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Project Earth #1
Wilders
Coryn Williams is left behind in the megacity of Seacouver after her parents commit suicide and her sister, Lou, flees the city to work for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the wild lands. For company, Coryn has her companion robot, Paula, who helps her get through school, keeps her safe in the city, and acts a coach for her in many things -- including running marathons. But Coryn misses her sister. When she graduates from high school, she is required to choose a profession. She refuses, instead choosing to “go feral” and leave the safety of her city to find Lou. She abandons most of her technology, which will not work in the wilds anyway, but brings along her robot companion, Paula.
Wilders explores the relationship between the two sisters, between the megacites and the wild lands, and between a city girl and her robot protector. Coryn must grow up during a science fictional adventure full of drone flights and fights, frightening ecobots, and dangerous weather.
Wilders explores the relationship between the two sisters, between the megacites and the wild lands, and between a city girl and her robot protector. Coryn must grow up during a science fictional adventure full of drone flights and fights, frightening ecobots, and dangerous weather.
350 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2017
22 people are currently reading
661 people want to read
About the author
Brenda Cooper
124 books146 followersBrenda Cooper writes science fiction,fantasy, and poetry.
Brenda's most recent novels are EDGE of DARK and SPEAR OF LIGHT from Pyr and POST from ESpec Books. Edge of Dark won the 2016 Endeavour Award for a notable science fiction or fantasy novel by a Northwest author.
Other recent novels include the duology THE CREATIVE FIRE and THE DIAMOND DEEP, also from Pyr.
Brenda released two collections in 2015. Her all science fiction CRACKING THE SKY came out from Fairwood Press and her all-fantasy ebook collection BEYOND THE WATERFALL DOOR was created through a six-author Kickstarter project.
Brenda is the author of the Endeavor award winner for 2008: THE SILVER SHIP AND THE SEA, and of two sequels, READING THE WIND and WINGS OF CREATION. She has written a novel with Larry Niven, called BUILDING HARLEQUIN's MOON, and a solo stand-alone novel, MAYAN DECEMBER. She has numerous stories that have published in a variety of magazines, from Nature to Asimov's. Many of her stories have been selected for Year's Best anthologies.
By day, Brenda is the City of Kirkland’s CIO, and at night and in early morning hours, she’s a futurist and writer. She lives in the pacific northwest o the United States of America.
Brenda's most recent novels are EDGE of DARK and SPEAR OF LIGHT from Pyr and POST from ESpec Books. Edge of Dark won the 2016 Endeavour Award for a notable science fiction or fantasy novel by a Northwest author.
Other recent novels include the duology THE CREATIVE FIRE and THE DIAMOND DEEP, also from Pyr.
Brenda released two collections in 2015. Her all science fiction CRACKING THE SKY came out from Fairwood Press and her all-fantasy ebook collection BEYOND THE WATERFALL DOOR was created through a six-author Kickstarter project.
Brenda is the author of the Endeavor award winner for 2008: THE SILVER SHIP AND THE SEA, and of two sequels, READING THE WIND and WINGS OF CREATION. She has written a novel with Larry Niven, called BUILDING HARLEQUIN's MOON, and a solo stand-alone novel, MAYAN DECEMBER. She has numerous stories that have published in a variety of magazines, from Nature to Asimov's. Many of her stories have been selected for Year's Best anthologies.
By day, Brenda is the City of Kirkland’s CIO, and at night and in early morning hours, she’s a futurist and writer. She lives in the pacific northwest o the United States of America.
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July 20, 2017
3 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2017/07/20/...
Brenda Cooper is taking a new direction in her new book Wilders, switching from space operas to look at a world in a future where human expansion and environmental change has shaped the face of the planet in dramatic ways.
The story takes place in the Pacific Northwest, in the megacity of Seacouver. Established after the merging of Seattle and Vancouver, the place is a shining example of progress and modernity: every citizen is connected to a greater network that takes care of their every need. And yet, not everyone is happy in this high-tech environment where everything is clean, controlled, and carefully ordered. Our protagonist is Coryn Williams, who loves living in Seacouver, but the same cannot be said for the rest of her family. Unable to take the pressures of the city anymore, her parents commit suicide, leaving behind Coryn and her older sister Lou.
Lou, however, is also miserable in Seacouver. At eighteen, she has reached the age where she can choose an occupation after graduating high school, but instead, she decides to leave to work in the wild lands, the unincorporated zones outside the city limits. Coryn is still fifteen, so she is left behind to finish her studies, with only her robot Paula for companionship. For the next three years, she receives regular updates from Lou, who writes about her idyllic life as a ranger working to restore the devastated ecosystem for a non-government organization. Charmed by these wonderful accounts of the wild beyond, when Coryn turns eighteen she also decides to leave the safety of the city with Paula to go reunite with Lou, only to discover that her sister might not have been entirely truthful with her descriptions.
I knew from some of the common themes in Cooper’s previous books that she was very passionate about environmental issues, and she’s brought them to the forefront here in Wilders, a story that speculates how humanity would live after the planet has gone through ecological degradation. Thus, it was with no surprise when I found that the messages in this novel—well-intentioned as they are— were delivered with the approximate delicacy of an orbital strike. That said, the narrative is completely upfront with this, as early as the prologue, so I have to give credit where credit is due. Even before the story started in earnest, I knew exactly what I was going to be in for, and because of that, I was able to overlook most of its weaknesses resulting from the author’s not-so-subtle messages, though admittedly it was a struggle sometimes.
One area I thought the book excelled in was character development. Coryn was a great protagonist, and I thought the story captured her personality and thought processes very well. Having grown up in the city with an appreciation for it not shared by her sister or most of the other characters in this novel, she also gave us a unique point of view. And while it may be true that she’s a city girl needing to overcome her naïve ways to learn about survival in the wild lands, it surprised me how frequently she ended up being the voice of reason. When Lou goes overboard in her romanticizing of nature, for example, or when the Wilders put down the life in the city unfairly, Coryn is often there to slap the truth and reality back into picture. Despite being childishly foolish and having her priorities confused at times, I thought Coryn was an independent and determined character, and as an outsider among the lawlessness of the wildlands, she did a good job holding her own.
In terms of criticisms though, I felt there was an overall “sparseness” to the world of Wilders that prevented the concept of the megacity and its surrounding wilderness from being fully realized. With Coryn being an exception, all of the others characters were painted in very broad strokes and given overly simplistic explanations for their motivations and actions. Furthermore, serious topics like suicide were diminished, such as when no other reason is given for Coryn’s parents’ suicides beyond simply that “they hated the city”, and most of what life is like in Seacouver was told to us instead of shown. There also seemed to be an “all or nothing” division to it, i.e. people in the city either suffered or thrived with no in between. At first I thought there might have been an underlying reason for this that author would reveal in due course, but nope. The Wilders also had a similar weird dichotomy in their attitudes, i.e. if you’re not on their side, then you’re an animal-murdering, planet-hating, city-slicking dirtbag.
For all the book’s flaws though, the story was entertaining, with frequent bursts of action to drive the pacing. Wilders won’t be for everyone, but some parts did work for me, especially some of the more intriguing ideas about futuristic smart cities and ecological reconstruction. I also have a good feeling that any weak points will be beefed up in the sequel, so for now consider me interested and optimistic about the next book of the Project Earth duology.
Brenda Cooper is taking a new direction in her new book Wilders, switching from space operas to look at a world in a future where human expansion and environmental change has shaped the face of the planet in dramatic ways.
The story takes place in the Pacific Northwest, in the megacity of Seacouver. Established after the merging of Seattle and Vancouver, the place is a shining example of progress and modernity: every citizen is connected to a greater network that takes care of their every need. And yet, not everyone is happy in this high-tech environment where everything is clean, controlled, and carefully ordered. Our protagonist is Coryn Williams, who loves living in Seacouver, but the same cannot be said for the rest of her family. Unable to take the pressures of the city anymore, her parents commit suicide, leaving behind Coryn and her older sister Lou.
