20 years ago, when a book was written about post-apocalyptic earth, the cause of the apocalypse was always nuclear war. Now there is a new favorite world altering force: global warming the subsequent continental flooding. We saw it in the book I reviewed in January, Darklife by Kat Falls, and we see it again here. The cover of the book is unfortunate, because if you read the book without looking at the cover, you don't know that Lily lives in a future time until about 1/4 way through the book. The cover it a bit of a spoiler. In this book Lily is an orphaned girl in a primitive fishing village. While she is out in her boat with her seacat, Cat, the village is attacked by raiders. They are looking for a "jewel" but find, instead, the prime minister's daughter, and kidnap her. The prime minister becomes angry with the little village for not protecting his daughter (who was in the town on vacation) and vows to take revenge on the whole village if she is not rescued. Lily, the plucky orphan, heroically, if naively, decides to take the jewel to the raiders as ransom for the girl, and thus save her village. Of course, her plans are not as simple as she had hoped, and she ends up in the middle of an international incident. She survives in the end, but just barely. The final battle scene is rather graphic for a children's novel, with a fairly high body count. Besides that, it was a decent sci/fi. Lily and her friends are likable and interesting. Diamond does a good job making both heroes and villains multidimensional and well motivated. The depiction of partially submerged London is not a vivid as in some other similar novels I have read, but it isn't a major part of the story. The book only partially ends, and now I have to decide to read the sequel right away, or wait a while and come back to it. (334 p)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Raiders Ransom by Emily Diamond
20 years ago, when a book was written about post-apocalyptic earth, the cause of the apocalypse was always nuclear war. Now there is a new favorite world altering force: global warming the subsequent continental flooding. We saw it in the book I reviewed in January, Darklife by Kat Falls, and we see it again here. The cover of the book is unfortunate, because if you read the book without looking at the cover, you don't know that Lily lives in a future time until about 1/4 way through the book. The cover it a bit of a spoiler. In this book Lily is an orphaned girl in a primitive fishing village. While she is out in her boat with her seacat, Cat, the village is attacked by raiders. They are looking for a "jewel" but find, instead, the prime minister's daughter, and kidnap her. The prime minister becomes angry with the little village for not protecting his daughter (who was in the town on vacation) and vows to take revenge on the whole village if she is not rescued. Lily, the plucky orphan, heroically, if naively, decides to take the jewel to the raiders as ransom for the girl, and thus save her village. Of course, her plans are not as simple as she had hoped, and she ends up in the middle of an international incident. She survives in the end, but just barely. The final battle scene is rather graphic for a children's novel, with a fairly high body count. Besides that, it was a decent sci/fi. Lily and her friends are likable and interesting. Diamond does a good job making both heroes and villains multidimensional and well motivated. The depiction of partially submerged London is not a vivid as in some other similar novels I have read, but it isn't a major part of the story. The book only partially ends, and now I have to decide to read the sequel right away, or wait a while and come back to it. (334 p)
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I just checked and the sequel, Flood and Fire, won't be out until June, so I guess I have to wait.
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