+Giveaway
Science Fiction - novel
TBR reviewer: Mark
Review
Imagine if you will a dystopian future in the style of George Orwell's 1984. A future where Governments have all but been dissolved; a future where big Corporations now control every aspect of your life and where there are no more cities but instead self-contained districts split into four distinct sectors of business. Imagine a world where the energy crisis has spiraled to the point where electricity and heating is strictly rationed and where Global Warming has
lead to much of the planet becoming uninhabitable due to adverse weather conditions. Sounds pretty bleak right? The problem is that it also all sounds pretty credible and believable! Could this be where our own future is leading? For Humanity's sake, I sure hope not!
World Mart is a bleak tale set in an all too likely future. Think not so much Bladerunner but more of a darker, more serious and less surreal version of Terry Gilliam's Brazil and you will be getting very close to the world Lane has created here. Following the life of one family as it struggles to survive in this post-modern depressingly prophetic future, World Mart is a tale that twists and turns through a series of events that overturn everything one man thinks he
knows about those in control and offers a bleak vision of a world that seems, at times, not that far away from coming true!
It is difficult to talk about this book without giving too much away, but this was a compelling read that gripped me very early on. The characters are well conceived, the plot compulsively addictive and all in all the story flowed fairly well. That is not to say this book is not without a few flaws (a plot thread concerning one character's experiences of voices in her head is never adequately explained, the Deviants who seek to threaten the big Corporations' control only seem distinctive by the fact that their eyes are a lighter shade than other peoples') but these were never enough to spoil my enjoyment. The end result is a novel that unsettles the reader simply by being very close to the truth of what could just be waiting around the horizon.
I really enjoyed this and would certainly read other material by this author. Lane apparently writes under lots of other names in several different genres but certainly from this example it seems they have a real talent for scarily believable Science-Fiction and will definitely be someone I will be looking out for in the future!
Contest
Ms. Lane is giving away a copy to one lucky winner. Comment below to enter. Contest ends January 13th.
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