Maree
Given how easy it would be for our brain chemistry to change this story is real enough.
When I was reading this I kept thinking of that line from He Died With a Felafel in His Hand where a writer needs a roll of paper because pages “placed an artificial construct on my stream of consciousness”.
Limited punctuation and not stopping for air, I didn't immediately slip into the cadence of the book: 13 chapter-years made up of long-paragraph-months, with the same start (new years fireworks) and repeating lines forming a kind of framework to hang things on, but once immersed in this rhythm started to feel like I was constantly in threat of falling under the waves, getting caught up in some subtle drama, always a feeling of my vision being obscured or some slight of hand trick being played for the time when it will finally be revealed what happened to the missing girl that was introduced in the first paragraph.
The whole time the characters are on some slow moving merry-go-round of life, with slight shifting in their story each rotation, sprinklings of revelations about one of its characters each turn that catches the eye. Kids growing up the only thing that marks the time over a decade.
Every time something mundane happenstance – construction near the reservoirs or divers are brought in or some character turns out to be dodgy as f – your ears prick up for “so this is where we find out”, but you are left blue balled. Another story about what it is like to live in a small town where everyone knows everyones business (or do they), how everyone is wary of gossip and judgement from every soul in town. And like an Australian bush police drama, it has a surprisingly high crime rate.
I suspect one could draw out many metaphors for the writing style and the role of seasons and events on the calendar and what it might mean for life, the universe and everything; to me it was just about life goes on but it doesn't. So much past in present.
The 2004 BBC radio dramas. Brilliant. Introduced me to The Kraken Wakes (my favourite story, mostly for “the Russians did it” LOLs and the CliFi elements). Highly recommend even if you have already read some of these stories.
The only thing I remember is the old power house with the graffiti up the chimney that I though was powerful, pun intended
I feel proud that I have been to a lot of the places mentioned in this book, if not actually walked or ridden past the trees
Ok so there are female protagonists and the artwork be pretty but really not sure why the gushy praise for this.
Three and a half rounded up to four
It was a bit messed up reading this dystopian novel while the local environment was a bit dystopian and friends were getting caught up in the fires and the air being toxic
4.5 stars
Spookily precient, borderline Gibson in speculative tech, scarily feels like not a huge leap to Amazon/Apple/Google levels of market control dystopia, one or two distracting unbelievable or convenient resolutions to brush aside plot hole problems
An engaging examination of the power of the market to guide policies around freedoms many take for granted until they are too quickly taken away during some upheaval or event, or technology enabling advance.
A strange and unique dystopian world. Riffs on the power of religion or government policy to make believers or the public just accept messed up stuff and the consequences.
