Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste your time ..., 4 Sep 1999
By A Customer
... The only good thing I can say about it is that it does at least take global warming and enviromental disaster seriously. Moira, the main character and narrator of this book, is an irritating eighty (going on twenty-five) year-old bimbo living in a fortified commune - she's one of the richer, lucky ones. We're supposed to believe that this unintelligent, unenquiring woman was firstly a lawyer and secondly had a bit of a hand in saving the world (I'm giving nothing away; the author tells us this on the first page). ... we get careful, long, tedious explanations of New Age beliefs, Green Man mythologies, the Tiananmen Square massacre and the advantages of the Internet amongst other things. At times it feels as though Clee is jumping up and down shouting "Look what I know!" What she doesn't seem to know is how her society of 2032 really functions. On the one hand her characters barely scrape enough food to get by on, mostly by growing it themselves (remember these people are in their seventies and eighties); everyone is terrified of people they don't know and violence is endemic. On the other hand octagenarians with a bit of spare cash can buy laser rifles, parrots, cisterns and baby food on the Net (strangely not solar panels - they rely on the national grid and a generator for power) and they get delivered without any problems; the US is still a democracy and people care about the results of the Presidential elections. After a while I really wanted to know how Clee thought this all happened. I know how the Internet works and don't need a detailed explanation (and surely I'm not unusual amongst sf readers) but I don't want to have to guess what the author thinks is happening in her world. Of course none of this would really matter (or even be noticeable) if the book were interesting or gripping but it isn't. The plot plods along, driven by Moira's stilted, leading conversations with characters who are no more than cyphers. None of the people she encounters are anything but cardboard cut-outs and I couldn't care less about any of them. It felt as if the author didn't care much either and so moments that should be horrifying or full of grief are flat and lacking in any real emotion. And the ending is just dire! I only finished it because I was on holiday with a limited number of things to read. There are far better books about enviromental catastrophy out there. Try John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up" for a chilling and all too prophetic tale - written in the early 70s by the way; or Ben Elton's "Stark" for a horribly funny black and bleak comedy - full of terrifying data too but it seems to work; or Starhawk's "The Fifth Sacred Thing" if you're interested in the Pagan ideas and an elderly protagonist; or even Edward Abbey's "Good News" for an idiosyncratic take on the collapse of civilization and the violence the powerful will inflict upon the weak.
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful book: believable, terrifying, great characters., 20 May 1998
By A Customer
This is a wonderful book! I was so absorbed in it, I stayed up half the night reading, (the first time I have done that since becoming a parent). The premise is totally believable: the greenhouse effect is happening, and by 2032 the world is a disaster. The story takes place in Berkeley - which has not escaped the heat or other changes. Clee manages to create an 80 year old woman narrator that even very young people will identify with: she is spunky, with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor and totally down to earth. There is no dogma or preachiness or political correctness in this book, and the technological deus ex machina at the end reveals an author with a really complex and nuanced view of technology and nature. Much of the book is just about hard, day to day, real life, perhaps that is why the book is so terrifying. It's a novel of ideas that touches on everything from genetic engineering, to computers, to witchcraft. It woke me up!
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Social Science Fiction at Its Best, 9 April 1998
By A Customer
I read Overshoot after hearing about the author's first book, Branch Point. While Branch Point is very entertaining - a romp through recent history - Overshoot is a deeper, more serious, ambitious book. Take a group of people who are now in their 30s and 40s, and move them ahead in time to the year 2032, take the concerns and fears about global warming that are in the headlines now, put them together, and you have an angry, moving, wonderfully written book that showcases what social science fiction is supposed to be about. This is a future that people alive today may live to see. Yet, unlike so many "Apocalypse" books, Overshoot is not a downer. The characters suffer through some very disturbing rough times, but the ending is upbeat and hopeful, not sugar-coated or airy-fairy, and is plausible in the light of current advances in gene therapy and gene manipulation. And it isn't justone more example of an end-of-the-world novel where at the last minute the writer pulls a rabbit out of a hat and magically makes everything okay. This is a big book with big issues, not your usual escapist stuff.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
