Publisher's Weekly Review
Chronicling a journey of violence, oppression and fleeting liberation, this brutal third novel from the author of The Electric Michelangelo is a timely feminist commentary on war, gender, politics and identity. Set in a dystopian near-future northern U.K. where global warming, a fuel crisis, drug epidemics and a cruel totalitarian regime known as the Authority have savaged the land and people, the story is told by Sister, a young woman living in cramped terrace quarters. Sterilized against her will (the result of the Authority's female sterilization policy) and forced to work in a "New Fuel" factory, Sister escapes to seek out Carhullan, a shadowy all-female commune run by the enigmatic Jackie Nixon. Carhullan is a hard-knocks utopia, in which women's strengths and passions grow from manual labor, paramilitary training and intense, sometimes sexual, friendships. As the threat of the Authority grows, Sister rises in the ranks of the Carhullan resistance force, oblivious to the increasing similarities between the Authority and Jackie's seductive, psychological control. Though the climax and denouement are sloppily handled, the overall effect is haunting, timely and well wrought. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Set in a darkly eerie future, this story examines how a band of women fight the elusive and powerful Authority that now controls Britain. Told in retrospect, through a series of transcribed statements from a "female prisoner detained under Section 4 (b) of the Insurgency Prevention (Unrestricted Powers) Act," the novel is clearly making a political statement. The narrator describes how in growing disgust she decided to leave her lover Andrew and surreptitiously make her way from the town of Rith to Carhullan, a colony of dissident women, in the hopes of finding both protection and strength to fight the ominous (and nebulous) Authority, which through a lottery system decides when women can try to conceive. After a short but arduous journey she makes her way to the colony, located in a remote area of Cumbria, where she is renamed "Sister" by Jackie Nixon, the rugged leader of the group of 64. At first treated with suspicion, Sister eventually begins to fit into the group and sort out the complex dynamics of the community. One of the younger members of the community is 14-year-old Megan, an innocent who "had not been exposed to a world of inferiority or cattiness, nor male dominance. She was, in a way, an idealised female." In moments like these--and too many others--subtlety is replaced with heavy-handedness. The group is in training for an eventual military strike against the government, and Sister joins a particularly elite strike force, something between the Navy SEALs and ninja warriors. The cadre of warriors eventually sets about capturing the Authority headquarters in Rith, but the rebellion has little chance. British author Hall (The Electric Michelangelo, 2004, etc.) lacks restraint in her depiction of feminine strength. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
From prison, a woman tells us she has been Sister for the last three years; her former name is simply gone. So is the Britain we might have recognized in this futuristic tale set in the semitropical Britain of the authority, where seasons blur and people mourn the loss of March hail and even January cold. Flooded ports and lowlands, residents crammed together, Baghdad-style power outages, Soviet-style deprivation, civilian travel banned and cars, without fuel, long abandoned, nationalized resources, weapons in the hands of a dictatorial government that mandates contraception all parts of a 10-year official recovery that compels the narrator, after practicing for a month, to slip away with the rucksack she has hidden in an alleyway alcove. With food, water, clothes, and a World War II rifle, she seeks Carhullan, a women's commune of presumed terrorists and Furies, on a dangerous journey into the distant mountains. Hall's compelling writing recalls Atwood and Lessing, resonating beyond obvious current parallels and never softening her vision of a dismal, hellish future and exalted, albeit transient, rebellion.--Scott, Whitney Copyright 2008 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In a flooded, postapocalyptic Britain, most of the country is wet and uninhabitable; what remains above ground is in the tight control of a repressive, misogynist regime called "The Authority." Citizens are assigned work in newly essential industries and are provided with tightly shared living quarters; women are force-fitted with contraceptive devices except for the fortunate few who win the breeding lottery. From these hellish conditions, a young woman leaves behind her husband and home to seek out a fabled, utopian community of women in the north. The brutal reception she receives upon her arrival there is offset by the warm communality that follows her acceptance into the group. However, all is not well, as the women must face predatory outside forces, and the novel races toward a riveting conclusion. After Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami, this foreboding tale by Hall (The Electric Michelangelo) seems eerily imaginable. Sure to be of interest to readers of Cormac McCarthy's The Road and others who like their apocalyptic fiction raw.-Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