Lou, however, is also miserable in Seacouver. At eighteen, she has reached the age where she can choose an occupation after graduating high school, but instead, she decides to leave to work in the wild lands, the unincorporated zones outside the city limits. Coryn is still fifteen, so she is left behind to finish her studies, with only her robot Paula for companionship. For the next three years, she receives regular updates from Lou, who writes about her idyllic life as a ranger working to restore the devastated ecosystem for a non-government organization. Charmed by these wonderful accounts of the wild beyond, when Coryn turns eighteen she also decides to leave the safety of the city with Paula to go reunite with Lou, only to discover that her sister might not have been entirely truthful with her descriptions.
I knew from some of the common themes in Cooper’s previous books that she was very passionate about environmental issues, and she’s brought them to the forefront here in Wilders, a story that speculates how humanity would live after the planet has gone through ecological degradation. Thus, it was with no surprise when I found that the messages in this novel—well-intentioned as they are— were delivered with the approximate delicacy of an orbital strike. That said, the narrative is completely upfront with this, as early as the prologue, so I have to give credit where credit is due. Even before the story started in earnest, I knew exactly what I was going to be in for, and because of that, I was able to overlook most of its weaknesses resulting from the author’s not-so-subtle messages, though admittedly it was a struggle sometimes.
One area I thought the book excelled in was character development. Coryn was a great protagonist, and I thought the story captured her personality and thought processes very well. Having grown up in the city with an appreciation for it not shared by her sister or most of the other characters in this novel, she also gave us a unique point of view. And while it may be true that she’s a city girl needing to overcome her naïve ways to learn about survival in the wild lands, it surprised me how frequently she ended up being the voice of reason. When Lou goes overboard in her romanticizing of nature, for example, or when the Wilders put down the life in the city unfairly, Coryn is often there to slap the truth and reality back into picture. Despite being childishly foolish and having her priorities confused at times, I thought Coryn was an independent and determined character, and as an outsider among the lawlessness of the wildlands, she did a good job holding her own.
In terms of criticisms though, I felt there was an overall “sparseness” to the world of Wilders that prevented the concept of the megacity and its surrounding wilderness from being fully realized. With Coryn being an exception, all of the others characters were painted in very broad strokes and given overly simplistic explanations for their motivations and actions. Furthermore, serious topics like suicide were diminished, such as when no other reason is given for Coryn’s parents’ suicides beyond simply that “they hated the city”, and most of what life is like in Seacouver was told to us instead of shown. There also seemed to be an “all or nothing” division to it, i.e. people in the city either suffered or thrived with no in between. At first I thought there might have been an underlying reason for this that author would reveal in due course, but nope. The Wilders also had a similar weird dichotomy in their attitudes, i.e. if you’re not on their side, then you’re an animal-murdering, planet-hating, city-slicking dirtbag.
For all the book’s flaws though, the story was entertaining, with frequent bursts of action to drive the pacing. Wilders won’t be for everyone, but some parts did work for me, especially some of the more intriguing ideas about futuristic smart cities and ecological reconstruction. I also have a good feeling that any weak points will be beefed up in the sequel, so for now consider me interested and optimistic about the next book of the Project Earth duology.
June 19, 2017
Trigger warning: suicide
Reading Wilders was a struggle from the get go. It took me three weeks to finish. I haven’t had this much difficulty forcing myself to finish something since my senior English class read Faulkner. I may take Faulkner over Wilders.
The future is divided between the cities and the unincorporated land outside them, intended to be restored to nature and wilderness. Coryn Williams lives in the megacity of Seacouver but is left orphaned after her parents double suicide. Her sister Lou leaves her behind to become a ranger, working for an NGO on the outside. On her eighteenth birthday, Coryn is determined to reunite with Lou… so she ventures outside her city, accompanied only by her robot Paula.
I don’t know where to start with Wilders. It’s just got so many problems. I kept trying to think of something positive to say about it and coming up blank. I did eventually hit on one positive: Wilders is well intentioned. It drips with earnestness. Brenda Cooper clearly cares about the ecology and the environment. However, the author’s sincerity was not enough to make Wilders readable.
Wilders starts with a completely unnecessary two page long info dump about the setting. Honestly, that was the first sign I wasn’t going to like this book. Then Wilders starts up the actual storyline about Coryn. This leads me to something that bugged me throughout the entire book.
How the heck is it the city’s fault that Coryn’s parents killed themselves? The narrative keeps asserting that her parents killed themselves because they hated living in the city so much. Here’s the thing. They weren’t trapped in the city. Coryn literally just walks out when she decides to go find Lou. So if they didn’t like living in the city… couldn’t they just leave? From what I can tell, her parents didn’t die “because of the city.” They died because they had mental health issues that I see no way the city was responsible for. This future involves some sort of universal healthcare that appears to be much better than whatever America currently has. Coryn mentions going to the doctor whenever she needs to, not worrying about it. She also mentions her mom was on anti-depressants, so she was getting at least some sort of treatment for her depression. So from everything I can tell, her parents were getting health care coverage and treatment (from the city FYI), so it’s not the fault of the medical system that they killed themselves. The explanation implied by Wilders is that her parents killed themselves because they hated living in the city since “the city’s soulness not like nature” or something along those lines.
I just… this entire backstory makes me so angry. I really don’t like the whole “it’s the city’s fault” line of thought. For one, the city erases many of the social ills our country currently struggle with. Coryn’s family had a guaranteed basic income, housing, and healthcare. That’s more than can be said for many families right now. Secondly, a walk in the woods isn’t going to cure depression. As someone who has been depressed, trust me when I say that reconnecting with nature isn’t going to magically fix your brain attacking itself. I found the plot point of Coryn’s parents suicide incredibly frustrating and to be trivializing mental health issues.
Of course, all of that happens within the first twenty pages or so. There’s still the rest of the book. Coryn’s fifteen when her parents kill themselves, but she’s eighteen for the majority of the book. Unfortunately, she reads more like twelve. I don’t expect eighteen year old protagonists to be completely mature, but I do expect a degree of common sense. Coryn doesn’t tell Lou she’s coming to live with her. She just walks into a completely unknown, potentially dangerous situation. I kept thinking that she was spoiled and bratty. Logically, I know that she lived in an orphanage for three years after her parents killed themselves, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Coryn as “spoiled.” On the bright side, at least I got the impression of a character trait? The cast as a whole was completely cardboard and two dimensional. The characters were little more than names on the page.
There was an attempt at a romance subplot. I would have been annoyed about it, but it was mostly just so bland and half baked that it never even got on my nerves. Truthfully, it was the least of this book’s problems.
For instance, I am still not sure what was going on with the plot. Eco-terrorists are definitely involved, but I haven’t figured out whether or not Lou was one? Lou and some of her ranger friends were planning something, but I am confused as to what they were trying to do. It must have been more than just a protest. Lou and some of the other characters felt sort of like those extreme animal rights people who think anyone who’s not a vegan is a murderer. At one point she calls species extinction “genocide,” although thankfully Coryn comments that the word choice seems a bit extreme. No duh. As terrible as killing polar bears is, it’s extremely offensive to compare it to the Holocaust.
It took me three weeks to finish reading Wilders, and I lost track of how many other books I started and finished during that time. The world building, the characters, the plot… in all regards Wilders was unsatisfying. It’s not a book I would ever recommend.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
Reading Wilders was a struggle from the get go. It took me three weeks to finish. I haven’t had this much difficulty forcing myself to finish something since my senior English class read Faulkner. I may take Faulkner over Wilders.
The future is divided between the cities and the unincorporated land outside them, intended to be restored to nature and wilderness. Coryn Williams lives in the megacity of Seacouver but is left orphaned after her parents double suicide. Her sister Lou leaves her behind to become a ranger, working for an NGO on the outside. On her eighteenth birthday, Coryn is determined to reunite with Lou… so she ventures outside her city, accompanied only by her robot Paula.
I don’t know where to start with Wilders. It’s just got so many problems. I kept trying to think of something positive to say about it and coming up blank. I did eventually hit on one positive: Wilders is well intentioned. It drips with earnestness. Brenda Cooper clearly cares about the ecology and the environment. However, the author’s sincerity was not enough to make Wilders readable.
Wilders starts with a completely unnecessary two page long info dump about the setting. Honestly, that was the first sign I wasn’t going to like this book. Then Wilders starts up the actual storyline about Coryn. This leads me to something that bugged me throughout the entire book.
