Reviews :: Book Genre :: Post Apocalyptic

I haven’t read near enough Glen Cook.

I keep telling myself this, and yet my penchant for continuing to push his books down my TBR pile is, quite frankly, fairly embarrassing. I actually received this book quite some time ago, and only recently took the chance to read it. Mainly because it was short and I needed to get to something short. One of these days I’m going to figure out how to get ahead of the review game again, and have these things scheduled out. Until then, one foot in front of the other.
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I need to read more science fiction. I keep telling myself this, and then keep steering away from picking up anything from within the genre. I found this book in among the pile of those that publishers throw at us, in the hopes of garnering a beneficial review. From what I remember, the bright colors and slim spine is what caught my eye here, and the fact that it was not only science fiction but had been marketed as a story that would “resonate with LGBTQ+ readers” sealed the deal for me. I’m still trying here. Trying to find good story in science fiction. Good story from marginalized authors. I can’t say that I’ve succeeded much yet though. Maybe someone else out there has a decent suggestion?
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If you’re looking for a book that focuses on character development, then STATION 11 is the book for you.

Or maybe plot isn’t so important and you like meandering through a setting that is both familiar and foreign.

It may also be that you like books with elements that don’t seem important to the plot as a greater whole OR maybe you find satisfaction with plodding through 280 pages before you start seeing the connections between the characters and plot points.

If this is the case, you might just enjoy STATION 11. Alas, those aren’t the kinds of things I look for in a book. I definitely wasn’t the target audience.
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Citing a long history of erasure and silence surrounding the Nigerian civil war, author Tochi Onyebuchi wrote WAR GIRLS (Amazon) to illustrate the way that the tensions that incited the conflict–economic, religious, tribal–exist today and how they might play out in a post-apocalyptic future. I didn’t know any of this history when I started the book and the story stands admirably on its own (interested readers can find additional reading in Onyebuchi’s afterword).
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Living on the surface has become life-threatening, and as a result humanity has retreated to underground. We open WOOL with Sheriff Holston, the law for the silo and the underground city that lives there.

But the silo’s population is strictly controlled. Couples aren’t allowed to even try to have a child without permission unless they win a lottery placement that gives them a chance at a year of trying. They only have a chance at this lottery when another inhabitant dies of old age, accident–or by cleaning.
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The concept of virtual worlds has always intrigued me. In some ways, we’re rapidly approaching the condition where such things could become a reality. And in others, I think we’re light years away. When I’ve seen them used in stories, one of the big themes that invariably comes into play is the ability to determine whether you’re in the virtual world or the real world. Inception, anyone? There are lots of other ideas to play with in that realm as well, but this one is of particular importance because it comes into play in this book. In Inception, there was a very simple, very direct way of determining which world the character found themselves. Made it easy for the audience to stay grounded. But without such a device? Well, let me not spoil the message of this review.
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I have a thing for constancy. When I drive somewhere I usually take the same route. When I’m feeling down, I like to hit the used book store. Things I do on a regular basis are safe and known quantities. But I also have a thing for new stuff. Surfing YouTube for new music. Trying out some new kind of food. I may or may not really like to find new breakfast cereals, despite the fact that I know pretty much anything else would be better for me in the mornings. When it comes to books and stories, I also like to see new things. All the sequels that Disney puts out frequently annoy me. Although it seems as if Pixar can do no wrong. So when I come across a story that is a “re-telling of a classic fairy tale”, I’ll typically pass. For whatever reason, the third time I picked this book up off my EBR-TBR shelf, I decided that I’d read it. Must have been my “constancy” having a surge of strength that day or something. Whatever. I picked this one up, and boy am I glad that I did.
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I have to admit, I was really holding out for this story being a good one. After being supremely disappointed with what I found in the previous two (unrelated) hardback novellas that I read, I just wasn’t ready to find out that one of my favorite Science Fiction authors had written a dud as well. I should have taken a clue from the publication gods though when I saw that this one had not been put into a hardback. So obviously it was going to be different than the other two, right? After this whole hurrah of novellas from various authors, it really surprises me that those that were hardbacks really didn’t cut the mustard, and the one that probably deserved to be a hardback… didn’t get it. Man, the world’s funny sometimes, isn’t it?
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