Cool Covers of the Future

Found the cover for The Life Beyond over at Goodreads.  I really loved the cover of it's predecessor, The Other Life, and am glad that they've kept the same motif going but have inverted some of the colours to give it it's own identity.

The End Specialist

I have one question regarding The End Specialist: why isn't this book on a front table display in Waterstone's?  I managed to find it tucked away in the back corner of my local branch, with both the cover and title piquing my interest.

 

2019. Humanity has witnessed its greatest scientific breakthrough yet: the cure for ageing. Three injections and you’re immortal – not bulletproof or disease-proof but you’ll never have to fear death by old age.

For John Farrell, documenting the cataclysmic shifts to life after the cure becomes an obsession. Cure parties, cycle marriages, immortal livestock: the world is revelling in the miracles of eternal youth. But immortality has a sinister side, and when a pro-death terrorist explosion kills his newly-cured best friend, John soon realizes that even in a world without natural death, there is always something to fear.

Now, John must make a new choice: run and hide forever, or stay and fight those who try to make immortal life a living hell.

 A fantastic take on a dystopian future, accompanied by a plot that was never predictable.  With each page turn I kept wondering if I had the option, would I take the cure?  While they are mentioned throughout,  Magary doesn't dwell too long on political issues that arise and their implications.  I found this, as well as the setting of a not too distant future, provided the text with an overwhelming sense possibility. 
The protagonist, John Farrell, shouldn't be sympathetic but by keeping The End Specialist firmly about John Farell's experience, and the eventual consequences of choosing to never age, the text never becomes too pretentious.  If Magary had chosen to elaborate even further explanations of how 'the cure' would affect the world, departing from the direct influence on everyday life, I don't think I would have had the same reaction to the book.  A Stellar debut novel that is worth searching any bookshop/library for. 

When She Woke

Hillary Jordan's When She Woke, is an updated version of Nigel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter by way of Margaret Atwood.  This was a fantastic read, inspired by a dinner conversation that Jordan had with an uncle, and is a must for any fans of speculative fiction. 

In the future, crimes are not only punished with a jail sentence, but with a technique called melanchroming, which dyes a criminal's skin a certain colour depending on their crime.  Yellow for petty crime, Green for more aggravated assaults, Red for murder.  When She Woke follows Hannah, a red who had an illegal abortion, and how she navigates her once restricted world in her new skin.  

I loved the use of flashbacks, trickled throughout, that provided more information as to how complex Hannah's character really is.  Jordan slowly reveals how Hannah has been trapped in her faith for so long, been told to keep quiet when she tried to question her life, and now her life has become one big question mark.

I was amazed that Jordan was able to use stereotypes to the advantage of her story, without ever making it feel cliched.  I was also impressed at the non-preachy nature of When She Woke.  For a book about someone whose religion has been used against them, it's certainly not a piece of propaganda for atheism, but rather about the power of an individual having a choice rather than being led by the mob.

When She Woke is relentless and I couldn't put it down until I found out exactly how Hannah's story would play out.  A fabulous, intelligent and insightful read that is absolutely on my Christmas list.

Pure

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

 

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

 

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Jullianna Baggot has created a speculative young-adult novel that doesn't lack in imaginative content.  While at times dialogue may jar, and aspects of the plot fall into familiar YA territory, there is still plenty of features within the text that redeem Pure and set it apart from other offerings in the sub genre.

What stood out for me was that Baggot doesn't talk down to her YA audience.  She explains about the possibility of a nuclear war, and provides an option of what the aftermath could be like, but the only problem with Pure is that there is too much talking and not enough action. Maybe, as part of a trilogy, the second instalment will be more action led now that the damaged world both inside and out of the Dome has been established.