How the heck is it the city’s fault that Coryn’s parents killed themselves? The narrative keeps asserting that her parents killed themselves because they hated living in the city so much. Here’s the thing. They weren’t trapped in the city. Coryn literally just walks out when she decides to go find Lou. So if they didn’t like living in the city… couldn’t they just leave? From what I can tell, her parents didn’t die “because of the city.” They died because they had mental health issues that I see no way the city was responsible for. This future involves some sort of universal healthcare that appears to be much better than whatever America currently has. Coryn mentions going to the doctor whenever she needs to, not worrying about it. She also mentions her mom was on anti-depressants, so she was getting at least some sort of treatment for her depression. So from everything I can tell, her parents were getting health care coverage and treatment (from the city FYI), so it’s not the fault of the medical system that they killed themselves. The explanation implied by Wilders is that her parents killed themselves because they hated living in the city since “the city’s soulness not like nature” or something along those lines.
I just… this entire backstory makes me so angry. I really don’t like the whole “it’s the city’s fault” line of thought. For one, the city erases many of the social ills our country currently struggle with. Coryn’s family had a guaranteed basic income, housing, and healthcare. That’s more than can be said for many families right now. Secondly, a walk in the woods isn’t going to cure depression. As someone who has been depressed, trust me when I say that reconnecting with nature isn’t going to magically fix your brain attacking itself. I found the plot point of Coryn’s parents suicide incredibly frustrating and to be trivializing mental health issues.
Of course, all of that happens within the first twenty pages or so. There’s still the rest of the book. Coryn’s fifteen when her parents kill themselves, but she’s eighteen for the majority of the book. Unfortunately, she reads more like twelve. I don’t expect eighteen year old protagonists to be completely mature, but I do expect a degree of common sense. Coryn doesn’t tell Lou she’s coming to live with her. She just walks into a completely unknown, potentially dangerous situation. I kept thinking that she was spoiled and bratty. Logically, I know that she lived in an orphanage for three years after her parents killed themselves, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Coryn as “spoiled.” On the bright side, at least I got the impression of a character trait? The cast as a whole was completely cardboard and two dimensional. The characters were little more than names on the page.
There was an attempt at a romance subplot. I would have been annoyed about it, but it was mostly just so bland and half baked that it never even got on my nerves. Truthfully, it was the least of this book’s problems.
For instance, I am still not sure what was going on with the plot. Eco-terrorists are definitely involved, but I haven’t figured out whether or not Lou was one? Lou and some of her ranger friends were planning something, but I am confused as to what they were trying to do. It must have been more than just a protest. Lou and some of the other characters felt sort of like those extreme animal rights people who think anyone who’s not a vegan is a murderer. At one point she calls species extinction “genocide,” although thankfully Coryn comments that the word choice seems a bit extreme. No duh. As terrible as killing polar bears is, it’s extremely offensive to compare it to the Holocaust.
It took me three weeks to finish reading Wilders, and I lost track of how many other books I started and finished during that time. The world building, the characters, the plot… in all regards Wilders was unsatisfying. It’s not a book I would ever recommend.
Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.
I received an ARC in exchange for a free and honest review.
November 3, 2017
2 stars--meh.
I liked the idea behind this book, and it's clear Cooper cares a lot for the environment. Her passion comes through. But that's not enough to be a good book; I found a lot of grammar errors, a muddled plot, and a lack of characterization. I just couldn't get into this book.
I liked the idea behind this book, and it's clear Cooper cares a lot for the environment. Her passion comes through. But that's not enough to be a good book; I found a lot of grammar errors, a muddled plot, and a lack of characterization. I just couldn't get into this book.
August 1, 2017
[This was also published at my website, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography.]
To be fair, the premise behind Brenda Cooper's new series-starting science-fiction novel Wilders is legitimately pretty great; namely, in a post-ecological-crisis future, the power of nations has fallen apart to be replaced by a return to autonomous city-states, leading to a series of domed socialist paradises comprising former metropolitan areas (our story takes place in "Seacouver," which stretches from Seattle to Vancouver and has scooped up all the smaller cities that laid between), where crime and poverty have been conquered through an army of robots and a pervasive surveillance state.
Now these autonomous regions have started venturing back out into rural areas in order to "rewild" them (that is, to remove all the former manmade structures like highways and small towns, leading to a new continental utopia of unspoiled nature dotted here and there by billion-person cities), just to discover that there are way more Tea Party climate-deniers still living out in those areas than they had ever thought, and that they're mighty pissed about the city-slicker libtards abandoning them when everything first went to hell.
Unfortunately, though, the problems with the actual novel itself start early and don't let up. For example, although not a direct ripoff of The Hunger Games, the book's details and overall tone are "Hunger-Gamesish" enough that it will make some readers uncomfortable; the pacing leaves a lot to be desired, with the too-few interesting developments surrounded by literally dozens of pages of filler conversations and meandering rides across the countryside, forgivable if they had led to a deeper understanding of the characters but increasingly intolerable as simple page-count-filling cotton candy (the closer to the end of the book you get, the more you'll find yourself skimming through entire chapters); and the book suffers from "Franchise Building Syndrome" too much as well, very nakedly inserting entire subplots and groups of characters that are quite obviously not going to play a serious role until book 2 or 3, making the book often feel like one of those minor superhero movies that exists only to introduce situations that will eventually play out in the "cinematic universe" team-up blockbuster four years from now.
The most serious crime this book commits, though, is of being a Young Adult novel being marketed as a book for grown-ups; and as regular readers know, CCLaP has sort of taken this on as a political cause in the last couple of years, the fight against the continual infantilization of the American arts that's been happening more and more since the original rise of Harry Potter, including our new policy of no longer accepting books for review at all when the main character is under 18 and the storyline deals mostly with coming-of-age issues. I went ahead and accepted Wilders because it skates just above that cutoff line -- our hero Coryn is officially college-aged in the book, and the marketing material promised that the story would go in dark, adults-only directions as it continued, which combined with publisher Pyr's good reputation made me optimistic.
Unfortunately, though, Cooper sabotages herself by often characterizing the non-minor Coryn not just in Young Adult terms but sometimes even younger than that; the author literally describes the character as someone who "giggles at dogs," thinks she shares a mystical connection with the horse that's been assigned to her out in the wild, and who has a running habit of responding every time her "nanny robot" is being overprotective with a childish pout while muttering, "Silly robot!" These kinds of narrative details may pass by a 12-year-old girl without her making particular note of it; but as a 48-year-old male who's exclusively interested in grown-up science-fiction designed deliberately for adults, such flourishes stuck out like a sore thumb, driving me more and more crazy the more I encountered them, and I have to admit that it's because of this issue alone that I won't be reading any of the other books in this series.
Although its heart is in the right place, I found Wilders only fair to middling, the kind of SF book that only hardcore convention-goers will be able to love. For those people it comes recommended today with reservations; for those looking for only the best in this genre, though, you should skip this entire series altogether.
Out of 10: 7.1
To be fair, the premise behind Brenda Cooper's new series-starting science-fiction novel Wilders is legitimately pretty great; namely, in a post-ecological-crisis future, the power of nations has fallen apart to be replaced by a return to autonomous city-states, leading to a series of domed socialist paradises comprising former metropolitan areas (our story takes place in "Seacouver," which stretches from Seattle to Vancouver and has scooped up all the smaller cities that laid between), where crime and poverty have been conquered through an army of robots and a pervasive surveillance state.
Now these autonomous regions have started venturing back out into rural areas in order to "rewild" them (that is, to remove all the former manmade structures like highways and small towns, leading to a new continental utopia of unspoiled nature dotted here and there by billion-person cities), just to discover that there are way more Tea Party climate-deniers still living out in those areas than they had ever thought, and that they're mighty pissed about the city-slicker libtards abandoning them when everything first went to hell.
Unfortunately, though, the problems with the actual novel itself start early and don't let up. For example, although not a direct ripoff of The Hunger Games, the book's details and overall tone are "Hunger-Gamesish" enough that it will make some readers uncomfortable; the pacing leaves a lot to be desired, with the too-few interesting developments surrounded by literally dozens of pages of filler conversations and meandering rides across the countryside, forgivable if they had led to a deeper understanding of the characters but increasingly intolerable as simple page-count-filling cotton candy (the closer to the end of the book you get, the more you'll find yourself skimming through entire chapters); and the book suffers from "Franchise Building Syndrome" too much as well, very nakedly inserting entire subplots and groups of characters that are quite obviously not going to play a serious role until book 2 or 3, making the book often feel like one of those minor superhero movies that exists only to introduce situations that will eventually play out in the "cinematic universe" team-up blockbuster four years from now.
