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Sunshine State
Mark Burrows is an 'invisible man', a British secret agent adept at moving undetected through the most hostile environments. Summoned for one final mission, he must make contact with Charlie Ashe; ten years ago the two men worked together undercover in Iraq, sowing bloody mayhem with bombings and assassinations. Burrows now faces a terrible reckoning with his past. Ashe, a master of guerrilla warfare, has reappeared with a new name and a terrifying new agenda in the Storm Zone, an anarchic region in the former United States that is racked by devastating hurricanes and dominated by dangerous cults, criminal gangs and insurgent armies. Alone and haunted by memories, Burrows embarks on a hazardous journey into the darkness and chaos of the Storm Zone. The mission will force Burrows to question his loyalties and to understand that the greatest threat lies not with his target but with the forces that seek to control them both.
344 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2010
24 people want to read
About the author
James Miller
4 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 1, 2012
James Miller proclaims that his intentions are literary when he provides epigraphs to Milton and Conrad at the beginning of Sunshine State. I was intrigued: Was Sunshine State one of those rare thrillers that transcends genre and achieves true literary value? Sadly, this is not the case. In fact, the quotes set up what might have been a good thriller for almost certain disappointment.
The novel begins in the usual way: Because of global warming, the tropical and subtropical regions of the planet have become a hostile ‘storm zone’. To complicate matters, many governments are in the hands of religious fundamentalists. Those who flee persecution often end up in the Zone. Mark Burrows, a retired agent of the British special forces, is called on to undertake a final mission, one that will take him to the southern United States in pursuit of ‘Kalat’, a former special forces agent who is now a dangerous leader broadcasting from deep within the Zone.
Because of the epigraph from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, it’s clear that Miller intends to parallel Burrows’s mission through a storm-despoiled Florida with Marlow’s journey down the Congo. Kalat is Kurtz, the ill ivory collector of Conrad’s story. These are only shallow likenesses, however.
Miller juxtaposes the present action with scenes from the past—therapy sessions in which a shell-shocked Burrows recounts his harrowing experiences in the field. Just as this device wears thin, Miller abandons it. The fact that it isn’t further utilized, however, raises questions about why it’s there in the first place. Throughout the second half, he intersperses inscrutable poems that serve no clear purpose.
Sunshine State resides between two genres. Unfortunately, the best features of both are lost. Miller relies too much on the familiar formulas of the thriller. But where his ambitions might have raised the story, he has merely attached vague ideas about what he thinks it is to be literary: an epigraph, allusions to past works, inscrutability, all of which keep Sunshine State shackled.
The novel begins in the usual way: Because of global warming, the tropical and subtropical regions of the planet have become a hostile ‘storm zone’. To complicate matters, many governments are in the hands of religious fundamentalists. Those who flee persecution often end up in the Zone. Mark Burrows, a retired agent of the British special forces, is called on to undertake a final mission, one that will take him to the southern United States in pursuit of ‘Kalat’, a former special forces agent who is now a dangerous leader broadcasting from deep within the Zone.
Because of the epigraph from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, it’s clear that Miller intends to parallel Burrows’s mission through a storm-despoiled Florida with Marlow’s journey down the Congo. Kalat is Kurtz, the ill ivory collector of Conrad’s story. These are only shallow likenesses, however.
Miller juxtaposes the present action with scenes from the past—therapy sessions in which a shell-shocked Burrows recounts his harrowing experiences in the field. Just as this device wears thin, Miller abandons it. The fact that it isn’t further utilized, however, raises questions about why it’s there in the first place. Throughout the second half, he intersperses inscrutable poems that serve no clear purpose.
Sunshine State resides between two genres. Unfortunately, the best features of both are lost. Miller relies too much on the familiar formulas of the thriller. But where his ambitions might have raised the story, he has merely attached vague ideas about what he thinks it is to be literary: an epigraph, allusions to past works, inscrutability, all of which keep Sunshine State shackled.
September 6, 2013
Very poor. Apocalypse now written badly.
June 24, 2023
I haven't read Heart of Darkness or seen Apocalypse Now (although I have heard of it) so I didn't pick up the references and resonances that other reviewers saw to those works in Sunshine State.
