Sue Parritt’s Sannah and the Pilgrim is the first title in her climate fiction trilogy. (It is followed by Pia and the Skyman and The Skylines Alliance.)

Australia and Aotearoa (the former New Zealand) have been ravaged by drought. The coastal plains have been inundated by rising sea levels. The ‘Whites’ of Australia, although impoverished by today’s standards, hang on to power through apartheid. They force the ‘Browns’, mostly refugees from drowned Pacific Islands, to labour on the little arable land that’s left.

We see this entirely plausible future from the point of view of a resistance movement, the Women’s Line, as they endure dangers to help the serfs held in the underground prisons to escape over to what we hope will be a better life for them in Aotearoa. (Pia and the Skyman takes up the story from the bases on Aotearoa.)

Sannah, “The Storyteller”, belongs to the Women’s Line. A light skinned stranger calling himself Kaire arrives at her dome and she must consider if he is a spy. The twin mysteries of Kaire’s origins and Sannah’s purpose in “storytelling” drive along the narrative. Kaire’s background when revealed gives us another viewpoint of the conditions on the planet. But we have to wait until Pia and the Skyman to see if his seemingly higher moral ground is based in the end on any better construct of human possibility and endeavour.

As with all resistance movements, nobody quite knows who else is to be fully trusted. Missions are planned and after excruciating buildups of tension go wrong in some way. We have escapes by desert and by sea, rescues, betrayals, brutalities and passions. Yet Parritt’s low key writing makes this stark way of life seem almost normalised, which makes it all the more disturbing; and the wreckage of not just the planet but of humanity springs out at us. ( )

Sannah and the Pilgrim is firmly in the emerging category of climate change fiction. Parritt has taken issues which should concern us all, global warming and the plight of refugees, and skilfully woven them into a novel set 400 years into Australia's future.

Her vision of Australia is a disturbing one, yet like all good fiction it makes the reader stop to consider the likelihood of such events and question the current state of government attitudes and policy.

Parritt's dystopian Australia has had an influx of Pacific Island refugees whose countries have been flooded due to global warming. A system of apartheid is firmly in place and the country is divided into zones based upon race. The government has an education system designed to hide the truths of the past and to continue to subjugate non-white races.

This is a tale of individuals fighting against "the system" to bring light to government lies and to free themselves and their people - an age old tale that is never-the-less constantly relevant.

This is not my usual choice of reading and was not quite "my thing"- I tend to read the battles and magic type of fantasy, hence my three star rating. However it is very well written and I am absolutely sure will be loved even more by others.
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Great! This book brings in so many important elements that amplify the important themes of our time: climate change, the great economic divide between rich and poor, the entrenched racism, and also our wish for a better life, even if it is beyond the stars. Holding it all together is the focus on compassion and love, which survive even in the ,ost hostile of surroundings. Highly recommended for fans of sci-fi. Bonus: it has an Australian/New Zealand focus! ( )

What a refreshing book! So nice to see such a well-considered mix of realistic as well as fantastic elements. For a futuristic setting, it has some frighteningly believable premises. The heart of the story doesn't shy from the sad possibility that humanity really might not manage to learn from our past, and yet the resilience and courage of the characters continually reminds us that even as individuals, we can still have a positive part to play. Using Kaire's viewpoint as an outsider's perspective is very clever, helping us to feel what it might be like to find ourselves on the 'privileged' side of a system we know is unjust. I am very curious to see how the story will play out in the next installment! ( )

I’m a bit late to the party with this one, the author has just published the sequel, Pia and the Skyman.

Disclosure: Sannah and the Pilgrim, however, has been on my radar for a while, because I know the author. In the days when I was an active member of the Mordialloc Writers Group led by writer Mairi Neil, I used to listen to Sue Parritt read excerpts from this novel at the monthly workshops. It fascinated me, because in those years before its publication in 2014, Sannah and the Pilgrim was the first book I knew of which was tackling climate change as an issue, long before anyone had thought of a #CliFi hashtag for the genre.

The world of the 25th century created by Parritt is more grim than any of the predictions we’ve seen, but it’s based on an entirely possible situation. Australia is reduced to desert, with agriculture possible only in the northern states, peopled by the brown-skinned descendants of environmental refugees from Pacific islands lost to the rising seas. Power rests in the hands of the Whites down south, and they enforce submission to this apartheid with an arrogant military force.

Women are a strong, capable moral force in this novel.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/06/26/sannah-and-the-pilgrim-by-sue-parritt/ ( )