware that Grant may not have had any intention of it being read like that, but it doesn't make it any less interesting as a political commentary in the face of a threat.

Since I have also been reading extensively on propaganda, communication techniques, narrative theories and all sorts of other wonderful things (like disconnection from traditional media sources and what that means for politics), Grant's version of future news media as blogging was also fascinating. I especially enjoyed some of the commentary on 'ethics' and 'truth' because if you ignore the zombies this book has a lot of insightful observations about the media culture in the US (and the rest of the world).

Another plus for this book was decent non-Mary-Sue female protagonist! I don't want to give anything away, so I shall not say any more. But I did find it really refreshing to read a novel filled with a number of interesting, multi-dimensional female characters, rather than a token cookie-cutter female victim or hero.

My final good point about this book is fearless plot progression. I recently read the first book of the Codex Alera Series (which I will review when I read the next few) but my main bugbear with Jim Butcher is his addiction to ALMOST killing all/most of his main characters in every single book, only to have them revive in time for the rest of the series (Harry Dresden *cough*). It drives me mad.

The only downside to this book was the slow plot development in the first third of the book, I feel like there was a lot was superfluous information which, while helping to build a picture of the 'world', but didn't really contribute anything to the main plot.

An interesting little tit-bit I discovered, Mira Grant is actually Seanan McGuire, I can see why she wanted to name herself Mira...

Love it, Read it,
LR