MR Carey, aka Mike Carey, has been one of my favorite writers for years. His Lucifer spinoff from Gaiman’s Sandman is incredible. His time writing Hellblazer was great. I consider the Felix Castor urban fantasy series to be every bit as good as Dresden, and The Girl with all the Gifts deserves all the praise it gets. Getting an ARC of Carey’s forthcoming book is without doubt the highlight of my book reviewing career. So a huge thank-you to Orbit for this book.
So, does this book live up to my expectations? On the whole, yes it does.
This is a post-apocalyptic book. Climate change and other environmental disasters have pretty much wrecked the human population, with the added fun that poorly conceived genetic experiments run amok have made trees carnivorous and in general turned nature hyperaggressive. “The Fifth Season, but with biology trying to kill everyone instead of geology” isn’t a bad description. Koli is from one small, primitive, isolated village (which describes how most of humanity is living), on the edge between childhood and adulthood. The time before everything fell apart is shrouded in myth and legend. Surviving functional technology is both priceless and completely-not-understood, and the leadership of the village is chosen due to their ability to use the tech the village depends on to survive.
The fact that the only people who can use the village’s technology come from one family is probably just a coincidence.
I don’t think it’s really a spoiler to say that Koli eventually manages to get his hands on a working piece of tech, and things don’t turn out the way he hopes. Normally I wouldn’t mention that (even though it’s really obvious where the story is going) but there was no way to avoid mentioning that without mentioning the greatest part of the book: the device’s user interface is modeled on a manufactured, hyper-peppy Japanese pop idol. Koli has no idea what to make of this girl (and as far as he’s aware, it’s not a UI, it’s some kind of a magical spirit girl living inside the old tech that keeps asking him what his favorite songs are). And it is awesome.
As far as critiques go, my only serious one is that the opening is slow. I enjoyed it, because Carey is a good writer, but the pacing is kind of sedate for the first half of the book or so (the second half makes up for it). And there were some parts (particularly involving the wise sage character, a.k.a. the only person in the book who actually knows anything real about the old world) where I thought Koli got answers far too easily.
But those (minor) complaints aside, this was a super interesting book, and a super fun one. I’m very much looking forward to the sequel.