Category Archives: Dystopian

‘A Lovely Way to Burn’ by Louise Welsh

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A Lovely Way to BurnAny regular readers of my blog will know that I have a thing for dystopian fiction. I also love a good crime novel. Louise Welsh’s new novel, ‘A Lovely Way to Burn’, is a mash up of these two genres and so was always going to be hit in my book.

Stevie Flint is horrified when she discovers the dead body of her boyfriend, Simon. But having reported it to the police, she’s immediately struck down by a debilitating flu-like illness. When she recovers, she emerges to find that people across the country are being struck down by a mysterious, and in most cases fatal, sickness known as the ‘sweats’. It soon becomes clear that people are dying in droves – and there’s nothing that the doctors can do.

Despite everything that’s going on, Stevie is determined to find out what happened to Simon – and when she finds a package addressed to her hidden in Simon’s flat, she is convinced there’s more to the story. Continue reading →

‘The Girl with All the Gifts’ by M. R. Carey

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The girl with the giftsTen-year-old Melanie’s world consists of the four walls of her room, the corridor and the schoolroom. She loves school, and even more so if it’s Miss Justineau’s day to teach. To all extents and purposes, Melanie seems just like any other little girl, but it soon becomes clear that all is not what it seems. Every time Melanie leaves her room, she’s strapped into a wheelchair, unable to move or even turn her head. Her classmates have a habit or disappearing and never coming back, and the guards never relinquish their grip on their guns.

It’s hard to go much further without giving away spoilers, but we soon find out that Melanie and her classmates are anything but normal children. In the wake of an unexpected and deadly event, society is struggling to survive. Melanie’s schoolroom is on a scientific army base, where people are desperately searching for solutions, whatever the cost. Continue reading →

Chatting to Joelle Charbonneau!

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I’m so excited to announce the very first author interview on The Stacked Shelf. The amazing and lovely Joelle Charbonneau, author of the fantastic THE TESTING series (links to my reviews of the first two books here and here), has kindly agreed to chat about writing, her inspirations and some exciting future projects! Read on to find out more…

I hope you all enjoy reading this and gaining an insight into the workings of a writer as much as I did, and thanks again to Joelle for agreeing to take part!

The TestingTell us a bit about your background – how did you come to be a writer?

I went to college and to graduate school for music and theater and for the next several years performed in operas, musicals, children’s theater and lots of other crazy acting and singing kinds of things. It wasn’t until about 8 years after college that I started writing. I was the only person in my dressing room for the show I was doing that didn’t make the next show and I suddenly had an opening idea for a book in my head. And for some crazy reason I decided to write that book. It was a bad book, but I decided that I loved the challenge of telling a story and kept going.

What inspires you?

EVERYTHING! Honestly, I am inspired by great stories, by music, by my voice students, by my son’s laughter and by the kindness of the people I have met throughout my life. The world is filled with inspiring things and I find something new to be amazed by each and every day.

Your ‘The Testing’ trilogy is set in a dystopian future, where do your ideas come from?

The idea for THE TESTING series came out of my work with my voice students. I work one on one with teenagers on their singing. Many of those teens decide they want to go to college for singing or acting and then I work with them on their college auditions. The process is stressful and the stress can often overwhelm them. One year, I found myself wondering how the process could become more stressful. I wanted to know under what circumstances the world would turn the process of getting into college into something that could mean life or death. And the Testing was born!

Cia is a great character – she’s strong, smart and balanced. How did she develop throughout the trilogy? Is she based on anyone you know?

One of my students at the time I came up with the idea for The Testing is 5’2″ and has dark hair. So, I guess Cia’s outward appearance is probably based on her. But Cia’s starting point for her journey is really based on all of my students. They are all optimistic about the world and their future. Most of them come from good families. I wanted Cia to represent them. I also wanted her personal character growth to reflect what I see in my students as they go off to college and learn that the world is more complex and harder than they originally thought. They become more balanced and more confident. They also experience a lot of painful growing moments and come out the other side a little less happy, but a whole lot wiser.

