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Does what it says on the tin.
No spoilers: Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith
First came the storms.
Then came the Fever.
And then the Wall.
A few decades in our future, the Gulf Coast Delta has been quarantined from the Outer States of America for fear of Delta Fever, which struck after a series of devastating hurricanes and which discriminates solely by blood type. In Orleans, your blood tribe is all.
I snagged this as soon as it came out and read it in three gulps. It's a thick enough book (not page count, really, but amount of action and information per page) that I needed some time, but by those last 100 pages I was flipping as fast as I could. It's really good near-future with a disease-based social sci-fi twist, and I loved it.
Fen de le Guerre is a phenomenal main character--practical, emotional, absolutely nothing unnecessary about her. Daniel, a surprise second POV character, is exactly what he is--and I as a reader spent a lot of time on Fen's side, wanting to smack him. Fen is that wonderful kind of character who immerses you in her world, to the point where Daniel--who comes from outside Orleans, who in a less well-told story would be our audience-POV character--comes off as a bumbling fool. Or, at least, naive in a well-educated and privileged way. The reader belongs to Fen, which is as it should be.
If you like well-told adventure stories that don't hold back from social-sci-fi darkness, with impeccable characterizations, and don't mind getting punched in the gut a few times, Orleans is for you. It's fantastic, thoughtful, and doesn't ever stop.
So many spoilers:
( Iron Man Three )
So, all in all, I'm doing fairly well on stories consumed today. Now I have editing to do in prep for WisCon, so that'll be interesting.
No spoilers: Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith
First came the storms.
Then came the Fever.
And then the Wall.
A few decades in our future, the Gulf Coast Delta has been quarantined from the Outer States of America for fear of Delta Fever, which struck after a series of devastating hurricanes and which discriminates solely by blood type. In Orleans, your blood tribe is all.
I snagged this as soon as it came out and read it in three gulps. It's a thick enough book (not page count, really, but amount of action and information per page) that I needed some time, but by those last 100 pages I was flipping as fast as I could. It's really good near-future with a disease-based social sci-fi twist, and I loved it.
Fen de le Guerre is a phenomenal main character--practical, emotional, absolutely nothing unnecessary about her. Daniel, a surprise second POV character, is exactly what he is--and I as a reader spent a lot of time on Fen's side, wanting to smack him. Fen is that wonderful kind of character who immerses you in her world, to the point where Daniel--who comes from outside Orleans, who in a less well-told story would be our audience-POV character--comes off as a bumbling fool. Or, at least, naive in a well-educated and privileged way. The reader belongs to Fen, which is as it should be.
If you like well-told adventure stories that don't hold back from social-sci-fi darkness, with impeccable characterizations, and don't mind getting punched in the gut a few times, Orleans is for you. It's fantastic, thoughtful, and doesn't ever stop.
So many spoilers:
( Iron Man Three )
So, all in all, I'm doing fairly well on stories consumed today. Now I have editing to do in prep for WisCon, so that'll be interesting.