2016 SF and fantasy. Patricia is a witch who can sometimes talk with
animals, and Laurence is a budding mad scientist. Having met and split
up during their hellish schooldays, they meet again as the world seems
to be winding towards its end.
This is a strange book, and one not easily categorised. It is
what magical realism could be if the magical realists had the guts to
embrace things outside mundane experience and systematise them a
little rather than saying "ooh, weird thing" and stopping there. There
are both science-fictional and fantastic elements, as well as a
solidly YA story about growing up.
The hellish schooldays, for my taste, take up rather too much of the
early part of the book. Yes, they're necessary in order for the reader
to understand the protagonists and how they became the people they are
a few years later, but there's only so much teenage horribleness and
the weird kid getting the blame for things clearly done by other
people that I can find interesting.
On the other hand once the scene moves to a San Francisco in the
throes of a projected startup culture things get more interesting. One
man's lifeboat for humanity is another man's doomsday machine, and the
scientists seem to be lining up against the secret wizards, both sides
with their own potentially world-destroying weapons.
The writing is relatively plain, with little of the lushness that I've
been enjoying in quite a few books recently, in part because Anders
never lets a description get in the way of moving ahead with the story
(and is sometimes a bit too Internet hipster in style, without much
distinction between different characters' narrative voices). But it's
highly refreshing to find a story about very serious matters that
doesn't feel the need to be wilfully obscurantist (yes, I'm still
smarting from The Name of the Rose).
It's not perfect: the ending is rushed, and there's perhaps an
excessive emphasis on organically sourced vegan donuts when billions
of people are dying in natural disasters. But it's still a jolly good
book, and one I'd recommend very highly.
(This work was nominated for the 2017 Hugo Awards.)
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