Winter Essentials

Winter approaching means two things. The first is being cold. For some reason I have an aversion to buying winter clothes and I end up in the same sad jumpers year after year. It's partly because good winter clothes are so damn expensive, and partly because staying home on a cold day is far more attractive than hitting the shops. I always end up cold and fed up with myself by the end of July. NOT THIS YEAR. I have discovered how economical and convenient buying clothes on eBay can be. Recently I have bought a Saba Merino wool wrap-around cardie and a Zara Woman wool cashmere coat, both near new. $100 combined. Including delivery.

I wish it was as easy to buy boots but I have dicky feet so it must be done in store. I need a 10.5 in a wide-ish style, but usually have to settle for an 11 and an extra sock on my left foot. I was told by one store that they "no longer do elevens" (footist--I was ecstatic a few years ago when elevens started becoming the norm. Don't tell me they're beginning to change their mind.) I went from one store to the next, alarmed at the ridiculous heels or the painfully ugly flats. I didn't realise the Madonna/whore dichotomy extended to footwear. Finally I found these wedges in Joanne Mercer, ordered them in black and got the hell out of there.


The second thing that winter approaching means is the 2011 Dystopia Challenge. I can't believe this will be its third anniversary! I'll have lots of new titles to choose from, plus some classics as well. Maybe I'll finally get to The Sheep Look Up. Such a fantastically creepy title. And speaking of dystopian, did you hear that a prequel/sequel to Blade Runner is in the works? Personally I think this is revolting, can never work and they should leave well alone. Why can't they find a good screenwriter, a good script and make that movie instead of mining the classics for a cheap buck?

The Dystopia Challenge Wrap-up

Three months, leaden clouds, dark nights, and a whole reading pile full of persecution, despair and heroics. This was the Dystopia Challenge.

I've always had a thing for speculative stuff. I grew up in houses with my dad's Asimov and Niven, my mum's Le Guin and Cooper. Bedtime stories were The Hobbit and the Narnia books. I had a girlish crush on Tom Baker's Doctor Who, who was my number one Doctor until Christopher Eccleston blew him outta the water a short time ago. I've never been much for the "hard", outer space sci-fi. While I like my fantasy to be set far, far away in a distant, non-existent universe, I prefer my sci-fi ... with a little milk. I think that's why I like dystopian stuff so much: it's often science based, but it's set in this world, with a twist.

I did a bit of digging around to discover what "dystopian" actually meant. It's the opposite of a utopia. Utopia is the title of Sir Thomas More's sixteenth-century treatise about a republican paradise. Humans have worked together to create stable peace and happiness, abolish poverty and persecution. But the problem is we're a fickle, head-strong species, all with opinions of our own about how to attain paradise. It works in More's book. It doesn't work in real life.

Dystopian books started to emerge after the industrial revolution really got going in the nineteenth century. There was organisation and growth, and great power to wield. Rulers weren't just kings anymore, they were governments, and they had a vision for the future. H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine, which has been pegged as the the first dystopian novel, in the late nineteenth century. The genre really exploded in the west with the rise of fascism in the early twentieth century. If you're looking for head-strong, you can't much go past Stalin and Hitler, two men who had absolute confidence in what they were doing: they were making "paradise".

The fundamental lesson to take away from dystopian literature is that humans will always fail when they strive for perfection. (Which seems like a damned good reason for me not to do the dishes today. I might turn into Hitler.) One person's perfection is another person's hell.

My original list of titles to read (bold=actually read)

Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Death of Grass, John Christopher
The Declaration, Gemma Malley
The Children of Men, P.D. James
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabokov
Cloud on Silver, John Christopher
The Trial, Franz Kafka
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick
Logan's Run, William F. Nolan
This Perfect Day, Ira Levin
The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner
Emily, Dana De Young (released in 2010 but the first three chapters available on her website)
Battle Royale, Koushum Takami
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Attwood
The Bar Code Tattoo, Suzanne Weyn
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan
Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O'Brien
The Chrysalids, John Wyndham
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Carbon Diaries 2015, Saci Lloyd
The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Attwood
The Obernewtyn Chronicles (book 1 only), Isobelle Carmody
The Tomorrow Series (book 1 only), John Marsden

Some of the ones I didn't get to I started but found unsuitable for young adults (and my own tastes right now) like Oryx and Crake and Children of Men, or they got bumped as I discovered more YA titles as I went.

