We Speak Through the Mountain

Really enjoyed the second novella in this series. Am excited for the third!

In this novella, Mohamed delves deeper into the main theses she's been setting up. (And the worldbuilding + values are top notch.) This is a near future (2100?) climate justice spec fic, about a pro-social girl from a grungy post-apocalyptic village coming to study at a university which is preserved in a biodome of individualistic, elitist modernity. The people in this dome are basically the people in EM Forster's The Machine Stops - aka, they are us, right now, pecking away at our screens and co-watching YouTube together rather than dropping into each other's houses (shriek).

I love the voice. I love the characters, especially the salt o' the earth grungy punks. I love the protagonist's anarchist disobedience in the service of pro-social values. Bravissima! Kinda like Cory Doctorow, sans tech nerdery. Also, as I said in my review of the first one, kind of like Last of Us, sans macho libertarian ammosexuality hee hee.

This novella picks up pretty much right where The Annual Migration of Clouds ended. If you haven't read that one yet, go read it before you continue with this one.

Reid arrives where she has been told to go and activated her tracker.  She is brought into Howse and her medical issues are treated (in ways that could not have happened at home). Once she is healthy enough to leave the medical ward, she starts classes and learns about life at Howse. 

This story was very good. I liked it even better than the first one.  Major themes include culture shock, classism, and social responsibility.  If you liked the first one, this one will probably also work for you. I look forward to reading any further stories in this series. 

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and ECW Press. The opinions expressed are my own.