Liked the style and world building and the characters, but the plot structure is rather irritating where Davy is looking back on his life, narrates a section then goes forward, hinting at other things, then goes back again - but then runs out of steam. So only about half of his life is narrated and the catastrophic breakdown of society, the revolution, the reason he and his friends have to flee in a ship is all just referenced in passing. It also seems at the end that the author just lost interest with the whole thing, given how it ends. ( )

How drearily pedestrian it is. Good gosh, what a snore...Sominex in print... ( )

My previous read of this book was when it was new, and I was a fairly innocent teenager. I knew it was bawdy, but I'm pretty sure I didn't realize how bawdy.

Anyway, it's a post-apocalyptic novel set about 400 years hence, after a war and climate change have messed the world up pretty badly and New England's become several small, but related, nation states. Young Davy breaks free from bondage, meets people, and becomes a roving musician. And other things happen.

A fun read. It's pretty much the story I remembered, except the bawdiness. ( )

A post apocalyptic story, where a simple young man takes a look at the theocracy which has ruled since the nuclear war, three hundred years earlier. ( )

The best of three novels and numerous short stories set in his post-apocalyptic world, this one follows the lead character as he grows to manhood, joins a traveling band of entertainers, and finally sets off in search of something greater. The landscape is bleak, but the book is wonderfully funny, mostly through the sheer force of Davy's personality. The final part is open-ended and very sad, and the writing is first rate throughout. Of all the post-apocalypse worlds in the books I've read, Pangborn's is the most richly detailed and completely realized; His other books that take place in this world are "The Company of Glory", "The Judgement of Eve," and a book of short stories "Still I Persist in Wondering." I've read other books since that seem influenced by it, most notably Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, which is also first rate. ( )