I read a lot of dystopian fiction. I have read about the super flu, zombies, the earth’s rotation slowing down, nuclear wastelands, and government created vampires. This was my first foray into dystopia via climate change fiction, and parts of it were terrifying. The part that scares me the most in these dystopias are the scenes on the crowded highways. Where are you supposed to go if you can’t get there? These scenes scared me in The Stand and in World War Z — something […]
One of the few instances where the sequel surpasses the original.
This is an extremely suspenseful, and surprisingly thoughtful science fiction novel. Honestly, I’m kind of at a loss as to what else to say! But mostly that’s because my brain feels like it’s just been squeezed through some sort of bladed juicer and now I’m expected to have coherent thoughts. I think this series is one of the few where I’m so intrigued by the ideas behind the story, and the plot developments, that I’m actually okay with the characters being somewhat empty vessels. It’s […]
Fascinating YA sci-fi dystopia, needs a little work on the characters.
Various internet peoples have been telling me to read Neal Shusterman for years now, and with Scythe he finally published a book whose premise I couldn’t resist, so here we are. If the rest of his books are as well thought out as this one was, they’re definitely getting moved up my TBR. Scythe takes place several hundred years in the future, after humanity has conquered mortality and disease*, and humans are functionally immortal. But having humanity immortal but still procreating creates an obvious problem. […]
“Dead kids are put on pedestals, but mentally ill kids get hidden under the rug”
This was a very strange, very trippy book. The reviews on Goodreads said to stick with it — it’ll start to make sense. I don’t necessarily agree that it really ever makes sense, but I did appreciate it when things finally began to gel a bit. “The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when ‘should be’ gets crushed by what is. Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to face that, […]