What is the hardest thing about writing?

The middle! The middle of every book is really tough. The beginning of books are always interesting and engaging and the idea is fresh and new. The end of books are exciting because you’ve scaled the mountain. There is no better feeling than THE END. But the middle is where your doubts and unhappiness creep in. The middle (no matter how fast a writer writes) is always long and scary and filled with uncertainty.

What book/s are you reading at present?

I am reading Jason Reynold’s WHEN I WAS THE GREATEST. It’s awesome.

If you could have been the original author of any book, what would it have been and why?

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It is still quite possibly my favorite book and the one that taught me to believe that anything is possible!

As a writer, what’s the one thing you can’t live without?

Diet Pepsi…honest! I need my Diet Pepsi.

What are you working on at the moment?

I am currently working on proofing my next book which is a young adult thriller called NEED, which involves an elite social networking site that allows anonymous users to say what they need and offered them a chance to get it. I’m also writing a brand new stand alone YA thriller that has the working title of MASKED. I’m closing in on the middle section. Wish me luck!

Joelle Charbonneau’s ‘Independent Study’

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Independent StudyIn the follow up to ‘The Testing’, Cia has made it to the University. Having taken the exams that will determine the future of their careers in the United Commonwealth, Cia and the other successful testing candidates now have a whole new set of challenges to face.

Cia’s memories of her first Testing have been erased, but as she prepares for her initiation into her class, disturbing flashbacks make her question the University and all it stands for. With her dreams full of suspicions about what happens to students that fail to live up to the University idea of its ideal candidate, she is thrown into a dizzying round of intense studying, ruthless initiation processes and cut-throat competition.

When she learns about a group of rebels working against the government officials in charge of the University, Cia has to choose whether to risk her life, and the lives of the people that she cares about, by joining their cause. But who can she trust? And who is doing everything they can to make sure she’ll fail? Continue reading →

‘The 5th Wave’ by Rick Yancy

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Rick Yancy’s ‘The 5th Wave’ is part of a new trend of Y/A books that feature alien invasions and their impact on the human race. But there are no little green men in the book – there’s just a faceless enemy who is cleverer and more ruthless than any that we’ve imagined before.

Invasion books are usually characterised by groups of people banding together to make war on the enemy. But here – the enemy is not there to fight. They’ve been making their move from far away, effectively clearing the earth ahead of making it their home. Humans are, as the main character points out, nothing more than cockroaches to them – an infestation to be snuffed out as effectively and efficiently as possible. This happens over five ‘waves’ – featuring everything from infectious diseases to forced natural disasters to our own human paranoia – which paint a terrifying picture of how human life could be completely decimated.

Cassie is one of the few that have survived. She’s on her own, hiding out in the woods in a desperate bid for survival. Her only plan is to find her little brother and make sure he’s safe. After she’s shot in the leg, she’s taken in by fellow survivor, Evan. But even as she starts to develop feelings for him, she starts to suspect that he is more than what he seems. Continue reading →

Living up to the hype

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The TestingEver since Katniss Everdeen and her bow and arrow set stormed onto the scene a few years ago, practically every new book published in this genre has managed to include a critics quote on its jacket that claims it is, without a shadow of a doubt, ‘the next Hunger Games’. Most of these books, I’ve found, fall woefully short of this claim. But there are a few that manage to bring something new to the table. So if you’re one of the millions of people who couldn’t get enough of the Mockingjay, ‘The Testing’ by Joelle Charbonnaeu might just help to fill the void!

Seven stages of global war have devastated the planet, corrupting the land and making it hard for plants to grow and for people to thrive. To combat this, the United Commonwealth Government selects the brightest students to go forward for The Testing. If they pass, they will gain entry to the University, where they will be trained to be the next leaders of the country – tasked with rebuilding the Commonwealth by stretching the limits of medicine, biomechanical engineering and government, as well as finding new ways to grow crops and improve communications.