This was the final list (including a couple of films):

1. The Forest of Hands and Teeth
2. Z for Zachariah
3. The Carbon Diaries
4. The Death of Grass
5. Film review: On the Beach
6. The Declaration
7. Day of the Triffids
8. The Hunger Games
9. Film Review: Battle Royale
10. Brave New World
11. The Chrysalids
12. Life As We Knew It
13. The Time Machine
14. Obernewtyn
15. Flim Reviews: Deep Impact and Watchmen
16. The Knife of Never Letting Go
17. The Politics of Nineteen Eighty-Four
18. Tomorrow, When the War Began
19. Uglies
20. District 9
21. Unwind
22. Skinned

Life As We Knew It, The Knife of Never Letting Go, Uglies and Skinned made it in because of recommendations by other bloggers, and you're right! They are fantastic books.

I lumped dystopian and apocalyptic books together under the banner "dystopian", but they can be rather distinct sorts of books. An apocalypse can be man-made (ie. nuclear, climate change) or natural (ie. massive asteroid hitting the moon). There's a lot of death in these sorts of books, often whole populations. My favourites of the apocalyptic genre were Life As We Knew It, Z for Zachariah and Obernewtyn.

On the other hand, in a dystopia, the "disaster" is purely human-made, and can be nuclear, totalitarian, biological, ethical and so on. The best of these were Brave New World, The Knife of Never Letting Go and Tomorrow, When the War Began. Oh, and The Hunger Games and Nineteen Eighty-four and ... so on and so on!

I loved just about everything I read in this genre. The Death of Grass blew me away despite its misogyny. The Day of the Triffids was totally creepy despite its bad dialogue. I was let down somewhat by Uglies, but I liked the characters and I'm hoping things pick up in Pretties.

Because I'm a biology nut from way back--and us biologists do love our classification schemes--here's another way you can sort dystopian books: by the narrative. There are three major ways these sorts of books can end. The hero escapes; the hero overthrows society; the hero dies. I notice that contemporary YA fiction--especially series--is mainly concerned with overthrowing narratives. In fact, every contemporary YA book on my read list is part of an overthrowing series, except Unwind. Everything's a series these days! Not one YA book is about a hero who dies. I was talking about The Hunger Games with my dad the other day (he's a high school teacher now so I've been throwing YA fiction at him at a rate of knots) and he said he would have liked it better if Katniss and Peeta had eaten the berries and died. I pointed out that you can hardly go around glamorising suicide in YA fiction. Whereas Brave New World, which is for an adult audience, is topped off nicely by someone taking their own life. (I do recommend this book to older teens. Huxley does this sort of book so-oo-oo much better that Scott Westerfeld's Uglies.)

I'm going to leave you with a little tale my friend Ben told me the other day. He had a real industrial dystopian moment that he knew I'd appreciate, and a dystopian-esque song recommendation: 'Machine Gun' by Portishead.

Me 'n Ben, posing for our forthcoming dystopian album. Sorry girls, he goes the other way! I show you this as there has been some speculation that the only dress I own is red tartan. See? I have at least one other dress!

I had an eerie moment last night walking home after dark. I rounded the corner of my street as 'Machine Gun' was playing on my iPod. I saw the commission flats, the full moon hanging low in the sky, shrouded in clouds, looking very moody, and the church ... it was like the universe was conspiring to create that moment.

This is a very creepy song. Happy Dystopia Challenge to me!

(YouTube wouldn't let me embed any version of this song apart from a live version. The quality's not as good, so I recommend you click over and watch one of the studio recordings like this one. The synthy bit at the end is tres cool!)

Goodbye Dystopia Challenge ... Hello RIP IV!

The winter of my discontent, or the Dystopia Challenge as it's also known, officially ends today. In the last three months millions have been squished, nuked, plagued, prettied, robotified, starved, dismembered, persecuted, vilified and petrified. And I've loved every turn of the page. The Germans call it schadenfreude: taking delight in other people's misfortune. I prefer to call it Being Prepared for the Imminent Apocalypse ... with just a touch of morbid curiosity.

