The night the fatal Georgia Flu arrives in Toronto, fading movie star Arthur Leander has a heart attack on stage performing the title role in King Lear. Jeevan, a paramedic trainee, rushes to the actor’s aid but it is too late to save him. Kirsten, a young child actress in the production, watches fearful from the wings of the stage. So begins the compelling and surprising Station Eleven. An apocalyptic novel that moves back and forth in time, Station Eleven is a layered and entertaining […]
Stranger in a strange land
3.5 stars This is the second book in the Remnant Chronicles, following directly on from The Kiss of Deception. It is impossible for me to review this without spoilers for the first book, hence, skip this if you’re not caught up. Princess Lia is a prisoner in Venda, surrounded by what she has been taught are violent and backward barbarians. Having accepted her feelings for Rafe, she may never have a proper chance to act on them, as they are both captives and the Komizar, […]
Welcome to the (digital) Thunderdome!
I knew that I had missed something important when I saw the number of my friends on Goodreads who had read this book and loved it, and then was chastised by someone for not having read it yet once I had put it on my “to read” shelf. All right already! 🙂 It was the next book I picked up, and everyone was right: it was fantastic! I finished this book weeks ago, and I am a big jet lagged so this will be brief. […]
In all creation; first there is destruction
You guys called it. This book is scare-mazeballs. I read this book in one day, or rather, I used up all of my night to finish it and then I couldn’t sleep. There are no monsters in this book, no zombies, only the core of humanity stripped and laid bare. I got up a lot to check the locks on my door. So here’s the obligatory summary (Spoilers, sweety). I’ll make it as short as possible; We open the novel on the night of the last […]
I don’t want to go: California
After loving Station Eleven, I wanted to roll the dice on another post-apocalyptic kind of book. This was a great book. It was a little more haunting to read because, unlike S11, the world known by the characters gradually fades away into a memory. Electricity gets too expensive. Gas gets too expensive. Mobile phones become “The Device,” as antiquated as a shoe form. People with money congregate into armed and protected enclaves called “Communities” and, like exclusive law firms, let in only the elite, those […]
Optimism in a thin post-apocalyptic tale
I can’t say I was blown away by this book. Mandel attempted to make this book all things to all people. It is a dystopic mystery with a stab at social commentary and lots of personal drama all rolled into one, and I think it ultimately fails on a number of levels, but even so, there’s apparently enough interesting material, good intentions, and decent writing to have made it a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award. Respected American actor Arthur Leander is in the midst […]
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