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Harmony by Project Itoh. Translated by Alexander O. Smith

Pages: 252 pages
First Published: 2008 Japan (July 20, 2010, English Trans.)
Publisher: Haika Soru: Viz Media
Rating: 5/5

First sentence:

I have a story to tell.

Acquired: Received a review copy from Simon & Schuster Canada.

Reason for Reading: I love post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels and at the same time I was very intrigued in reading a Japanese novel in translation. So far my Japanese reading has been confined to manga.

This book won the Japanese Awards: the Seiun Award and the Japan SF Award and is a highly literary piece of work. A brilliant work of dystopia that looks at a future world that is unlike anything I’ve ever read before and is also completely viable. The publisher’s summary does not do justice to the story at all and I was not prepared for the deep philosophical, scientific, ethical, sociological and technological issues that would be covered in this fairly slim volume.

I couldn’t even begin to find the words to describe the plot as it is so intricate and multi-layered nor do I really want to as going into this book without much plot knowledge will only enhance your enjoyment. Instead, let me describe the world. There has been an apocalypse; bombs have dropped and a large portion of the world’s population killed. It is now about 60 years later and the civilized world has no governments, or ruling kingdoms, instead the world is managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and throughout each country there are thousands of admedistration units catering to small sections of the population. People have been implanted with a medical monitoring device which constantly measures physical and emotional health, sending out modules of medications or enzymes to fix the problem straight away. Thus no one in this world is ever sick, hurts themselves, or becomes mentally unstable. Privacy is the ultimate bad word; one you would whisper and make sure no one else heard you say. Everybody has a health output hovering over their head so all can see how each other is doing, and everyone is kind and thoughtful to others because the most precious resource in this population depleted world is human life. As one walks along in life your implant will shield you from emotional distress, should something come up that would interfere with your specific emotional make-up a filtering process would go into place and you would not even see the offending item: painting, magazine, store, etc. Everyone is in perfect health as your diet is streamlined for your consumption, and the correct foods delivered to your home, within your budget. Menus at restaurants bring up a display telling the nutritional content of the food and what is within your parameters. Food with no nutritional value does not exist anymore. And the list goes on ….

Some people are perfectly content with this Utopian society of perfect health, peace and kindness. Never having to make uncomfortable choices and feeling as though they are truly being a valuable resource of society. Others realize this for the totalitarian society that it is and there are a few countries that have not joined the WHO, mainly Russia and then small scattered countries in Africa and the Middle East, which continue to resist. But there are others on the inside who want out, they’ve read books and found out what life was like before the Maelstorm and recognize individual freedom is missing from their society. Three teenage girls become a part of this resistance when they realize the only way to hurt the establishment is to hurt the most precious commodity, their human life. So they make a pact to commit suicide together. This is only the beginning, though. What will become at risk is the very essence that makes human beings human.

The book is written in a back and forth flow as the main character tells her story now as she works as an agent and flashes back to her childhood and early adult years as she was one of those girls who promised to commit suicide but obviously failed. The book is also written within a sort of HTML code called “Emotional-in-Text Markup Language” and the text is contained within the coded tags and within the text will be other tags with directions, sort of like a play. It’s strange at first, but you get used to it as a reader and when you find out it’s purpose on the last page … well it is stunning.

This book really deserves more publicity on this continent. It is one of the best dystopian novels I’ve read of late and so very different from the other stuff being written today which often has an environmental political agenda behind its cause of the apocalypse. I think I would put this up there with Brave New World, completely different stories mind, but equal in literary merit and psychological impact and thought.

I would like to mention that the very beginning pages do contain some quite vulgar language (which had me thinking I wouldn’t be reading the book much further) but it is mostly contained to those pages. Of course, there are expletives here and there throughout the book but don’t let the first pages put you off, if language is of a concern to you.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games, Book 3

Pages: 400 pages
Ages: 13+
First Published: Aug. 24, 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press

Rating: 5/5

First sentence:

I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather.

