Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "global-warming"

Blue Gold
David Barker
Paperback: 360 pages
Publisher: Urbane Publications (June 1, 2017)
ISBN-10: 1911331655
ISBN-13: 978-1911331650
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Gold-Davi...


Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton

Blue Gold is one of those fast-paced thrillers that demand focused reader attention. That’s because there are so many moving parts including changing global settings and Barker introducing a wide cast of important characters.

Set in the not-so-distant future, as they say, this addition to the “cli-fi” (climate fiction) genre revolves around two major protagonists, British agents Sim Atkins and his partner, Freda Brightwell. Atkins is a relative rookie whom the experienced Brightwell doesn’t accept with much enthusiasm. She’s distinguished by an ornate walking stick which doesn’t discourage Sim from an ongoing study of his “boss’s” legs. Sim is doubtful this pair can accomplish what is asked of them; Freda believes just a few brave souls can do what inactive masses won’t, even preventing World War III.

Their investigations begin by looking into the projects of very sophisticated worldwide terrorists and rogue governments who destroy satellites over Iceland, blow up airships, and infiltrate the most sensitive of governmental military computers all over the world. In fact, side stories and parallel plot lines occur in England, America, Ethiopia, Egypt, Israel, India, Pakistan, Japan, Canada, and China, among other locations. All the events and back-stories in these places aren’t presented in a linear flow but do establish just how turbulent the world order has become.

Easily speculative fiction if not overtly sci fi, Blue Gold occurs in a world with acute water shortages due to global climate changes. Most of the international conflicts are responses to the growing crisis. There are also riots and terrorism based on economic inequality, especially the workers of the world unhappy about corporations not paying their fair share of taxes. The rich are leaving behind their land based citizenships to live on the sea where they owe no taxes to anyone.

Futuristic elements include a reliance on AI (artificial intelligence), hyper-sonic surveillance drones, and a moon base mining for minerals. Through it all, the author says the point of the book is to expand awareness of what might happen to our planet’s water supply if we don’t address the growing problems of global warming. In addition, the author says he is using Blue Gold to help raise awareness for the charity, WaterAid, one of the organizations he describes in one of his lengthy appendices.

I highly recommend Blue Gold to pretty much every reader who likes intelligent fiction. It can be classified, if you need labels to determine your reading list, as an espionage thriller, speculative fiction, science fiction, a mystery, sometimes a political thriller, certainly “cli-fi.” Happily, while the book has a polemic point to make, Barker doesn’t preach to us and doesn’t hit us over the head with his themes. This is an entertaining, action-packed, vividly descriptive tale with memorable characters and, sadly, a more than plausible future for us to worry about. Speaking of the future, while I wasn’t crazy about the final scene on the last page of the main text, I was delighted to see Blue Gold is the first volume of a new trilogy. In the teaser chapter for book 2, I see why Blue Gold ended the way it did. So I have two more books to look forward to.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com at:
http://dpli.ir/D18hmZ

Book Review: Carbon Run (Tales from a Warming Planet Book 1) by

Carbon Run (Tales from a Warming Planet Book 1)
Joe Follansbee
Print Length: 331 pages
Publisher: Joseph G. Follansbee / Fyddeye Media (October 20, 2017)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B075HMN6RL
https://www.amazon.com/Carbon-Tales-W...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

I’ve decided one of my favorite attributes I look for in new sci fi is the freshness or originality in the premise, settings, or characters. Whether I’m reading space opera or dystopian speculative fiction, I like to be pleasantly surprised and not feel like I’m reading yet another paint-by-numbers adventure.

Pleasantly surprised is exactly the vibe I felt delving into Carbon Run, a dystopian yarn that doesn’t follow the usual molds. As the story opens, we learn about a future after a methane “spike” that aggravated a planet already plagued with global warming. After that, crimes against the environment are what gets the guilty and innocent alike into trouble. Government agents hunt anyone who is exceeding their limits on use of resources, being excessive about leaving their carbon footprint, not properly recycling their waste or, most heinous of all, contributing to the extinction of a species. In this future, fossil fuels are banned, pirates smuggle oil, and governments erase citizens' identities.