The most serious crime this book commits, though, is of being a Young Adult novel being marketed as a book for grown-ups; and as regular readers know, CCLaP has sort of taken this on as a political cause in the last couple of years, the fight against the continual infantilization of the American arts that's been happening more and more since the original rise of Harry Potter, including our new policy of no longer accepting books for review at all when the main character is under 18 and the storyline deals mostly with coming-of-age issues. I went ahead and accepted Wilders because it skates just above that cutoff line -- our hero Coryn is officially college-aged in the book, and the marketing material promised that the story would go in dark, adults-only directions as it continued, which combined with publisher Pyr's good reputation made me optimistic.
Unfortunately, though, Cooper sabotages herself by often characterizing the non-minor Coryn not just in Young Adult terms but sometimes even younger than that; the author literally describes the character as someone who "giggles at dogs," thinks she shares a mystical connection with the horse that's been assigned to her out in the wild, and who has a running habit of responding every time her "nanny robot" is being overprotective with a childish pout while muttering, "Silly robot!" These kinds of narrative details may pass by a 12-year-old girl without her making particular note of it; but as a 48-year-old male who's exclusively interested in grown-up science-fiction designed deliberately for adults, such flourishes stuck out like a sore thumb, driving me more and more crazy the more I encountered them, and I have to admit that it's because of this issue alone that I won't be reading any of the other books in this series.
Although its heart is in the right place, I found Wilders only fair to middling, the kind of SF book that only hardcore convention-goers will be able to love. For those people it comes recommended today with reservations; for those looking for only the best in this genre, though, you should skip this entire series altogether.
Out of 10: 7.1
July 21, 2017
An interesting near-ish future set in the Northwest after a semi-collapse. Not one of the author's better books, and yet still good. There was something odd about the pacing in which the latter half of the book dragged. But the ideas were good enough to push on through, and some of the characters as well. What I would call a young adult book, in that it's pov character is 17 or 18 or so throughout this. Definitely some amount of violence, but a lot more running and bike riding and horseback riding. I would have thought this would have been a standalone, I'm curious to see where the author goes with it. 3.5 of 5.
April 29, 2017
I found the writing to be very dry, slow and uninteresting. The characters were flat, each character was interchangeable, one might as well have just been another. The writing was awkward and very difficult to read. I had to struggle to force myself to read this. 1 star.
I got this as an uncorrected ARC.
I got this as an uncorrected ARC.
xx-dnf-skim-reference
January 4, 2022January 2022, dnf p. 91
Not engaging. Too long. Too contrived... like, the character is incredibly naïve, so it's easy for the author to teach her things and thereby disguise the info-dumps. World-building just isn't actually making sense.
And to think it's only book one of a series, well, no, I'm not interested in that kind of commitment atm.
Not engaging. Too long. Too contrived... like, the character is incredibly naïve, so it's easy for the author to teach her things and thereby disguise the info-dumps. World-building just isn't actually making sense.
And to think it's only book one of a series, well, no, I'm not interested in that kind of commitment atm.
February 20, 2025
I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this book? It's not bad. I think the premise is solid, the world is interesting, but the conflict is muddy. Which is probably intentional, but I think the lack of truly compelling lead made that difficult to appreciate. Coryn is definitely a character that stuff happens to more than anything else- she feels like she has very little agency up until near the very end of the book. Almost every side character is more interesting or vibrant than she is. Including the robot companion. Also the bits about Paula (said robot companion) were not resolved really? There's this continuous thing about how Coryn is attached to Paula as though Paula were human, and it felt like the book was trying to say something about that and then just...kind of doesn't? Actually that's how it felt with a lot of its messages. Trying to say something but not quite getting there. I don't think I'll read the rest of the series though.
June 30, 2017
I make it a point to always finish a book, I think there's only ever been one that I just couldn't muster the verve to complete. Usually this works out for me, either in that it all turns around and I end up being surprised, or that it's so terrible I hop on here and review it to vent my rage.
Luckily Wilders doesn't fall in to the latter category. Unfortunately it doesn't fall in to the former either.
I'm not quite sure what it was all about, there's some suicide, soul searching, trying to re-build the planet back up after we deplete it, megacities, and lots and lots of biking. Lots. Like, all the damn time, all over the place, all over bridges and walls and trees and AR, and fairies and a dog? The endless biking descriptions I found tedious in case that wasn't clear.
The characters to me were flat and not very well thought out. The main character is Coryn and we follow her as she leaves the safety of Seacouver (mega city) to hunt down her sister who left a while ago to help with that whole re-build the planet thing. Coryn bugged me, her attitude, her thoughts, her damn giggling at the weirdest parts of the story. Her jealousy, her obnoxiousness, single mindedness on "family" that seems really important to her but I couldn't find it in myself to give a hoot about, and her switcharoo notice of things. So, I didn't like the main character.
I won't go on about her sister, Lou, her romantic interest, Blessing, or that damn Aspen. And I won't even mention Paula.
So what exactly was good? The IDEA of the story. There were about 30 pages there where it shone through and I could see what the author wanted to say. I could feel her passion about the planet, the message she wanted everyone to hear. And then I lost it. And to be honest it looks like the editor did too because after about page 210 the errors and grammer drops just about did me in.
So, in short (if you've read this far) if you are a 16 year old, self centered and absorbed OCD vegan Eco-terrorist who LOVES biking-good news! I found a book for you.
If you are anyone else, you can go ahead and give this one a pass.
Luckily Wilders doesn't fall in to the latter category. Unfortunately it doesn't fall in to the former either.
I'm not quite sure what it was all about, there's some suicide, soul searching, trying to re-build the planet back up after we deplete it, megacities, and lots and lots of biking. Lots. Like, all the damn time, all over the place, all over bridges and walls and trees and AR, and fairies and a dog? The endless biking descriptions I found tedious in case that wasn't clear.
The characters to me were flat and not very well thought out. The main character is Coryn and we follow her as she leaves the safety of Seacouver (mega city) to hunt down her sister who left a while ago to help with that whole re-build the planet thing. Coryn bugged me, her attitude, her thoughts, her damn giggling at the weirdest parts of the story. Her jealousy, her obnoxiousness, single mindedness on "family" that seems really important to her but I couldn't find it in myself to give a hoot about, and her switcharoo notice of things. So, I didn't like the main character.
I won't go on about her sister, Lou, her romantic interest, Blessing, or that damn Aspen. And I won't even mention Paula.
So what exactly was good? The IDEA of the story. There were about 30 pages there where it shone through and I could see what the author wanted to say. I could feel her passion about the planet, the message she wanted everyone to hear. And then I lost it. And to be honest it looks like the editor did too because after about page 210 the errors and grammer drops just about did me in.
So, in short (if you've read this far) if you are a 16 year old, self centered and absorbed OCD vegan Eco-terrorist who LOVES biking-good news! I found a book for you.
If you are anyone else, you can go ahead and give this one a pass.
June 19, 2017
Wilders by Brenda Cooper is a highly recommended coming-of-age dystopian science fiction novel.
In the near future cities have expanded to megacities that take care of most of the populations every need. The land outside the cities is set aside for wilding, or returning it to a natural state, sans humans with the exception of those hired in the capacity to assist returning nature to a natural balance. Coryn Williams and her sister Lou grew up in Seacouver, a merging of Seattle and Vancouver. After their parents' suicides, Lou was hired to join a rewilding crew and left the city. She left Coryn behind at an orphanage, occasional sending her bland emails about the beauty she sees in the wild. Once Coryn becomes of age, she chooses to leave the city with Paula, her companion robot, to look for her sister.
Outside the city's dome, the world is much different and more treacherous than Lou let on. Coryn is in almost constant peril of being harmed, robbed, and having Paula stolen from her. Even the weather, uncontrolled outside the city dome, is dangerous and unpredictable. While it seems that most people outside can't be trusted, Coryn manages to press on, meets a few people who may be friends, and she eventually does find Lou; but everything Lou wrote about outside to Coryn doesn't seem to reflect the reality of the life Lou is living. There is also some risky plan and private agenda between Lou and some people Coryn knows are evil. The only problem is that no one, not even Lou, trusts her enough to tell her what is going on.