Acquired: Received a review copy from Scholastic Canada.

Reason for Reading: Next (and final) book in the trilogy.

There’s no point giving a summary as there are already hundreds of reviews which have done that before me. Suffice it to say that there is a war and people die. One walks into this final installment knowing someone (at least) is going to die. War has been brewing during the series and it’s culmination was obvious and no good writer can write realistically about war without having deaths. My own personal predictions of who would die were dead wrong and I was quite shocked with who eventually had their life(ves) taken in the name of Freedom.

But it was truly wonderful. Everything that happened in Mockingjay felt *right* to me. It’s not what I expected or how I possibly would have had things turn out but Ms. Collins went in a direction I can truly appreciate and understand. In a war who are the good guys? Obviously one would like to think the side one is on, but from an outsider’s point of view can there be a good guy? and is there any real distinction between the sides, as bad guys? Each side is capable of the same thing and is it only an atrocity when *they* did it to *you*? Is it right to punish the losers after the war is over? What if you are on the losing side? How do we live with and get on with it all afterwards? Personally, I am not *anti* war, I believe that, unfortunately, there does come a time when one must fight, but regardless of a person’s stance on war these are thought provoking questions that are real to any society. The ending was perfect for me. I think it was a completely plausible ending for the main characters and it felt good deep in my bones. I’m truly satisfied with how Mockingjay ended and so glad I read this series now, all together, once all the books had been published.

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde
Shades of Grey, Book 1

Pages: 389
First Published: Dec. 29, 2009
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

It began with my father’s not wanting to see the Last Rabbit, and ended up with my being eaten by a carnivorous plant.

Reason for Reading: I haven’t read Jasper Fforde before. I really want to but just never find the time to start his Thursday Next series so I jumped at the chance to get in at the beginning with a new series.

Summary: I don’t really feel capable of doing this justice but I’ll make an attempt. This is a satirical dystopian novel. Set 500 years in the future after Something Happened, this new world is ruled by a Colortocracy. People are born being able to see only one colour or perhaps a mixture of primary colours thus making greens, oranges, etc. Those at the top of the class system are Purples and those at the bottom are Greys, the working class who are colourless. Increasing one’s family’s colour heritage is of utmost importance and marriages are arranged to produce children who will climb further up the class system. It is here we find Eddie Russet, half promised to marry into the Oxblood family, who finds himself wearing a humility badge, sent to the Outer Fringes, a town called East Carmine, to conduct a chair census supposedly because of a prank he pulled but in reality because he asks too many questions and shows too much curiosity, a dangerous quality in this society. But it is in East Carmine that he realizes the banality of the heavily rule dependent government and the oppressiveness that is wrought upon society. He meets Jane, a Grey revolutionary, who he loves at first sight and while her ideas seem fanatical at first, the more he experiences the more he starts to agree with her.

Comments: This was a fabulous book. Fforde has created an utterly unique and fascinating dystopian society that is believable but is full of satirical comments that reflect upon our own society that one can take the story seriously and with tongue in cheek at the same time. I became immersed in this world from the first page, and while I’d never want to live there, I enjoyed every detail of it from government policies to recreation requirements. The characters are wonderful. Eddie and his group of friends each are distinctly real and flawed persons. The entire cast of characters is enormous and entirely eccentric from the librarian Mrs. Lapus Lazuli who has memorized the barcode of every book that has been removed from the library to the Apocryphal man, a 400 year old historian who everyone must pretend does not exist. The plot itself is a slow unraveling of Eddie coming to terms with the hidden reality of his society and the unsettling realization that the few must be sacrificed for the many. The story is quite dark and while I haven’t read any other Fforde books, from what I’ve read about the Thursday Next series, it would appear that this is a different move for the author. The themes and atmosphere are dark, there is a lot of satire making for plenty of humour but even the humour is dry and biting at times. There is so much going on within the pages of this book that I could simply go on and on about it. Suffice to say, I am utterly enamored with this world and its mythos and can’t wait for the next book.