In Carbon Run, Bill Penn becomes a criminal when he accedentily set his house on fire and the flames destroy a nearby sanctuary of an endangered species of magpies. Deputy Inspector Janine Kilel begins to hound and chase Penn feeling the law must be strictly adhered to and claims no excuse mitigates the destruction of the bird sanctuary. While Penn goes on the run, his daughter Ann is used as a pawn to track him down. At the same time, we meet former businessman and now beggar monk Martin Skribb who is justly blamed for the “spike” and has had his identity purged from all public records. Equally, if not more so, culpable is Molly Bain, a woman with a scientific past, business-minded present, and is a high-priced prostitute. She is also Penn’s former wife and the mother of Ann who abandoned her family fifteen years ago. Among the men, or creatures, enamored with her is Gore, a mutant that is part human, part tiger. (I must admit, Gore’s genetic mutation seems a bit contrived, a gratuitous character descriptor tossed in to make the book seem more sci fi than it is. Just my impression . . .)

All these characters come together in surprising ways on ships near Russia when old family dramas are more or less resolved, ecological crimes are solved, and justice, if not the strict letter of the law, is served.

Readers may be forgiven for being a tad confused about whether Carbon Run is the first or second book in the series as it’s listed at Amazon and elsewhere as Book 2 but press releases proclaim it’s book 1. Apparently, Carbon Run was preceeded by a novelette, The Mother Earth Insurgency. Two sequels are in the pipeline for 2018, City of Ice and Dreams and Restoration.

Until then, Carbon Run is certainly worth the interest of sci fi fans with a taste for futuristic, terrestrial adventures with very well-drawn characters. It’s a nice tapestry of storylines that weave together pretty much seamlessly.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Oct. 17:
http://dpli.ir/vNJIYE

Bitten
Alan Moore
Paperback: 440 pages
Publisher: Independently published (February 7, 2018)
ISBN-10: 1980200890
ISBN-13: 978-1980200895
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

Bitten is one of those novels that’s very difficult to try to pigeonhole. Yes, it’s dystopian in that it’s set in the future when the consequences of global warming are affecting the earth. But much of the story has absolutely nothing to do with any normal science fiction trope. True, many passages can be best classified as horror. Others are best defined as belonging to the thriller genre. In short, many of the plot lines take us to places and down roads no reader could predict. I think that’s a good thing.

One major character is ecologist Claudia Mattioli, one of the world’s most important experts on mosquitoes. That’s a key role to play as climate change has produced a horrifying increase in the size and potency of all species of mosquitoes. Bearing all manner of deadly and incapacitating diseases, they’re attacking humans and animals in swarms that are eating up flesh in major cities all over Italy. At first, Claudia’s job is to gather samples of the types of mosquitoes in various regions before she’s asked to come up with a plan to eradicate them. Problem: Claudia doesn’t think humans should declare war on mosquitoes but rather find a way to live with them.

Claudia’s much older lover is New York publisher and editor Scott Lee who wants to make a deal to produce high-quality art books of Italian painters. As author Moore spent twenty-five years as a publisher and considering many of the pleasures Lee enjoys in Bitten, it’s hard not to wonder if Lee’s experiences are a bit of wish-fulfillment for his creator. Whatever the case, Lee is on hand with Claudia threw a series of shocking adventures, including a human-set fire that destroys much of Venice. That’s before Lee is tempted to go over to the dark side by the alluring femme fatale, Francesca Maruichi.

A third important player is Lee’s friend, Lawrence Spencer, an Italian intelligence officer using the cover of being an art expert. He’s called on by the Mafia in Florence to certify whether or not a certain painting reputedly by Raphael is genuine or not. After all, the criminals are very familiar with the black market, arms smuggling, sales of plutonium to Iran, but not art reportedly stolen in World War II by the Russians. An ongoing mystery involves those who have the painting wanting to set up a silent auction without anyone actually seeing the merchandise before the stolen art is stolen again.

So what has all this intrigue in the art world have to do with climate change and the theme Moore tells us is the important purpose of his book, that of demonstrating how nature will have revenge on humanity in response to thousands of years of poor stewardship of the planet? Are mosquito swarms but the opening shots of Mother Nature giving humanity fair warning of what she can do?

I can’t answer that. I can say I was continually kept interested in the various plot twists and turns because of the engaging, well-sketched characters, the vividly described settings, and the surprises at the end of many of the passages. That sometimes-kinky wish fulfillment Scott, Claudia, and Francesca enjoy is a bonus for, at least, male readers until the kinkiness goes a bit over the edge. One genre Bitten doesn’t fit in is YA.

In addition, Moore adds verisimilitude with an obvious familiarity with colorful Italian cities, the process of authenticating Renaissance paintings, and gives his science credibility by occasionally referring us to the two non-fiction appendices at the end. Bitten is a book for readers who like the unexpected and who don’t need their stories defined by a particular genre. It’s a page-turner with Moore keeping reader interest with a fast pace and all the ingredients spelled out above.


This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on March 1, 2018:
https://waa.ai/zp53