This is the first book in a future series. Admittedly, I enjoyed Wilders considerably, although it felt like it was a whole lot longer than 367 pages while I was reading it. Part of the issue is that even though the plot has interesting little scenes or hooks in it to propel you forward with bursts of speed, the action is rather slow moving. Once you keep reading, not all the interesting bits are fully explained and the world building is a little lacking.
You need to set aside certain expectations and roll with the narrative in this case. The story flows smoothly, and we reach a conclusion of sorts, but obviously more books in the series will mean more information about the city, etc. Coryn is an interesting character and there are several other interesting characters along the way. Now, we don't get to know too much about any of them, except Coryn, but I'd imagine future books will flesh out people more completely. Wilders reads like a YA title and would be highly suitable for that audience. This is a nice start to a new series.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Pyr Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/0...
In the near future cities have expanded to megacities that take care of most of the populations every need. The land outside the cities is set aside for wilding, or returning it to a natural state, sans humans with the exception of those hired in the capacity to assist returning nature to a natural balance. Coryn Williams and her sister Lou grew up in Seacouver, a merging of Seattle and Vancouver. After their parents' suicides, Lou was hired to join a rewilding crew and left the city. She left Coryn behind at an orphanage, occasional sending her bland emails about the beauty she sees in the wild. Once Coryn becomes of age, she chooses to leave the city with Paula, her companion robot, to look for her sister.
Outside the city's dome, the world is much different and more treacherous than Lou let on. Coryn is in almost constant peril of being harmed, robbed, and having Paula stolen from her. Even the weather, uncontrolled outside the city dome, is dangerous and unpredictable. While it seems that most people outside can't be trusted, Coryn manages to press on, meets a few people who may be friends, and she eventually does find Lou; but everything Lou wrote about outside to Coryn doesn't seem to reflect the reality of the life Lou is living. There is also some risky plan and private agenda between Lou and some people Coryn knows are evil. The only problem is that no one, not even Lou, trusts her enough to tell her what is going on.
This is the first book in a future series. Admittedly, I enjoyed Wilders considerably, although it felt like it was a whole lot longer than 367 pages while I was reading it. Part of the issue is that even though the plot has interesting little scenes or hooks in it to propel you forward with bursts of speed, the action is rather slow moving. Once you keep reading, not all the interesting bits are fully explained and the world building is a little lacking.
You need to set aside certain expectations and roll with the narrative in this case. The story flows smoothly, and we reach a conclusion of sorts, but obviously more books in the series will mean more information about the city, etc. Coryn is an interesting character and there are several other interesting characters along the way. Now, we don't get to know too much about any of them, except Coryn, but I'd imagine future books will flesh out people more completely. Wilders reads like a YA title and would be highly suitable for that audience. This is a nice start to a new series.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Pyr Books.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/0...
February 21, 2019
Wilders had me begging for it to get better but no, I couldn't even finish it. I loved concept when reading the back so it really upset me that it ended up becoming to muddled. It seems like it was written as an idea and never has was looked at/edited again.
This book is awfully convenient from page 3. Things happen just because they can and to move the story forward work no context. Cooper tries hard to make us like the the main character but she gets annoying and slowly turns into a brat. We get no information on how the city works or what happens to an important character that showed up in the beginning. The characters and the world just gets lost in one sentence that's supposed to explain the whole thing when in fact it doesn't.
My final decision to stop this book halfway was the line "a blonde man and a dark skinned woman". I got confused because any skin color could be blonde?? This tended to happen everytime a POC character came up. It bothered me since there's no reason to bring up skin tone when it added no relevance to the story - as in because of skintones is it different to live in the city or the wilders? From what I gathered the anwser is no? It just didn't seem relevant and was thrown in like the rest of the story.
This book is awfully convenient from page 3. Things happen just because they can and to move the story forward work no context. Cooper tries hard to make us like the the main character but she gets annoying and slowly turns into a brat. We get no information on how the city works or what happens to an important character that showed up in the beginning. The characters and the world just gets lost in one sentence that's supposed to explain the whole thing when in fact it doesn't.
My final decision to stop this book halfway was the line "a blonde man and a dark skinned woman". I got confused because any skin color could be blonde?? This tended to happen everytime a POC character came up. It bothered me since there's no reason to bring up skin tone when it added no relevance to the story - as in because of skintones is it different to live in the city or the wilders? From what I gathered the anwser is no? It just didn't seem relevant and was thrown in like the rest of the story.
March 14, 2018
In the fairly near future, Earth is beset by global warming. Major cities build weather domes and become almost autonomous entities - massive collections of technologies working together to protect and better the lives of humans. The cities work more and more towards self sufficiency, and laws are passed returning most of the outside lands to public ownership so they can be actively “re-wilded” in an attempt to curb the rapid global warming. Of course, no first try at such a system is going to be perfect, especially when human personalities and desires are involved.
This is the first book in a series, and I’m really interested in seeing where it’s going. The story in this first installment was a little bit clunky in places, but it was a decent setup for a series.
This story also began to explore what AI means, with hints that some or all might be achieving sentience. I’m really hoping future volumes in the series will dig deeper into that.
I’m definitely looking forward to the sequels!
This is the first book in a series, and I’m really interested in seeing where it’s going. The story in this first installment was a little bit clunky in places, but it was a decent setup for a series.
This story also began to explore what AI means, with hints that some or all might be achieving sentience. I’m really hoping future volumes in the series will dig deeper into that.
I’m definitely looking forward to the sequels!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 27, 2018
This felt like a young adult book even though it wasn't branded as such. The main character is over 18 for most of the book. But she acts like a child. Or I should say that I think she is over 18 for most of the book. It's hard to keep track of chapters and time jumps at the beginning.
The premise is good. Big cities house most of the world population. However, they hide the truth about the world and hardly let anyone out. Some people do re-wild. Coryn's sister does get out. Then she joins a terrorist group. Leaving Coryn to "save" her. An interesting character is Juliana who founded the city. I would have liked to see her more.
Coryn's childhood robot goes away (dies) towards the end making Coryn more independent. I think I'd like book two more because the robot would be gone. The world is cool. They have augmented reality and wristlets to access information as part of life.
The premise is good. Big cities house most of the world population. However, they hide the truth about the world and hardly let anyone out. Some people do re-wild. Coryn's sister does get out. Then she joins a terrorist group. Leaving Coryn to "save" her. An interesting character is Juliana who founded the city. I would have liked to see her more.
Coryn's childhood robot goes away (dies) towards the end making Coryn more independent. I think I'd like book two more because the robot would be gone. The world is cool. They have augmented reality and wristlets to access information as part of life.
August 18, 2017
Full review at Skiffy and Fanty
December 7, 2020
Climate change science fiction that starts well
Climate change has claimed a sub-genre of its own within science fiction. Outstanding examples include Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. No doubt there are hundreds, if not thousands, of others. So, any less prominent author must offer up something truly innovative to get noticed in such illustrious company. And at first that seems to be the case with Brenda Cooper‘s novel, Wilders. Unfortunately, the book’s promising start all too soon wanders off into confusion and ends in a muddle. This is climate change science fiction in which the plot runs amok as well as the climate.
In the future Cooper imagines, Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia have merged as Seacouver and (apparently) seceded from their respective countries. A pair of visionary mayors pulled this off decades earlier, launching a series of breakaway city-states around the globe that house the bulk of the world’s surviving population. These domed megacities (“Inside”) protect people from the ravages of a climate gone wild, leaving the countryside (“Outside”) to be laid to waste by monster storms while feral survivalists accelerate the mass extinction of animal and plant life.
To preserve the possibility of a future for the human race, the cities have undertaken a massive program of “rewilding.” With teams of trained naturalists commonly called “wilders” and enormous “ecobots,” they have been attempting to restore a semblance of balance in rural areas. Unfortunately, the rewilding is not going well. And Lou and Coryn Williams, the two appealing young women who are at the center of this story, become deeply enmeshed in the chaotic and violent political conflicts that have arisen as a result.
