The Sea and Summer by George Turner (October)

[Joe]

Hey everyone, this is for discussion of October's group book:
The Sea and Summer by George Turner

Unless it’s a very general comment make sure you use spoiler code.
< spoiler>Comment< /spoiler> Without the spaces.

[Joe]

The Autumn People 1

(view spoiler)[
So a nice introductory type chapter. I didn’t know this was environmental science fiction but do have a significant interest interest in it so I’m already feeling this will work out really well for me.
(hide spoiler)]

[Joe]

The Sea And Summer 1 & 2

(view spoiler)[
I’m really liking this so far. The introduction of the characters and their place in the sweet and then swill societies is done really well and brings the ideas and concept of the world into focus very quickly and heavily without being overwhelming. Frances ability with numbers and Billy’s idea to make use of that is an interesting dynamic.
(hide spoiler)]

[Jon]

Intro and The Autumn People 1

Thought it was funny that on page two of the intro this book was compared to Stand on Zanzibar which was one of last month's books. Joe, I'm assuming that's a coincidence or did you know?

(view spoiler)[ So Joe wasn't expecting environmental science fiction while I wasn't expecting a framing story. I generally don't like framing stories and for a second I thought that the meat of this book was going to be a novel written by a professor set centuries in the past. That bugged me even though I am reading a novel. Something about not wanting make-believe in my make-believe? It's weird when you take a step back. Anyway the inner 'novel' is based upon historical writings and recordings of the characters and the purpose is to bring to life the time period that has now been forgotten by the Autumn People. The novel is titled 'The Sea and Summer'. The Autumn people live centuries after the people in 'The Sea and Summer' and the climate disaster that they call 'The Greenhouse' which melted the polar ice caps and caused global destruction. The Autumn people are starting to see the effects of an oncoming ice age. (hide spoiler)]

[Jon]

The Sea and Summer 1

(view spoiler)[As soon as I started this section I forgot that I was reading a quasi-novel inside of a novel. I have to be honest this was super depressing for 60 - 70 pages. I almost put it down for good several times. It reads like it was written today instead of in 1987. I had strong flashbacks to Paolo Bacigalupi's novels 'The Water Knife' and 'The Windup Girl'. I thought George Turner was a prophet until I got to the part where the students in the 2040's were being taught cursive handwriting. Hahaha. He pretty much nailed everything else though in my opinion. Not being from Australia I pulled up a map of Melbourne to get an idea of where everything was set. The characters are okay if not very likable. I like the sweet vs swill aspect although that seems a little simple in my eyes. (hide spoiler)]

[Joe]

Jon, yeah it was a complete coincidence about Stand On Zanzibar.

The Sea And Summer Chapters 3 - 6

(view spoiler)[
I’m not surprised by how this has gone; what with Frances not wanting to stay at home any longer now that Billy has moved in full time. The world economy has now collapsed fully and money doesn’t mean anything as such anymore. I’m very curious to see where Frances will go from here considering his ability with numbers and his halfway status between sweet and swill.
(hide spoiler)]

[Joe]

The Autumn People 2

(view spoiler)[
I didn’t realise with the first Autumn People chapter quite what it meant in relation to the main primary story.Historians uncovering their history and writing a book based on it which may or may not be intended as the rest of the book we’re now reading. A book within a book type scenario I didn’t expect, though that may not be the case. I’d suspect maybe 2 more Autumn People chapters so hopefully we’ll find out soon enough.
(hide spoiler)]

[Joe]

The Sea And Summer 2 Chapters 7 - 13

(view spoiler)[
Interesting to see the training camp for the fringe people. Their reaction to the environment and conditions is echoing that of society as a whole. A strong us or them mentality is being played out and Teddy is starting to to learn about it now. Coming to terms with it is another matter, like society as well. The slightly simplistic nature of the rich vs poor in the earlier sections isn’t quite so simple now; there’s more depth now which I’m happy to see.
(hide spoiler)]

[Jon]

The Autumn People 2

(view spoiler)[ To be honest I'm not sure what these sections bring to the story other than a picture of how the world ends up however many centuries later. (hide spoiler)]

I forgot to mention earlier that every time Billy's last name came up I flashed to Altered Carbon.

(view spoiler)[ Wow, where to start? This ended up as a much different book than I expected. While an environmental catastrophe was a main component of the story I thought that this section was mostly concerned with prejudice, class, class warfare and good old outright bigotry. Turner has now nailed it twice for me especially as I look at the current political scene in the United States. The haves and the have-nots.

Nick was the only character that was even remotely likable. Teddy might have ended up likable but I never really did. Arry was probably okay but he had such a small role. Billy had a dark side that might be understandable but other parts of his character were definitely skeevy. Alison never got over her contempt for the swill and neither did Francis. I can understand the fear of becoming swill and the issues that would go along with that but not the inability to see the swill people as just people instead of less-than people.

The ending was quite good. Francis is still a dick. Alison dies of a wasting disease along with dozens of other women. End scene.
Who?What?Where?When?How? We know the why. (hide spoiler)]

The Autumn People 3

Who cares?

Postscript

Pretty interesting to hear from the author and some of his concerns about the real world. Most if not all are still concerns 30 years later.

I really liked this one.

[Joe]

The Sea And Summer 2 Chapters 14 - 21

(view spoiler)[
A raid into swill towers and cooperation between police and enforcers. I find this an interesting question on ethics; from a point of law and polite society it’s not right but it’s hard to condemn when the alternative is far worse. None of the characters it likeable and at this point I doubt any will be.

So they’ve found out Francis is involved in some major way with the supply of this secret sterilization drug that’s aimed at Swill. There hasn’t been a Frances chapter for a little while now but it was obviously intended all along that he’d become something in regards to the sweet vs. swill issue.
(hide spoiler)]

[Joe]

Finished.

(view spoiler)[
I was really impressed by this. It started off going one way and what it becomes was fanastic. A really interesting exploration of a society's flaws and where they could lead us.

Jon, I agree with your thoughts here. The inability of Alison and Frances to never really accept the swill as even human I thought was important to the story but still unusual. It didn’t seem natural that anyone could be that way so severely. Exposure to the swill would of altered them even if they hadn’t been aware of it surely.

The ending with the rise of this new disease and only knowing why was rather good and appropriate for the tone of the book.

I thought the last line of of his afterword was interesting and nicely to the point.

“The Sea and Summer is about the possibly cost of complacency”
(hide spoiler)]

This is the first book I’ve read by him but hope not my last. I’ll have to investigate what else he did.