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Worlds Without End Blog

WoGF Review: Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer Posted at 4:38 PM by Beth Besse

Badseedgirl

WWEnd Women of Genre Fiction Reading ChallengeWhen Beth Besse (Badseedgirl) is not preparing for the coming zombie apocalypse, or having long, and often bitter arguments with her sister over whether “Night of The Comet” is actually a zombie movie (well of course it is, it even says it in the movie description), she can be found curled up somewhere in her Tennessee home reading SF and Horror of questionable quality. Her guilty pleasure reading almost always involves urban fantasies or Southern Fried Vampires. Her Goal is to be able to someday boast that she has read every title in at least one WWEnd book list. (And finally convince her sister that “Night of the Comet” is a Zombie movie)


Life as We Knew ItWhat happens to society after the apocalypse? Books, TV and movies are filled with examples of society breaking down into a depraved and brutal landscape and people. But what would happen if instead of society ending in a blaze of violence and brutality, it simply faded away? This is what Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer attempts to answer.

The novel is written in Journal format by a 16 year old typical American Teen girl named Miranda, living with her divorced mother and younger brother in rural Pennsylvania. On May 18th an asteroid collides with the moon. The asteroid was not a surprise. Everyone knew it was coming but it was not supposed to be anything to worry about. The impact occurred, but something was wrong, we ultimately find out that the asteroid was heavier, denser that calculated by astronomers, and it changed the orbit and distance the moon was from the planet.

What was most surprising to me was how very gentle this novel about the death of most of humanity is. I was expecting something in the vein of Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Violence, looting, rape, murder, you know, all the things that happen as society breaks down due to an world –wide natural disaster. There are plenty of natural disasters in this novel; tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and the resulting “Nuclear Winter” from the ash. It’s just that the people in the novel never completely collapse into the barbarism that post-apocalyptic novels tend to lean to.

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WoGF Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern Posted at 10:36 PM by Beth Besse

Badseedgirl

WWEnd Women of Genre Fiction Reading ChallengeWhen Beth Besse (Badseedgirl) is not preparing for the coming zombie apocalypse, or having long, and often bitter arguments with her sister over whether “Night of The Comet” is actually a zombie movie (well of course it is, it even says it in the movie description), she can be found curled up somewhere in her Tennessee home reading SF and Horror of questionable quality. Her guilty pleasure reading almost always involves urban fantasies or Southern Fried Vampires. Her Goal is to be able to someday boast that she has read every title in at least one WWEnd book list. (And finally convince her sister that “Night of the Comet” is a Zombie movie)


The Night CircusWhen I finished Erin Morgenstern‘s debut novel The Night Circus I sat back, caught my breath and sighed, my first thought being “This is one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read.” Followed quickly by “But what the hell was it about?” Below you will find the running discussion I had with my own brain:

Was it “Contemporary Fantasy”?

Well no, it is set in the end of the Victorian period and into the Edwardian period, hardly what I would call “Contemporary”.

The circus is an ongoing duel between wizards from differing schools of magic, so it must be a “good vs. evil” novel.

But that does not fit either, there are no truly evil characters, Marco and Celia the two wizards involved in the duel are both good characters, so good in fact that they fall in love.

Ok, they fall in love so it must be a romance novel.

That does not really work because for 90% of the novel, they don’t even know about each other, except that there is a rival magician in the circus. Marco and Celia make attractions at the circus using a combination of magic and Victorian building methods using cogs and pulleys They collaborate on some and make others of their own, but most of the time they are not even in the same country, and only see each other maybe a half dozen times in the entire novel. They do fall in love, but the novel can hardly be called a romance.

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WoGF Review: The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy Posted at 2:00 PM by Beth Besse

Badseedgirl

WWEnd Women of Genre Fiction Reading ChallengeWhen Beth Besse (Badseedgirl) is not preparing for the coming zombie apocalypse, or having long, and often bitter arguments with her sister over whether “Night of The Comet” is actually a zombie movie (well of course it is, it even says it in the movie description), she can be found curled up somewhere in her Tennessee home reading SF and Horror of questionable quality. Her guilty pleasure reading almost always involves urban fantasies or Southern Fried Vampires. Her Goal is to be able to someday boast that she has read every title in at least one WWEnd book list. (And finally convince her sister that “Night of the Comet” is a Zombie movie)


The City, Not Long AfterIn the prologue, we are first introduced to a woman who is running away from San Francisco days after the plague. She is about to have a baby. Alone and scared she starts to “hallucinate” an angel. The woman promises the angel that it can name her child. This child grows up on a farm outside a small farming community led by a man called “Four Star”. This self-appointed leader’s mission is to bring back the United States of America, by any means possible including force. Through his actions, the girl’s mother dies, but before she does she sends the girl to San Francisco to warn the people there that Four Star is coming to invade.

The story starts 16 years after a mysterious plague has wiped out most of the population of the world. Small pockets of humanity survived and created what can only be described as a series of city states where the population survives through production of necessities and through foraging through the pre plague leftovers. Each area of, in this case, California seems to have created its own form of government according to the needs of the people. But what happens when one man decides that he is way is the only way?

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