Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "apocolyptic-fiction"

Machine Sickness: Eupocalypse Book 1
Peri Dwyer Worrell
Publication Date: August 8, 2017
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
ASIN: B074P2PM9J
https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Sickne...

Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton

While Peri Dwyer Worrell's Eupocalypse Trilogy came out years before the Covid-19 plague, it's now impossible, for me, to read any apocalyptic tales without thinking how reality has changed the landscape for speculative, futuristic fiction. As I write that sort of stuff myself, I know reality has forever made it difficult not to compare what has actually happened with all the imaginative possibilities writers have been publishing for years and years.

Not that there are a lot of similarities between the Covid virus and the illness it inflicts on humanity and the artificially-engineered microbe Worrell imagines. While the microbe was intended to clean up ocean oil spills, the microbe gets out of hand and starts to spread planet-wide. It destroies anything with petroleum-based polymers. That includes anything plastic from shoe soles to wiring to asphalt-- leading to an international inability to communicate using modern technology or have working transportation; virtually every aspect of life is stripped to the barest of essentials.

The scientist who created the virus, the book's main character, is suspected of being a terrorist and is imprisoned before she can escape and find her way to one of the remote supposedly safe havens humans create to retain some remains of civilization. But as nearly every story of an apocalypse on earth has illustrated before, humanity would most likely revert to savage barbarism. Most likely, men would impose their will on women, roaming militia-style groups would take what they want from whomever has items or desirable goods, and people would probably congregate in small, well-guarded sanctuaries while they invent and create new ways to build new transportation machines, grow crops, and manufacture nearly anything and everything in new ways.

All of this, from the beginnings of the plague to the first responses to it to what evolves internationally is demonstrated in an increasingly wider and wider cast of characters who are vividly described, beginning with the tale's main protagonist, DD, the creator of the microbe. We see how people interact to the most basic of functions, like child-birth, and witness humanity break down into small entities based on the motives and needs of populations mostly in America and Africa. It's a panorama that expands and gets more involved to the point its obvious the story can't be contained in one volume. No, it's a trilogy with the sequels, Watch It Burn and Catallaxis already available for your reading pleasure. And mine.

Machine Sickness clearly falls into the "hard science" sub-genre of science-fiction, and is consequently frighteningly believable. The well-drawn characters are also believable, sometimes alluring, sometimes chilling. Because of the graphic violence and occasional sexuality, most older readers would view this book as not for young adults but, folks, times change. What you think young adults can handle these days has changed so much in recent years. Especially now with all of us learning what a pandemic can mean in every aspect of our lives. Strange to say a fictional apocalypse can be such an entertaining diversion from the world outside our individual quarantine zones. If I wasn't clear before, yes, I strongly recommend this book. Very good stuff very well told.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on April 11, 2020 at:

https://waa.ai/TLIE

I can now share a direct link--more or less--to my April 11 online radio interview on Chat and Spin radio. After you click on the link below, I appear at the hour and 22 minute mark in the show. It's about 7 minutes long and the first seconds have us sharing some technical difficulties--so please be a tad patient. I'm on after the show host takes some time to plug the show's GoFundMe page.

https://www.mixcloud.com/ian-johnson2...