Wow, this was a brutal read. It’s outstanding, and especially propulsive in the second half when in turns into a kind of road-trip-from-hell story, but Butler does not pull her punches when it comes to descriping the deprativities that humans are potentially capable of committing. It’s also prescient to a terrifying degree, a picture of an America nudged just a few degrees further from the one we’re currently experiencing, a picture of the kind of destination we’re barelling towards right now, with rampant violence, and scarcity, and distrust, and absolutely no sense of security anywhere.

There’s hope here as well—the whole upshot is that the protagonist envisages a new kind of community which could eventually spread its message to rest of the world and, ultimately, the stars—but it’s hope that’s been planted in very dry, stony ground, and that will need a lot of nurturing to flourish.

Further reading…