So far, so good. During Lou and Coryn’s teenage years, their parents committed suicide out of desperation for the coddled life they led in a city where they have access to everything but meaning and fulfillment. As soon as she graduates from high school, Lou leaves Coryn behind in the orphanage and ventures Outside to join the rewilding. Four years later Coryn follows her trail. But she soon finds that the world Outside threatens to kill her at every turn. Lou had misled her with tales of life in a rural paradise. And when she finally catches up with Lou, the harsh truth about the state of the world becomes inescapably clear.
A promising premise betrayed
Sadly, the world Coryn confronts is not just dangerous but bewildering. And Cooper does little to clarify the confusion. I get the impression that she rushed this book off after a single, sloppy draft. That’s probably not the case. But I can’t imagine any other explanation. You might expect that any climate change science fiction novel would challenge your assumptions about the logic on which human life is lived. But Cooper goes much, much too far in Wilders. The book is filled with inconsistencies and questionable propositions. For example:
** If it’s credible that some day Seattle and Vancouver might merge, it most certainly is not believable that the resulting city-state could secede from both Canada and the United States. Not in any foreseeable future. And this story is clearly set sometime in the twenty-first century, since the year 2010 is mentioned in the text and appears to be within the living memory of an older character.
** Is it conceivable that climate change will drive the human race into domed cities? Perhaps. Some might even say it’s likely. But not in this century. And the devastation Cooper portrays in the countryside, while entirely credible in the long run, seems highly unlikely before at least the twenty-second century.
** On several occasions, Cooper states that Seacouver’s population is in the billions. This is simply preposterous. Today, the two principal cities in the city-state she envisions house a total metropolitan population of under seven million. In the future portrayed in Wilders, that population would certainly grow substantially. But by an order of magnitude to seventy million, let alone more than two orders of magnitude to billions? Nonsense.
Shoot the proofreader!
To compound the problem, it doesn’t appear that anyone proofread this book. (If in fact someone did, that person needs to find a new line of work.) The text abounds with missing or misplaced articles and prepositions and other obvious typographical errors. Here are just a few of many, many examples:
“They’ll to try to track where money is going.”
“The car pulled into to a private parking lot.”
“Maybe that was already happened.”
“What do you think is going happen?”
There’s no excuse for this sort of thing. Given the existential threat our species faces in the decades ahead, we can all benefit from well-written climate change science fiction to steel us for the painful effort to forestall the worst effects. So, a sad display like this novel is doubly disappointing.
Climate change has claimed a sub-genre of its own within science fiction. Outstanding examples include Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, and Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake. No doubt there are hundreds, if not thousands, of others. So, any less prominent author must offer up something truly innovative to get noticed in such illustrious company. And at first that seems to be the case with Brenda Cooper‘s novel, Wilders. Unfortunately, the book’s promising start all too soon wanders off into confusion and ends in a muddle. This is climate change science fiction in which the plot runs amok as well as the climate.
In the future Cooper imagines, Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia have merged as Seacouver and (apparently) seceded from their respective countries. A pair of visionary mayors pulled this off decades earlier, launching a series of breakaway city-states around the globe that house the bulk of the world’s surviving population. These domed megacities (“Inside”) protect people from the ravages of a climate gone wild, leaving the countryside (“Outside”) to be laid to waste by monster storms while feral survivalists accelerate the mass extinction of animal and plant life.
To preserve the possibility of a future for the human race, the cities have undertaken a massive program of “rewilding.” With teams of trained naturalists commonly called “wilders” and enormous “ecobots,” they have been attempting to restore a semblance of balance in rural areas. Unfortunately, the rewilding is not going well. And Lou and Coryn Williams, the two appealing young women who are at the center of this story, become deeply enmeshed in the chaotic and violent political conflicts that have arisen as a result.
So far, so good. During Lou and Coryn’s teenage years, their parents committed suicide out of desperation for the coddled life they led in a city where they have access to everything but meaning and fulfillment. As soon as she graduates from high school, Lou leaves Coryn behind in the orphanage and ventures Outside to join the rewilding. Four years later Coryn follows her trail. But she soon finds that the world Outside threatens to kill her at every turn. Lou had misled her with tales of life in a rural paradise. And when she finally catches up with Lou, the harsh truth about the state of the world becomes inescapably clear.
A promising premise betrayed
Sadly, the world Coryn confronts is not just dangerous but bewildering. And Cooper does little to clarify the confusion. I get the impression that she rushed this book off after a single, sloppy draft. That’s probably not the case. But I can’t imagine any other explanation. You might expect that any climate change science fiction novel would challenge your assumptions about the logic on which human life is lived. But Cooper goes much, much too far in Wilders. The book is filled with inconsistencies and questionable propositions. For example:
** If it’s credible that some day Seattle and Vancouver might merge, it most certainly is not believable that the resulting city-state could secede from both Canada and the United States. Not in any foreseeable future. And this story is clearly set sometime in the twenty-first century, since the year 2010 is mentioned in the text and appears to be within the living memory of an older character.
** Is it conceivable that climate change will drive the human race into domed cities? Perhaps. Some might even say it’s likely. But not in this century. And the devastation Cooper portrays in the countryside, while entirely credible in the long run, seems highly unlikely before at least the twenty-second century.
** On several occasions, Cooper states that Seacouver’s population is in the billions. This is simply preposterous. Today, the two principal cities in the city-state she envisions house a total metropolitan population of under seven million. In the future portrayed in Wilders, that population would certainly grow substantially. But by an order of magnitude to seventy million, let alone more than two orders of magnitude to billions? Nonsense.
Shoot the proofreader!
To compound the problem, it doesn’t appear that anyone proofread this book. (If in fact someone did, that person needs to find a new line of work.) The text abounds with missing or misplaced articles and prepositions and other obvious typographical errors. Here are just a few of many, many examples:
“They’ll to try to track where money is going.”
“The car pulled into to a private parking lot.”
“Maybe that was already happened.”
“What do you think is going happen?”
There’s no excuse for this sort of thing. Given the existential threat our species faces in the decades ahead, we can all benefit from well-written climate change science fiction to steel us for the painful effort to forestall the worst effects. So, a sad display like this novel is doubly disappointing.
June 12, 2017
Disclosure: I know the author personally, have done copyediting and other work for her (not on this book, however), and got a copy of the book from her before it was published.
What will happen to us as climate change accelerates? One possible option is the creation of megacities that house 95% or more of the world's population, while the rest of the world is "rewilded" back to a more natural and sustainable state. That's what has happened in this near-future speculative fiction, which starts off in the city-state of Seacouver that was created jointly by the mayors of Seattle and Vancouver some time back. Coryn and her older sister Lou have grown up in Seacouver, and both leave the city once they reach their majority to go on different adventures that end up bringing them back together.
This book excels at bringing up a lot of important ideas - climate change, connected and managed cities, neat technology (we've got domes!), basic universal income, automation, NGOs and corporations and governments (and their interactions), and probably a few more. This melange of ideas is the story's strength but also a bit of its weakness, at times, as there were some points where I was not entirely sure what was going on or why, especially when it came down to the motivations of offscreen characters/factions. Coryn and Lou's story is set amongst this rich and complicated backdrop, and at times I was far more interested in what was going on behind them than I was in what they were doing or why. Part of this is due to the "coming of age" aspect of this story - it starts when Coryn is just about 13 or so, after all - and so I hope this will be improved with the next book in the series. This lack of knowledge of the rest of the world can also be viewed as a problem that plagues lots of us in today's world, however, so perhaps that is intentional.
My favorite character was Julianna, and I'm fascinated to learn more about her, her backstory, and her motivations when the story continues. Presumably Coryn and Lou will also continue to develop into more capable and rounded adults, and learn more about how the world is set up along the way - I'm especially interested in how the cities were setup, the boundaries that were drawn, and how people outside of those boundaries were handled.
This is a fun read, with some interesting bits, some awe-inspiring bits (those bridges...), and lots of interesting ideas to chew on. I think this one suffers a bit due to being a "setup" book, as while I love worldbuilding in general this one is just enough different from our own that I feel I needed more social history than I got to understand it, and I hope that'll be rectified in the next entry. I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series!
What will happen to us as climate change accelerates? One possible option is the creation of megacities that house 95% or more of the world's population, while the rest of the world is "rewilded" back to a more natural and sustainable state. That's what has happened in this near-future speculative fiction, which starts off in the city-state of Seacouver that was created jointly by the mayors of Seattle and Vancouver some time back. Coryn and her older sister Lou have grown up in Seacouver, and both leave the city once they reach their majority to go on different adventures that end up bringing them back together.
This book excels at bringing up a lot of important ideas - climate change, connected and managed cities, neat technology (we've got domes!), basic universal income, automation, NGOs and corporations and governments (and their interactions), and probably a few more. This melange of ideas is the story's strength but also a bit of its weakness, at times, as there were some points where I was not entirely sure what was going on or why, especially when it came down to the motivations of offscreen characters/factions. Coryn and Lou's story is set amongst this rich and complicated backdrop, and at times I was far more interested in what was going on behind them than I was in what they were doing or why. Part of this is due to the "coming of age" aspect of this story - it starts when Coryn is just about 13 or so, after all - and so I hope this will be improved with the next book in the series. This lack of knowledge of the rest of the world can also be viewed as a problem that plagues lots of us in today's world, however, so perhaps that is intentional.
My favorite character was Julianna, and I'm fascinated to learn more about her, her backstory, and her motivations when the story continues. Presumably Coryn and Lou will also continue to develop into more capable and rounded adults, and learn more about how the world is set up along the way - I'm especially interested in how the cities were setup, the boundaries that were drawn, and how people outside of those boundaries were handled.
This is a fun read, with some interesting bits, some awe-inspiring bits (those bridges...), and lots of interesting ideas to chew on. I think this one suffers a bit due to being a "setup" book, as while I love worldbuilding in general this one is just enough different from our own that I feel I needed more social history than I got to understand it, and I hope that'll be rectified in the next entry. I'll definitely be reading the next book in the series!
June 26, 2017
Another dystopian novel that is a bit more unique than you might think.
Coryn Williams has grown up in the metropolis of Seacouver, Washington. A town that has been developed under a weather dome. This is a new generation of smart city that is completely connected with each person and tells them when they need certain items or when to go to the doctor. But the city is not for everyone, many suffer from it. Coryn’s parents each took their life and her older sister must get out of the city before it drives her to the same fate, so she sets of to work for a rewilding foundation that is reestablishing the ecosystem that humans have destroyed.
Three years later, Coryn is set to graduate from school and must head into a career. Instead she decides to do the unthinkable; voluntarily go outside of the dome to find her sister. But will her sister want to see her? And will the city let her back in?
Dystopian novels are rapidly becoming a dime a dozen. It’s hard to find something new and fresh that doesn’t build upon an already realized idea. However, Cooper definitely piqued my interests with this one. I’ve done a lot of research into smart cities and how they currently interact versus how they are planning to connect in the future with the internet of things. This book easily brings my fears into place with the amount of data that the city knows and how the city can protect itself.
Coryn was an interesting character. She was very independent (and stubborn) and set out to find her sister with no thoughts of what could happen to her. But she got more than what she bargained for once she found her. I’m curious if the storms were a result of the damaged ecosphere, but that may come in a future book.
There is some occasional harsh language for a YA novel, which is why I took it down to 4 stars. Even so, it is a really good read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.
Coryn Williams has grown up in the metropolis of Seacouver, Washington. A town that has been developed under a weather dome. This is a new generation of smart city that is completely connected with each person and tells them when they need certain items or when to go to the doctor. But the city is not for everyone, many suffer from it. Coryn’s parents each took their life and her older sister must get out of the city before it drives her to the same fate, so she sets of to work for a rewilding foundation that is reestablishing the ecosystem that humans have destroyed.
Three years later, Coryn is set to graduate from school and must head into a career. Instead she decides to do the unthinkable; voluntarily go outside of the dome to find her sister. But will her sister want to see her? And will the city let her back in?
Dystopian novels are rapidly becoming a dime a dozen. It’s hard to find something new and fresh that doesn’t build upon an already realized idea. However, Cooper definitely piqued my interests with this one. I’ve done a lot of research into smart cities and how they currently interact versus how they are planning to connect in the future with the internet of things. This book easily brings my fears into place with the amount of data that the city knows and how the city can protect itself.
Coryn was an interesting character. She was very independent (and stubborn) and set out to find her sister with no thoughts of what could happen to her. But she got more than what she bargained for once she found her. I’m curious if the storms were a result of the damaged ecosphere, but that may come in a future book.
There is some occasional harsh language for a YA novel, which is why I took it down to 4 stars. Even so, it is a really good read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.
September 15, 2017
“Wilders” (Pyr, $18, 350 pages) is Brenda Cooper’s best book so far, and a promising start to the Project Earth series, but her best still doesn’t quite qualify as “must read.” Her best is pretty good, though, and aside from an unlikely premise and a few too many coincidences, “Wilders” hits all the marks.
The protagonist is a young woman who lives in the megacity of Seacouver, one of many megacities that emerged in response to a near-future environmental collapse. Nation-states have disappeared, and technological civilization exists only in the megacities while various groups do their best to restore the world’s ecology in the Wilds.
Naturally, things aren’t going quite as planned and when Coryn Williams leaves Seacouver to find her sister, who's working in the Wilds, even more complications arise. The plot turns on several unlikely turns of events, but a moderate dose of willing-suspension-of-disbelief makes “Wilders” a fun read – and a good beginning for a series.
The protagonist is a young woman who lives in the megacity of Seacouver, one of many megacities that emerged in response to a near-future environmental collapse. Nation-states have disappeared, and technological civilization exists only in the megacities while various groups do their best to restore the world’s ecology in the Wilds.
Naturally, things aren’t going quite as planned and when Coryn Williams leaves Seacouver to find her sister, who's working in the Wilds, even more complications arise. The plot turns on several unlikely turns of events, but a moderate dose of willing-suspension-of-disbelief makes “Wilders” a fun read – and a good beginning for a series.
February 25, 2018
3/5 Rating Review first posted at MyLifeMyBooksMyEscape
A young girl saves tries to save her sister... and the wild too
*Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion and review.
Brenda Cooper's previous series, The Glittering Edge, was a sci-fi story focusing of futurism and humanism with splash of environmental protection thrown in background. With Wilders, Brenda has completely flipped the script, this time using environmental protection and her characters as the main focus of the story, and using her futuristic ideas only a background.
Coryn and her older sister, Lou, were growing up inside the megacity, Seacouver, when a horrific event happens: both their parents commit suicide. As a result, when Lou becomes of age, no longer wanting to bear living in the megacity anymore, she moves to the Outside, to help repopulate and protection the wild.
Once Lou leaves, Coryn becomes more lonely, Lou's letters become less and less, and the only friends she has are her companion bot, Paula, and an older women whom she meets running one day, Julianna. While these are two are dear friends to her, they are still nothing compared to her sister, so when Coryn becomes of age, she too decides to leave Seacouver to surprise her sister Lou with a visit.
Unfortunately, what the news and media of the city has led the people of the city to believe about the Outside is far from the truth, and there may be a reason that Lou hasn't been writing anymore...
If you were to go back and read my review of Edge of Tomorrow, you would see that something I was very impressed with was how Brenda used her to characters to capture the wildlife and nature of the planet, and that after I finished the story, I then found out that she had a passion in the environment and it suddenly made sense to me why so much care and time had been put into explaining the environment in the story. In short: I was very impressed with Brenda's descriptive writing of the planet. However, what I loved most about her writing were the futurist ideas, and this switching of the story focusing on the environment rather than the futurist ideas.... I do not believe it went well.
Throughout the story, we are surrounded by companion bots, ecobots, wristlets, VR-devices, and numerous other types of advanced technology - all of which I loved and was fascinated by! Brenda, again, gets an A+ on her futurist ideas! But I wanted to keep learning more about them! I would have rather had a story focused around that instead of a naive girl getting mixed up in political corruption. Reluctantly, I believe that is where the story goes wrong.
Coryn is a very very sweet girl. But, oh my gosh, is she a sheltered creature. Very stubborn, immature, typical teenager who believes that she can handle the wild (pun-intended) all on her own with no help, and that traveling all these miles alone with her robot to surprise her sister without notice (why would someone need to know where she was in-case something happens to her, right?) is a good idea... -_-
I'll be honest: I hated her character. Extremely frustrating to read because of how young and foolish she felt! But that's a good thing! The only reason I hated her was because I was so attached and cared for her at the beginning. You really do feel her pain of the loss of her parents and of basically her older sister (and only living family member) too. But how she went from this child, to this girl at the end, who is essentially leading a rebellion, rescuing her sister, and having all eyes on her... there was definitely some character development missing there, because I did not see how that transition was a possible when I was reading.
