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4+ Obras 376 Miembros 46 Reseñas

Obras de Eric Barnes

Above the Ether: A Novel (2019) 92 copias
Shimmer (2009) 76 copias

Obras relacionadas

The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 (2011) — Contribuidor — 191 copias

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1968-02-28
Género
male
Nacionalidad
USA
País (para mapa)
USA
Lugares de residencia
Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Educación
Columbia University
Connecticut College
Ocupaciones
novelist
Premios y honores
IndieNext Pick (2009)
Agente
Libby Jordon (Unbridled Books)

Miembros

Reseñas

If I want to track the decline of society, and some small areas that are attempting to stop it, I'll turn on the news.
 
Denunciada
Melline | 8 reseñas más. | Oct 24, 2023 |
Set aside nine hours for this compelling PG near-future dystopian elegy for the dying city of North End. I ended up reading WAY past my bedtime as I simply could not put the book down. I won a hardback copy in a Goodreads giveaway and this is my voluntary review.
 
Denunciada
Quakerwidow | 8 reseñas más. | Jun 2, 2023 |
3.5 stars
The best thing about this book, is that it shows real possibilities of what's going to happen in this country in the next 10-15 years.
The worst thing about this book, is that most people who read it will think it's exaggerated. They'll keep on eating animals, though that's one of the biggest drivers of climate change. They'll keep on consuming, getting the latest iPhone, etc., Just like the predator class wants them to.

On page 85 of the hard cover, there's a funny description of the Catholic religious service. I was brought up catholic, until my parents realized what a brainwashing they had had.
"They stand on cue, all of them, rising without being asked, nodding without being asked, crossing their fingers over their chest, again without being asked. They begin to kneel now, the room filled with a low and wooden Rumble as padded kneelers are unfolded from underneath each pew, the parishioners lowering themselves onto those padded planks. A minute later, the kneelers are tucked away again, once more discreetly positioned underneath each visitor to this church.
The people sit. They stand again. They repeat a phrase, the same phrase, an answer, a response, all of them, young and old, child and parent, they know these motions and these words by heart, it's as if they've known them since before they were ever born."

There are despicable characters in this book, but one of the admirable characters is a doctor, who escaped from somewhere in Mexico, with his wife, the daughter of an executed drug lord. They live in a refugee camp, snugged up against the border wall in the United states, one of the smallest ones with only 100,000 population.
The refugee camps are run by drug cartels. There are tunnels Dug underneath the border wall, and ending in tents in the refugee camps. Through these tunnels, human trafficking, drugs, and arms are run. Still, life is safer in these refugee camps than it is in many other places in this country.
"in the morning, he sees patients in the front room of their tent. They are lined up to see him. He has a nurse who works with him. She was a scrub nurse working on transplants at one of the University hospitals. She is much overqualified for the job. The colds people have. The pains and vague discomfort.
Most of the illnesses here are a function of the sadness people feel. The worry that they won't ever get out of this camp. The depression that this is all their journey will possibly achieve.
This is his worry too. So few visas are now issued. So many more people cross the border, most caught and sent directly to these camps. Fear of the refugees grows steadily. Anger toward them. Resentment and distrust, and for many people it is simple hatred.
His cousin made it out of his camp. Legally. He lives far west now, in a city there. He tells the doctor about the hatred. He is an architect working as a cab driver and weekend bus boy. Unable to get any other job despite the Visa and work permit he was granted many years ago. 'They don't like us,' the doctor's Cousin says when they speak by phone. 'They see us all in the same light. We've come here to take, they think. Take money. Take jobs. offer nothing. Give nothing. I tell people I designed office buildings. Hospitals. A library. A museum. They look at me and laugh.' "

Here is a description in the book, that is taken from real life in our real world of today:
"the soot and smoke of diesel oil rising from the massive ships that sail the oceans.
Flotillas of plastic bottles, drawn together, miles across, and there's no plan, no intent, no will to clean this up.
Drift nets 50 ft deep and 50 mi long, left to float with the current, ghosts now, that haunt the ocean, collecting millions of animals not intentionally, not to eat, but by accident, enTangled animals, all of them left to die."

The author's description of animal agriculture, one of the leading causes of environmental destruction, and destruction of humans and animals alike, in its breathtaking cruelty:
"pig shit, massive pools of it held in ponds carved out of the dirt, shit slowly seeping into lakes and streams and groundwater, shit-borne bacteria spreading from hog farms to spinach farm to reservoirs to city drinking water.
The rainbow-colored sheen of oily pesticides, collecting now in the drainage ditches at the end of Furrows plowed into the fields.
Cattle sometimes butchered while they still stand, staggering but alive, workers too callous or disinterested or just too numb to care that the maul no longer kills the animal they stand before. Instead, the blood of that creature, bits of live flesh and functioning organs, it all runs into drains on the concrete floor, washed down, bypassing filters long since disconnected, entering the sewers, is it alive still when it finds its way to the nearby river?"

Before I go, I have to mention the other despicable character in this book, the woman who helps her company make money off disasters in the world. she likes to have sex with children, and the author includes disgusting, triggering descriptions of it.

I have to wonder if the author is a vegan? People often lament the change in the world, as it is destroyed, and they'll buy reusable straws, ignoring one of the most important things an individual could do to make a difference.

The author's book which follows this prequel is called the city where we once lived. I have this book on my want to read list, but saw that this book is the prequel, so that's why I read it.
… (más)
 
Denunciada
burritapal | 3 reseñas más. | Oct 23, 2022 |
I was in the mood for something apocalyptic. The unnamed city has been ravaged by climate change and chemical pollution. Animals are gone, plants don't grow. The people who remain are stunned and surviving as best they can. The narrator, also unnamed, is a reporter and photographer for the now abbreviated city paper. He explores different parts of the city, documenting its decline and the impending disaster of weakened levees nearby. In this way, he attempts to push away memories of his own tragic past.
Barnes' writing is beautifully spare and the story is almost relentlessly dreary, as you would expect of a poisoned world. There are also hopeful moments when people help each other and muster whatever shreds of dignity they have left to build something better. I would have appreciated more details of everyday life for these people, but that would have entailed the narrator interacting much more with those around him and he is intentionally solitary. So a different point of view maybe? But I did like it.
… (más)
½
 
Denunciada
huntersun9 | 8 reseñas más. | Sep 10, 2022 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
4
También por
1
Miembros
376
Popularidad
#64,175
Valoración
½ 3.7
Reseñas
46
ISBNs
15

Tablas y Gráficos