B Roxburgh
The novel's central message is to warn about CLIMATE CHANGE. It is set 500 years from now, when the world has been devasted by heat, storms and huge explosions of methane gases currently locked in the earth's crust but released by global warning. The book's central characters are descendants of desert people who knew how to survive intense heat and drought, and took refuge in the cave complex in Kaimakla (located in present day Trukey). They engage in a perilous journey to the more hospitable north, which has seen massive POPULATION DISPLACEMENT and is inhabited, in the novel, by people of Chinese descent who migrated via Siberia into Scandinavia. As well as climate change and population displacement, the book explores the LOSS OF CIVILISATIONAL memory. The novel's protagonists discover archaeological wonders in their travels, that had been entirely forgotten. There's a poignancy when they stumble upon the statute of Mother Russia, broken in pieces in the sand, where her hair, "broken and separate from the head, seemed chiselled to fly behind her head in the wind". As well as the loss of civilisational memory, the novel expores the retreat of RATIONALITY where knowledge has been displaced by religious dogma. The tension between rationality and religion is explored in several scenes, such as in the disclovery of disused rockets or "spears of the Gods". The good natured "Achinbai as usual was exasperated by everyone's curiosity" - he is a humourous counterfoil to the reflective Amanaar who disbelieves received wisdom from the priests. These serious messages are wrapped up in a beautiful LOVE STORY between an exciting and determined woman who comes to dominate the story, Stinna, and the young narrator, Mayzaar. I greatly enjoyed reading the book and HIGHLY RECOMMEND it. The political scenes in which the author speaks through the scheming Amanaar, such as the scene with the Council elders where he "works his charm", are some of the best in my view.