As for the plot... it held me at the beginning when we are first learning about the Outside and the megacities, and types of technology we have... but when it becomes clear that the plot will be focused on this political scheming between the two... it had a lot of difficulty holding my interest... particularly when topics such as "should companion bots be treated as humans" get left open and we instead get stuck with watching Coryn get herself nearly killed for the tenth time in the novel.
I do not think was a bad story, and I am sure many people will love and empathize with Coryn and that will easily take them through the story. But for me, it is not enough. Our main protagonist development was missing a couple major marks to get to get to where she ended up in the end, her relationship with the secondary characters, has the same issues too. And the plot, while it was a good idea, just did not deliver on execution, and reading felt very slow to me at many times. The best part, as I said, was the technology ideas, but sadly, as I said, Brenda decided to put that in the background this time.
I believe I understand what Brenda was trying to get across with novel: the importance of caring for our wildlife. But I, personally, was not a fan of the way she choose to tell the story.
After reading three of her novels, I firmly believe that Brenda is a better storyteller when she puts her futuristic ideas at the center of her story to build on.
3/5 Rating
-DJ
A young girl saves tries to save her sister... and the wild too
*Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, in exchange for my honest opinion and review.
Brenda Cooper's previous series, The Glittering Edge, was a sci-fi story focusing of futurism and humanism with splash of environmental protection thrown in background. With Wilders, Brenda has completely flipped the script, this time using environmental protection and her characters as the main focus of the story, and using her futuristic ideas only a background.
Coryn and her older sister, Lou, were growing up inside the megacity, Seacouver, when a horrific event happens: both their parents commit suicide. As a result, when Lou becomes of age, no longer wanting to bear living in the megacity anymore, she moves to the Outside, to help repopulate and protection the wild.
Once Lou leaves, Coryn becomes more lonely, Lou's letters become less and less, and the only friends she has are her companion bot, Paula, and an older women whom she meets running one day, Julianna. While these are two are dear friends to her, they are still nothing compared to her sister, so when Coryn becomes of age, she too decides to leave Seacouver to surprise her sister Lou with a visit.
Unfortunately, what the news and media of the city has led the people of the city to believe about the Outside is far from the truth, and there may be a reason that Lou hasn't been writing anymore...
If you were to go back and read my review of Edge of Tomorrow, you would see that something I was very impressed with was how Brenda used her to characters to capture the wildlife and nature of the planet, and that after I finished the story, I then found out that she had a passion in the environment and it suddenly made sense to me why so much care and time had been put into explaining the environment in the story. In short: I was very impressed with Brenda's descriptive writing of the planet. However, what I loved most about her writing were the futurist ideas, and this switching of the story focusing on the environment rather than the futurist ideas.... I do not believe it went well.
Throughout the story, we are surrounded by companion bots, ecobots, wristlets, VR-devices, and numerous other types of advanced technology - all of which I loved and was fascinated by! Brenda, again, gets an A+ on her futurist ideas! But I wanted to keep learning more about them! I would have rather had a story focused around that instead of a naive girl getting mixed up in political corruption. Reluctantly, I believe that is where the story goes wrong.
Coryn is a very very sweet girl. But, oh my gosh, is she a sheltered creature. Very stubborn, immature, typical teenager who believes that she can handle the wild (pun-intended) all on her own with no help, and that traveling all these miles alone with her robot to surprise her sister without notice (why would someone need to know where she was in-case something happens to her, right?) is a good idea... -_-
I'll be honest: I hated her character. Extremely frustrating to read because of how young and foolish she felt! But that's a good thing! The only reason I hated her was because I was so attached and cared for her at the beginning. You really do feel her pain of the loss of her parents and of basically her older sister (and only living family member) too. But how she went from this child, to this girl at the end, who is essentially leading a rebellion, rescuing her sister, and having all eyes on her... there was definitely some character development missing there, because I did not see how that transition was a possible when I was reading.
As for the plot... it held me at the beginning when we are first learning about the Outside and the megacities, and types of technology we have... but when it becomes clear that the plot will be focused on this political scheming between the two... it had a lot of difficulty holding my interest... particularly when topics such as "should companion bots be treated as humans" get left open and we instead get stuck with watching Coryn get herself nearly killed for the tenth time in the novel.
I do not think was a bad story, and I am sure many people will love and empathize with Coryn and that will easily take them through the story. But for me, it is not enough. Our main protagonist development was missing a couple major marks to get to get to where she ended up in the end, her relationship with the secondary characters, has the same issues too. And the plot, while it was a good idea, just did not deliver on execution, and reading felt very slow to me at many times. The best part, as I said, was the technology ideas, but sadly, as I said, Brenda decided to put that in the background this time.
I believe I understand what Brenda was trying to get across with novel: the importance of caring for our wildlife. But I, personally, was not a fan of the way she choose to tell the story.
After reading three of her novels, I firmly believe that Brenda is a better storyteller when she puts her futuristic ideas at the center of her story to build on.
3/5 Rating
-DJ
December 3, 2018
I thought I would really like this book and yet it somehow just fell very flat for me. I think the biggest problem was that I thought this was an adult book, and yet the actions and dialogue really had me thing young adult.... the MC was 18, and just felt so naive. I think the author has real passion for the environment, that really came through for me, but I think I might have to read this again at a later date and see if it feels better.
September 29, 2019
I picked this book up at the Science Fiction Writers of Washington event. The author is one of the organizers. This book is ultra-local. it takes place in a future Seattle. In this future, cities are bubbles and the rest is outside. The story follows a young teen woman who searches for her sister. Her journey takes her all over the region. This story deals with loss, nature, machines, government.
June 26, 2017
I really enjoyed this book up until the end, did not understand the decisions to wrap up the story I will likely read book 2, because overall I did enjoy the characters and the story, just really annoyed with the ending!
July 20, 2017
The world building was wonderful and for the most part I cared about the characters but it seemed to drag a bit. I think the story might have benefitted from leaving out some of the redundancy and maybe exploring a bit more of the players in power. Still, a good read especially for YA and I will be watching for a sequel
August 14, 2017
a thriller about resource management
the worldbuilding is very solid here. I suspect the vagueness about what "the City" is and how it works is intentional, but there is a good balance of action, philosophy and urban planning in the Anthropocene, with a bit of YA romance thrown in. overall solid, and the characters are well drawn and sympathetic, even the robot.
the worldbuilding is very solid here. I suspect the vagueness about what "the City" is and how it works is intentional, but there is a good balance of action, philosophy and urban planning in the Anthropocene, with a bit of YA romance thrown in. overall solid, and the characters are well drawn and sympathetic, even the robot.
March 19, 2019
good, engaging read. nice to read about a set of sisters who are going through life just trying to live. its not about romance - its about their broken relationship in a dystopia future. maybe a little young for a late 20-something, but i still enjoyed it to read at night (short chapters you can fall asleep to and not be lost!).
decided-not-to-read
October 16, 2019I actually read about half of this sci-fi book before I finally admitted that I wasn't really enjoying it. Not sure why. It's well-enough written, has a reasonable plot, &c. I finally concluded that it's written like a young-adult book, even tho' it wasn't marketed that way. I guess I'm not just in the mood for young adult stuff right now.
November 29, 2021
Really engaging premise. I loved a lot of the ideas and sci-fi reflection elements of this but by the end I sort of ran out of enthusiasm for the actual story. Some great characters but I would have enjoyed seeing them fleshed out a little more. I felt like the action built really slowly, and then a lot was introduced and emotional and resolved right at once. Not my kind of pacing but neat story
August 6, 2018
This is YA heavy on the Y. The main character made a few strong choices but was mostly carried along by the actions of other people. Interesting ideas but the world building didn't seem fleshed out. I kind of wish I hadn't bothered
September 17, 2019
I loved the idea of a future society trapped in a city in order to restore nature, but I didn't understand the character motivation all the time and I didn't really understand where the story is going or what it was trying to convey. Message was a bit muddled. But world was a cool idea.
June 10, 2017
I enjoyed this book very much, it left me wanting to read more on what would be going on with the characters. I want to read more that this author writes.
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