Showing posts with label Rebellion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebellion. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 October 2021

An Irish Hostage

Finished September 28
An Irish Hostage by Charles Todd

This mystery is part of the Bess Crawford series. It is the summer of 1919 and Bess is home waiting to make a decision about her future as she knows the hospital doesn't need all the nurses that they did during the war, and she doesn't want to take a job from someone who really needs one. Short term, she has been asked to be maid of honour by a fellow nurse that she rescued when their ship was attacked. Her friend, Eileen Flynn is from Ireland, as is her fiance Michael Sullivan, who has just been demobbed from the British Army. 
But things in Ireland are tense with the British looking to guard against more uprisings like the one that occurred during the war. Bess's parents are worried about her travelling across Ireland to attend the wedding. Bess suggests asking Simon's friend Captain Arthur Jackson, an American pilot to fly her directly to Eileen's family home instead. This is seized on as a good solution to the issue.
It is Bess's first flight and she loves it, but she finds on arrival that things are more difficult than anticipated. There are some in the community who resent the Irish that served in the British forces during the war, and there are rebels looking for opportunities to further their cause, some with more appetite for violence than others. Bess finds that Michael has disappeared, presumably kidnapped, and although Arthur argues that they leave, Bess cannot abandon her friend, and sends Arthur to let her family know and see what more can be discovered. 
As Bess learns more about Eileen's family, from her rebel leader cousin Terrance who is supposed to give Eileen away at the ceremony to the local priest who is a close confidant of Eileen's grandmother, she finds she needs her nursing skills, her sharp mind, and her strategic intuition to be able to cope with everything that happens. Luckily, besides Terrance, she soon has another ally from an unexpected source.
This book gives insight into the complex Irish political situation of the time, without demonizing any of the players. Bess shows her strength, both of mind and body as she often does and stays calm even when things get very tense. I enjoy her as a character and enjoyed this setting and situation as well.

Tuesday, 31 August 2021

Reset

Finished August 31
Reset by Sarina Dahlan

This dystopian novel imagines a world after a major war that has killed off most of the human population. A man who was in space when it happened and had already dabbled in planned communities decided to find the survivors and bring them together in a utopian community of four linked cities in the Mojave Desert. To prevent future building of alliances and resentments, he devised a system to reset everybody's memories every four years. Children are created in medical labs and raised to adulthood, gaining education and having their skills assessed. This technical learning, whether it is scientific, literature, or arts-related stays with them through any resets, but long-term relationships don't exist and neither do any prejudices developed during that four years. 
At each reset, people are assigned names, jobs and housing, provided with food, entertainment credits and an AI to assist them. Everyone is vegetarian. Life is generally good, with no one homeless or hungry. Some resources are limited, such as water, but these are distributed equitably. They all revere the man who created this community, known as the Planner but have been told very little about the Last War to prevent such feelings arising again. 
But some people have dreams of their past, remembering things that brought them strong emotions, mostly around love, and they desire to remember more, to connect with the people that they loved so strongly, and resist the "Tabula Rasa" reset. Thus there grows a resistance of sorts, secretly brewing a potion that brings these dreams to the surface, reviving such memories. 
The inspiration for this utopia is the John Lennon song Imagine, and it is an anthem of sorts for people. 
This story follows a few characters. Aris is a scientist, a woman who only engages in short term relationships, and embraces the ideas of the community. One of her short term lovers, Benja, has dreams of a man he loved before, and wants to remember more and regain that love. He is an artist and seeks out the group known as Dreamers that try to bring their dreams back into memories. This obsession will take him into dangerous territory and draw in the leader of the Dreamer group Metis, who is also searching for his past lover. 
This is an interesting story about the issues with an ideal world, the problem of control versus individuality, and the nature of love.