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on my reviews and made book suggestions, and to all my lovely followers who've found their way here since I started this blog in May. You all have a place in my fallout shelter. It doubles as a zombie-proof fort and a half-way house for persecuted psychics with mad cats.

But it's not QUITE over yet: I've still to post a review of Skinned which I hope to do tomorrow, and I'll be getting stuck into The Ask and the Answer straight away. So never fear, there'll still be plenty of dystopia-lovin' going on around here. There's at least a hundred dystopian works that I'm still chomping at the bit to read, and new ones appearing every day. Highly anticipated in 2010 are The Line by Teri Hall and Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder.

I also plan to have a proper debriefing this week. Which books I loved, which books I learned from, which books made me shed a tear and which make me fear for the human race.

But onto the next challenge! RIP IV, hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings which begins tomorrow. How's that for seamless blogging? I've decided on four very diverse titles that I'll read between now and Halloween for Peril the First. They are:

1. World War Z, Max Brooks. How could a Halloween challenge be complete without zombies? (Happy Zombie Appreciation Week!)

2. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield. Ghosties! Ghost are nigh on guaranteed to give me the willies. Multiple people recommended this one to me when I put my first RIP IV post up.

3. The Strange Power, first in L. J. Smith's Dark Visions Trilogy. I read one of these books back in the day and I remember it being a lot darker than her usual stuff. This series is shortly to be rereleased so I thought I kick off the swathe of reviews we're about to see.

4. Monster by Christopher Pike. Teen horror! This is a Book Smugglers recommendation. Ana read and reviewed it after Thea's constant praising became too much for her. Thea has a stronger stomach than me, but if Ana can read it, so can I. I devoured all the Last Vampire books as a teen so it's about time I tried some more Pike.

Nearly 180 bloggers have already signed up and this challenge promises to be huge.

Finally, I bid you a dystopic good morrow with this:

How to Survive a Nuclear Blast

1. DO NOT look at the flash.
2. Protect yourself from flying debris. 1950s refrigerators are apparently good for this, but aren't known for containing a great deal of oxygen.
3. Run into the wind. The spread of fallout depends on which way the wind is blowing. It that's impossible, head for higher ground. Better yet, go underground.
4. Decontaminate. Soap and water is sufficient, and brush down clothing.
5. Wait for rescue. Depending on whether it was a localised or full-blown apocalyptic event, help will be coming soon or never. Avoid men who have bullet holes in their radiation suits but are unharmed themselves.
6. Live in Melbourne. If you happen to live in Melbourne it's perfectly acceptable to frolic on the beach like you've never even heard of the northern hemisphere. Keep the suicide pills handy, ignore all radio transmissions from San Diego and have a jolly good time.

Dystopia Review #16: The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness

The Knife of Never Letting Go (2008) is one of the strangest books I have ever read. It's also one of the best. I had very little idea of what it was about when I picked it up from the library except that I had heard somewhere that it is dystopian. And is it?

Todd Hewitt is the last boy in Prentisstown. Prentisstown isn't like anywhere else. It's not on Earth. There's no women. And everyone can hear each other's Noise. Noise is thoughts--words, pictures, feelings. So there's no secrets.

A month from his thirteenth birthday, the date when he will become a man, Todd stumbles across a well of silence, and what he finds there forces him to run.

So, no secrets. Well that's a lie! This novel is one big secret. Keep in mind that when I say this book is strange, I don't mean obtuse or confusing. Rather, The Knife was exceedingly easy to read and understand, which is another reason I'm giving this book a great big recommendation. Three cheers for complex but thoroughly understandable plots!

It's written in Todd's Prentisstown vernacular, all yer dog and desperayshun and effing this and that. It's almost a stream of consciousness, but not quite. The writing is far more grammatical than Todd Hewitt could ever manage, and thank goodness for that because actual stream of consciousness writing drives me nuts. Patrick Ness uses just enough slang and bad spelling to give the impression that we're hearing Todd's thoughts, and that's a magical thing for a writer to be able to do.

It's also rather funny:

The girl just looks at me, her forehead still creased, holding her cut.
Which is kinda bleeding a lot.
"Stick, Todd!" Manchee barks.
"And where the hell were you?" I say to him.
"Poo, Todd."
I make a "Gah!" sound and kick some dirt at him.

Oh, the animals can talk too, by the way. But this isn't a fantasy novel. Everything has a scientific basis and the events are set sometime in the future, which makes this a sci-fi novel. A sci-fi novel with a decidedly dystopian flavour. Todd's escaping from one of the most oppressive, religiously fanatical, nutty societies that ever was. And the villain! Oh the villain. He's like one of those horror movie killers that just won't bloody die even though they've been eviscerated and shot and stabbed and beaten to a pulp.

Tangent: I'm going to make a wild stab in the dark here and say that many dystopian novels are written by atheists, for atheists. My reasoning is purely anecdotal: there are so many stories about society collapsing and being ruled by a totalitarian religious faction. It could also be that dystopian fiction wasn't invented until after Charles Darwin cried "Apes!"* because it takes a special kind of gloomy, one particular to atheists, to realise that if you have a shitty life, there ain't no puffy cloud waiting for you in the afterlife. This is it. So it better count for something. And that's a pretty important theme in dystopian fiction. End tangent.

By the time the truth is explained to Todd Hewitt, he's already worked the truth out for himself, and so has the reader. But that's okay. It's rather satisfying to able to say smugly, "I know already. Cheers for the update, though."

One little bug-bear: There's this whole big thing about no one being able to hide their thoughts from anyone else because of the Noise. But things are hidden from Todd his whole life, and things happen, big things, that he should hear because no one can keep secrets. But secrets are kept just the same. Which doesn't make a lot of sense. But, again, I'll go along with it. It's the only tiny weakness in a great big wonderful book.

The Knife is a fabulous modern addition to my challenge. As I progress I keep thinking to myself, "this is my favourite of the challenge" ... "no, this is!" I'm going to have to have a good debriefing post to get it all straightened out. But that aside, if I gave ratings The Knife would get 10 out of 10. Five by Five. Gold stars baby.

Book two in this series, The Ask and the Answer, was just released last month. So no agonised wait to see what happens next, yippee!

*Actually, "Finches!" would be a better approximation. Here's a bit of trivia for you: On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. The word dystopia was coined in 1860.

Dystopia Challenge Review #9: Battle Royale (Film Review)

This movie is a load of fun! I started out by reading the book but was dizzy by the fourth page: all forty or so students are introduced, by name and defining characteristics. I don't cope well with a lot of names and things straight of the bat. Now that I've got everyone straight in my head I might give it another go.

For those of you who haven't seen it, Battle Royale is a lot like The Hunger Games. Like, a lot. The government's gone a bit mad over young people and forces them into an arena, gives them weapons and orders them to fight to the death. Last one standing wins, and gets to keep their life.

There's heaps of blood and guts and swishing noises when someone swipes a blade through the air. Plenty of tears and promises of being BFFs, about three seconds before the bullets start flying. Old rivalries and broken hearts come to the fore. (And aren't there times when you wish it could be you, the class bitch, a stun-gun and a hand axe?) Plus a touching romance. And did I mention blood? Heaps of blood. Gushing, spraying fountains of it--in that humorous "It's just a flesh wound!" Monty Python sort of way. Even though it has a R18+ rating, squeamish me didn't find much to get me peering between my fingers.

There's a double-cross towards the end. I think. The screen went black and there were gunshots, and Keiko may or may not exist. I'm not entirely sure. Which is quite frustrating because the movie was so easy to follow right up until then and now I'm left with a big "huh?" Oh, and the prologue? The girl with the braces? She never appears again. Not really sure what that was about.

So apart from the beginning and the end (which some people think are integral parts of a dramatic structure), Battle Royale is one film you should be asking your local DVD rental shop for, if only to do a compare/contrast with The Hunger Games. And to wonder what the movie adaptation is going to be like. And how they're going to swing a rating low enough for actual teenagers to go see it.

