Endirion is a thirteen year old boy. His hairless skin is
green and it glows. Like everyone else on the poisoned Mother Planet, he lives in a cave underground, only venturing to the surface to forage for herbs or hunt animals. Both herbs and animals are badly damaged by suradiation (a form of irradiation from a mysterious form of energy that wiped out human civilisation as we know it).
After an incident during a meal he is banished to the Dump where he must work together with his enemy Harlo, another banished boy, sorting recyclables from rubbish.
One night they are forced to camp overnight on the Dump and then discover a mysterious settlement which according to their world view shouldn't exist. As they work to find out about the settlement and it's strange technologies from a bygone age, the two enemies learn to work together and even become friends. As they investigate the settlement's mysterious power source, they find themselves travelling to the Madlands, the area closest to the site of the Disaster that ended civilisation.
Set in a convincingly unpleasant future world, this is an intriguing story of friendship and adventure, with plenty to say about environmental destruction and social inequalities.
Left Behind (Book One) The Forbidden Voyage, a middle grade novel by Anne Polcastro. Thanks to the author for sending me a review copy of this book
"a convincingly unpleasant future world."
ReplyDeleteDoesn't that speak volumes? Does anyone write utopian fiction anymore?
We had a "dump" when I was a kid. A smoky, stinky, pile of all sorts of rubbish. I dirty little old man lived in a shack there and tended the place. I would not like to be banished there!
ReplyDeleteBill - from a narrative point of view utopia can be boring, as good fiction needs conflict......
ReplyDeleteRabbits Guy - neither would I!