Cia is from Five Lakes colony, one of the most remote and least populated in the Commonwealth. So when four of her graduating class, including Cia, are selected to go forward for the testing, it’s an honour that hasn’t been seen in more than 10 years. Continue reading →

A review of ‘White Horse’ by Alex Adams

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White HorseI bought ‘White Horse’ as I’d loved books like Justin Cronin’s ‘The Passage’, Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam series. From the description, this book seemed to combine aspects of all of the above, so it seemed like a safe bet.

White Horse flits back and forth between times, revealing Zoe’s story before and after the outbreak of a deadly disease that kills off a large amount of the population and causes random and extreme genetic mutations in others. Together, these two narratives weave together to build up a greater picture of events and Zoe’s role in them.

In the past, we follow Zoe’s everyday life in the run-up to the outbreak. In her therapy sessions, she obsesses over a sealed jar, unable to decide whether or not to open it. This jar comes to represent a sort of Pandora’s Box – and the pervading question left hanging for most of the novel of whether this jar truly represents something evil, or whether this is all simply in Zoe’s mind? Continue reading →

Justin Cronin’s ‘The Passage’

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the passageWhen the book opens, the US government is exploring new ways to create the ultimate fighting weapon. The discovery of a mysterious virus found in the deepest parts of a remote jungle, which seems to render its carriers impervious to disease and to give them extreme strength, seems like it may offer a solution. But experiments on test subjects straight from death row soon take a disastrous turn.

Skip forward a hundred years and the catastrophic consequences of these experiments become abundantly clear. Darkness brings death in the form of virals – infected humans that roam the country, moving like lightening and killing or turning every living thing in their path.

A small pocket of survivors live in the First Colony. Their entire survival relies on their ability to guard their high walls against the virals, and on the bright lights that protect against the night. The people living in the colony are several generations down from the original survivors, and the old world and the promise of a rescuing army have been changed into the stuff of myth and legend. Continue reading →

Classic dystopian fiction

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In a not so distant future, the world has died. Nothing grows. The supply of tinned or preserved food is almost gone. Most of the people are dead. The ones that have survived are often more dangerous that the hazardous world they live in, and armies of ruthless cannibalistic murders roam the grey and lifeless land.

The RoadIn this world, one man and his son are walking the road. Scratching for every scrap of food and often near death, they make their way towards the coast, hoping to find the survivors. The man knows they won’t survive much longer in the open, and they live in constant fear of people taking their meagre supplies in a place where a dry blanket could makethe difference between life and death.

The man’s whole reason for being lies in keeping his son, the one speck of light left in his world, alive to see another day.

We never find out the names of the man and his son. However, the fact that the book is confined to just their small sliver of the world and their experiences of the long grey road means that we get to know them intimately. It’s intense and sometimes it’s quite claustrophobic, but it’s also incredibly gripping. Continue reading →

A review of Hugh Howey’s ‘Sand’

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Having read and loved Hugh Howey’s ‘Wool’ trilogy, I was so excited to get an ARC of his new novel – Sand.

SandAs the title suggests, the protagonists live in a world where the only constant is the sand. A relentless wind buries buildings, forcing people to move on and move up on a regular basis. Carrying buckets of water away from the few surviving wells is a full time, 24 hour a day job. In such a hostile landscape, everything of value – from copper coins to clothes to metals and building materials – is sourced from below the sands, from the cities of the world below, buried far beneath the dunes.

In Springston, people carve out lives for themselves as best they can. The lucky ones live on the wall, which holds back the worst of the sands as best it can. The not so lucky ones live in the shadows of the wall, at the mercy of the shifting landscape, forced to do whatever it takes to survive. Since their father left, Palmer, Vic, Conner, Rob and their mother have been living in the only way that they can, driven by anger, hurt and a curiosity for the unknown. Continue reading →