Dystopia Challenge Review #6: The Declaration, Gemma Malley

In the year 2140, no one dies. No one Legal, anyway. Longevity drugs have allowed everyone to live forever, but at a price. To stem the crowding and strain on the world's resources it has become illegal to have a child. Those that do are imprisoned and their child taken to cruel institutions like Grange Hall. Anna is such a child, a Surplus, and it is her duty to feel guilty for every breath she takes, every mouthful of food, as it is stolen from a Legal. Her penance is to learn to be Useful, to become the servant of a Legal, and Anna has tried her very hardest all her life to Know Her Place.

That is until Peter comes to Grange Hall and begins to question everything Anna knows about Surpluses and the outside world. Thoroughly indoctrinated by Mrs Pincent, the cruel House Matron, Anna resists Peter's blasphemy at first. But his insistence that she is Anna Covey, not Surplus Anna as she has always thought, and that she doesn't belong in Grange Hall gives Anna the strength she needs to hope for a life on the Outside.

Anna is beautifully realised. She's quiet and sweet, a "good girl" who has been exploited by the system. She's thoroughly indoctrinated, but as she nears the end of her time in Grange Hall she keeps a secret diary. This is a huge act of rebellion for any of the Surpluses. I rather think that if I had been locked away in Grange Hall, I would have turned out something like Anna--but Malley probably intended for all girls to think that! Grange Hall abounds with Dickensian cruelty--whippings, short rations and stretches in Solitary. Think Lowood but run by Nazis.

The diary as a story-telling device is popular in books for teenage girls, but can easily become tedious and redundant. The Declaration begins with Anna conveniently filling in the reader with the back story, which unfortunately feels rather fake. The narrative switches between the diary format and a close third, and often the entries go over things that the reader is already privy to.

But that's the only gripe I have with The Declaration. I was unsure about the cover at first, the prettiness bound with barbed wire, but it works perfectly with the tone of the book. The romance is sweet and the escape is gripping. This is a perfect novel for anyone who wants to begin with a gentle dystopian to ease them into the genre. After reading it I would recommend Obernewtyn or some John Wyndham.

There's a sequel just released in May, The Resistance, which continues Anna and Peter's story.

Dystopia Challenge Review #5: On the Beach (Film Review)

Based on Nevil Chute's novel of the same name, One the Beach was released in 1959. It's set in 1964, just after WWIII. The northern hemisphere has been destroyed by atomic bombs and a cloud of nuclear radiation is advancing south. The last frontier? Melbourne. Yay Melbourne! A strange telegraph signal has been picked up, originating in San Diego, where everyone is believed to be dead. Gregory Peck gets in his sub Sawdust (the mind boggles) to go check it out. The government gives everyone suicide pills in case the nuclear cloud reaches them and they all get radiation sickness.

That's about all I can report. I stopped watching this film. I couldn't take the boredom any longer. And the ridiculousness.
It consists mostly of long, pointless conversations, the occasional hysterical or drunk woman, and old boys sitting in their clubs lamenting that they'll never have enough time to drink all the port in the cellar before the whole world goes belly-up. There's a few scenes on the beach, with everyone acting carefree and polite, and all look like they're having a jolly good time. Hello?? It's the end of the freaking world! Jolly good times post-apocalypse are supposed to consist of looting and pillaging! Where's the fear? Where's the panic? Where's the eight-ball and bevvy of hookers that are gonna make Gregory Peck's last night on this good earth?

Don't watch this film. The only reason you should (and in this case I advise you to borrow it from a friend) is if you live in Melbourne and enjoy having a squeal every time a b+w Flinders Street or GPO pops into view. Otherwise, avoid like the apocalypse itself.
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Dystopian Challenge Review #4: The Death of Grass

When a highly contagious virus erupts in Asia killing the rice crops and causing widespread famine in China, the rest of the world watches as the country descends into barbarism and cannibalism. Reminiscent of Australia's rabbit-proof fence, the Chinese in Hong Kong are barricaded into their country and left to die. While England and Europe tut and tell themselves that if only the "Asiatics" had come to them for help in the first place they wouldn't be in this mess, a strain of Chung-Li emerges that kills not only rice, but all grass: wheat, rye, oats. Everything. That means no bread, no cattle-fodder, no cattle. Just about all of Western farming, except for things like potatoes, is wiped out in one fell swoop. The Death of Grass follows two families' escape from London and northwards to Westmorland, where one man's brother owns a valley, a farming oasis that can be protected from the starving, panicked, rioting population.