I was looking at the novel as an example of cli-fi. Although published in 2010 it feels more contemporary and this is perhaps a tribute to the author's prescience in imagining a right wing religious leadership under the 49th President (so sometime in the 2040s?) who has rowed back on essential human rights and respect for diversity. In Miller's imaging, homosexuality is again illegal in an America where every flight ends with the passengers joining in pilots in a prayer of thanksgiving. The outrun of climate change has brought extreme weather events that have turned Florida into a hurricane swept bandit-land, while London is so routinely hot that functional middle eastern garb has become the norm, rather than suits, ties and overcoats.
The protagonist Mark Burrows - a former intelligence agent and guerilla solider - is set in pursuit of a colleague once thought dead, but now living under a different identity and mentality as the focus of some resistance movement in derelict Miami.
The story is essentially a road trip as Burrows travels south, homing in on Ashe, now called Kalat, and encountering forces from the Queer Liberation Army to a freetown trading exclusively in marijuana.
The ruined Florida and the religious zeal of Miller's US feel all too credible, given our current world of heat domes over Texas and rampaging culture wars that see drag queens and books as more of a threat to children than guns. However, the book's setting is essentially a dystopian one - a warning of what the world could become, which serves as a back drop to Burrows' journey.
The prose is elegant, in places as lush as the Florida Everglades and - in Kalat's sickness and frailty - the parallels to Conrad's Kurtz are very clear. However, unlike Kim Stanley-Robinson, Miller's narrative doesn't offer any pathway to address climate change or a promise that the dystopian government might fall, or even that Burrows might be successful in his mission. To that extent it is a finely crafted depiction of a journey into darkness.
I was looking at the novel as an example of cli-fi. Although published in 2010 it feels more contemporary and this is perhaps a tribute to the author's prescience in imagining a right wing religious leadership under the 49th President (so sometime in the 2040s?) who has rowed back on essential human rights and respect for diversity. In Miller's imaging, homosexuality is again illegal in an America where every flight ends with the passengers joining in pilots in a prayer of thanksgiving. The outrun of climate change has brought extreme weather events that have turned Florida into a hurricane swept bandit-land, while London is so routinely hot that functional middle eastern garb has become the norm, rather than suits, ties and overcoats.
The protagonist Mark Burrows - a former intelligence agent and guerilla solider - is set in pursuit of a colleague once thought dead, but now living under a different identity and mentality as the focus of some resistance movement in derelict Miami.
The story is essentially a road trip as Burrows travels south, homing in on Ashe, now called Kalat, and encountering forces from the Queer Liberation Army to a freetown trading exclusively in marijuana.
The ruined Florida and the religious zeal of Miller's US feel all too credible, given our current world of heat domes over Texas and rampaging culture wars that see drag queens and books as more of a threat to children than guns. However, the book's setting is essentially a dystopian one - a warning of what the world could become, which serves as a back drop to Burrows' journey.
The prose is elegant, in places as lush as the Florida Everglades and - in Kalat's sickness and frailty - the parallels to Conrad's Kurtz are very clear. However, unlike Kim Stanley-Robinson, Miller's narrative doesn't offer any pathway to address climate change or a promise that the dystopian government might fall, or even that Burrows might be successful in his mission. To that extent it is a finely crafted depiction of a journey into darkness.
November 16, 2014
Set in a near future where climate change has rendered much of the Southern USA ungovernable and barely habitable, and where what remains of the 'States is a conservative almost police-state almost theocracy, Miller sends his British secret services/soldier protagonist on a journey to find his mentor in the 'Storm Zone'. The journey turns out to be a mix of heart of darkness and possibly redemptive quest. Not quite a 4, but closer to four than three.
July 22, 2013
Early on it becomes apparent that this novel aspires to be more Apocalypse Now then futuristic Heart of Darkness meets James Bond. The story follows a British agent as he seeks out a former colleague in a climate affected future where the USA is ruled by a fundamentalist President and storm ravaged Florida has become a no-go zone...
January 4, 2016
In a world where a section of the USA has become totally lawless a secret agent is sent to find a former colleague.
The story was interesting in places but the writing was repetitive and I felt I was reading an updated / alternative (but not so good) version of "Apocalypse Now".
Real rating 2.5
The story was interesting in places but the writing was repetitive and I felt I was reading an updated / alternative (but not so good) version of "Apocalypse Now".
Real rating 2.5
August 6, 2014
Great near-future post-apocalyptic vision, with some intriguing undertones of John le Carre and William Burroughs.
May 30, 2015
The heart of darkness thing is a distraction to what is other wise a nice little dystopia.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews