Badseedgirl
4/10/2015
I listened to this audiobook as part of my YA and 12 for 12 reading challenges . I'm always surprised over the wonderful novels I knew nothing about and that WWE leads me to. This was another great find.
Picture a world where all the most dire predictions about climate change, SARS, west niles, and bird flu, and world economic collapse all occur at the same time. Now imagine an obscenely wealthy family that just so happens to also contain scientific geniuses realizes what is happening and decides to do something about it. Not for the entire world but just for themselves. Thats right, this family builds a quasi-secret compound and moves in there to ride out the world collapse so that they can emerge latter unscathed. This is how the novel starts.
The story is broken into three parts; each one the story of a subsequent generation. It turns out that among all the viruses and diseases sweeping the globe, almost all animal life has become sterile. Generation 1 decides the only answer to this problem is to clone the residents of the community. Thats right this is an "evil clone" story.......... And yet its not really. The clones produced by this first generation are not evil. They are just different from their "parents". They think and travel together and see the world differently. I don't see them as evil.
It is this concept that made me love this novel. The clones are not evil and when they become adults and start taking over positions of leadership they try to remake the community in the way that seems best to them. They are so different from the initial generation that conflict occurs, but this very well would have been the case even if they were not clones. And in the third part again another change in thinking creates new conflicts among the generations. This was handled beautifully by the author. In this aspect of the novel the Ms. Wilhelm was able to show generational conflicts with out creating a "bad guy" I felt sorry for everyone in the novel. All the characters act out of a desire to do what is best as they see it for the community.
Now my major complaint with this novel. I don't feel that all women writers need to be feminist. That is unrealistic, but the women in this novel were treated as second class citizens almost from the beginning and because this novel was written by a female and was written in 1976, I just expected more from the female characters. For God sakes for over half the novel almost anytime a woman is discussed it is because they are breeders and are treated like prize winning livestock. A group of them are even kidnapped in the end of the novel to repopulate the Earth. Think Sabine women here! The feminist in me was sickened by this aspect of the novel.
I would just like to take a moment to discuss Blackstone Audio and Anna Fields who read this work. Ms. Fields was able to bring this world to life in such a natural manner. Her speaking voice was musical and just made this novel that much better.
Overall I'm glad I read this novel. I finished it with a sense of hopefulness that is not always present in end-of-the world Post-apacalyptic novels.
I'm giving this novel a solid 4.5 out of 5 stars (the Feminist in me balked at 5 stars)