This novel is unusual for its genre in that at the novel's opening, everything's normal. In the Western world, at least. Written in third person that switches between omniscience and a close following of John, leader of the group travelling northwards, the reader gets wide-angle and close-up shots of the epidemic and subsequent social and political fall-out. Set in 1956 (also the year of its publication), the novel is a reflection of the times. Just about all of the male population can use a gun as they went through WWII. Also, the telling is rather male-centric. This is probably due partly to the author's bias, and partly the era. In 1955, feminism had had it's first wave decades earlier and wasn't due for it's second for several more years. When society collapses due to Chung-Li, decades of progressive thinking are undone and women and girls are again at the mercy of men who want to either rape them or rule them.

Looking past Christopher's assumptions about gender, this book is one of the best written of the challenge so far. A virus that kills grass isn't all that far-fetched, and the fact that it could (and has, but on a smaller scale) happen makes the The Death of Grass is a chilling and fascinating read.

Not on my post! + News

Is there a phrase or word that you overuse when reviewing, especially when you can't think of anything to say, but as soon as you do use it you gag at your own predictability? Whenever I'm struggling, and sometimes when I'm not, the phrase "peppered with" spills from my fingertips and onto the page. E.g. "The narrative is peppered with allusions to mallards." (Now wouldn't that be an interesting narrative?) I'm gagging right now just thinking about it. I don't think I've even used the phrase "peppered with" in a review--I'm just unreasonably loathsome of doing so.

Conversely, is there a word or phrase that you are particularly fond of including in a review? I was reading over at Nathan Bransford's blog that he has a friend who insists on the phrase "veritable cornucopia" in all his writings. It does sound rather pleasant on the tongue.

This post was inspired by Bib-Laura-graphy and her review of Liar by Justine Larbalestier, in which she uses the word "machinations". And she definitely deserves props for such a fabulous word. I don't have a favourite review word myself, but I do have, as you can see, a phrase I abhor.

***

If you hadn't heard already (and I didn't know until yesterday) John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began is being made into a film! Thereby proving that dystopian is so hot right now--due to, amongst other things, The Hunger Games (including the movie adaptation) North Korea, the global financial crisis and Britney's worldwide tour. (Okay maybe not that last one.) It's being directed by Stuart Beattie, a screenwriter making its directorial debut (30 Days of Night and Australia fame). May I just voice my reservations now about the choice of director? Please, movie-gods, I want no corn for Tomorrow. Can you hear me, Beattie? No corn. And Australian actors, please. No handful of up-and-coming Americans to play the key roles to give the movie "international appeal", with locals filling in the second-rate parts.

***

I re-installed Creative Suite and made my Dystopia Challenge button. Here 'tis:

Spooky and unsettling, right? Unfortunately whoever posted the image didn't say where they got it/where it was taken. But I'm guessing it's China after a quake, sometime between now and 1970. If you want to put it on your blog (just like Theresa at Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin' News & Reviews) and participate in the challenge, please do! You can read the challenge details here. Also, I've got one guest dystopian review lined up for August, but I'd love to have more of you! If your keen to do a book on my list or any other of your choosing, just let me know in the comments.
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Dystopia Challenge Review #3: The Carbon Diaries 2015

It's the year 2015 and England has been put on mandatory carbon rationing. Laura Brown, a Londoner, documents the year's events in her diary: the shortages, the fear, the natural disasters. She's a teenager struggling with school, a family falling apart, first love (of course) and the impact of rationing. In short, it's teenaged-Bridget-Jones-meets-climate-change.

I vacillated a lot while reading this book--do I like it? Am I finding it a bit average? I just finished it and I'm pleased to say that the overall reaction was like, with certain reservations.

A large chunk of the book is Laura's (often boring) day-to-day affairs: keeping her band together, flunking school, pining over the boy next door. But where the novel really shines is when things go wrong. The droughts, the floods, riots and massive storms. The Gulf Stream is shutting down* and Europe is being subjected to extreme and unpredictable weather patterns. Underpinning this is Laura's anger at the generations that came before her: with every justification, she rails at past polluters and energy-wasters as it is she and her contemporaries that have to pay for their excesses. In effect, she's had her life taken away, with little hope of any sort of (contemporary) career or possibility of travel.

I'm surprised there aren't more novels with climate change as a theme coming out right now. It seems all anyone wants to do is bury their head in the sand with books about vampires, and I'm just as guilty. (No sparkles on my vampires though.) Maybe the whole thing is just too close to home. (As "home" is Earth, it's seems rather ridiculous that we're avoiding the problem, but there you go.)

The Carbon Diaries 2017 will be released in September this year.

*The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current that heats Europe. As the ice at the poles melt due to global warming, the seas become less saline which could do something nasty to the current and shut it down, possibly triggering the next ice age.

The Dystopia Challenge gets logo!

You might have seen these around, on t-shirts and mugs and your mother's tea towels: they're a parody of the English WWII poster of 1939. Here's the original:


Here's a slightly more tense version, for use in case of swine flu or a Thursday morning hangover when you're due to sit a rat dissection exam:


But here's the big one, only for use when you spot the zombies on the horizon, the the mushroom cloud over New York--the end of the world becoming not nigh but now:


Hehe. In other words the Windows re-install I did wiped Adobe Creative Suite from my system and now I have to pilfer logos rather than make them myself.

The Dystopia Challenge

There are several definitions of what constitutes a dystopian novel, none of which I have found to be definitive. It's a sub-genre of science fiction, and is sometimes called speculative fiction. But unlike a lot of sci-fi, dystopian novels are set firmly in this world, often in the near future; but always, always in a world that has gone awry.

I'm drawn to works of dystopia but I'm not really sure why. I'm not a "hard" sci-fi fan; nor do I like "hard" fantasy, which is probably why I enjoy YA so much: you get the themes, the worlds and the characters of fantasy but without all the complicated names and structures. Also, you don't get the cold, sometimes sadistic, sexual practices in YA fiction that you do in adult sci-fi and fantasy, which I find to be pretty off.

Looking back at some of my favourite books, I realise that a good chunk of them are dystopian, such as Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles, John Marsden's Tomorrow series and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I want to read more books like these! So while many of you in the northern hemisphere are lapping up summer romances on the beach, here at Rhiannon Hart in the southern hemisphere I'll be slipping into something a little more gloomy to get me through the Melbourne winter...*

Over the next three months I've set myself the challenge to read and blog about the following 31 books by August 31. Some have been on my reading list for some time, others I've come across while researching this challenge. Others I've read but want to revisit, and others still I've read earlier this year and am counting as part of the challenge. All are YA, or will appeal to young adults, or are classics that are for everyone, such as Nineteen Eighty-Four. Plus I've included titles from the supposed beginning of the genre (the late nineteenth century, such as The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, published in 1895) right through to the present day.

Here's the list so far:

Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Death of Grass, John Christopher
The Declaration, Gemma Malley
The Children of Men, P.D. James
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
How I Live Now, Meg Rosoff
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Time Machine, H. G. Wells
Bend Sinister, Vladimir Nabokov
Cloud on Silver, John Christopher
The Trial, Franz Kafka
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick
Logan's Run, William F. Nolan
This Perfect Day, Ira Levin
The Sheep Look Up, John Brunner
Emily, Dana De Young (released in 2010 but the first three chapters available on her website)
Battle Royale, Koushum Takami
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Attwood
The Bar Code Tattoo, Suzanne Weyn

Novels read this year and thus count towards the challenge:

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan
Z for Zachariah, Robert C. O'Brien
The Chrysalids, John Wyndham
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
The Carbon Diaries 2015, Saci Lloyd
The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson

Novels read but to be re-read as it's been a while and I loved them:

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Attwood
The Obernewtyn Chronicles (book 1 only), Isobelle Carmody
The Tomorrow Series (book 1 only), John Marsden

Total number of books:31; to read: 25. That's do-able. I'll be dispersing my reading with non-dystopian books as well, so if your not a fan there'll still be other sorts of YA books posted about over the next three months.

Some of the above I fear might be out of print/rare, but I'll see how I go! As well as reviews of all the books I manage to read, I will also post mini-essays on topics to do with dystopian novels. Your welcome to join me in this challenge and share thoughts/posts/comments. In fact I encourage it!