Archive for 'near-future'



REVIEW: Strangers in Death by JD Robb

Dear Ms. Roberts:

I discovered the In Death series almost 20 books in (at the publication of Portrait in Death), so I had the opportunity to read a big chunk of Eve and Roarke’s story all at once. I was immediately and completely caught up in the fictional futuristic world, from the tumultuous adventure of Eve and Roarke’s courtship and marriage, to Peabody and McNab’s touching and funny transformation from antagonists to lovers, to the HoloRoom and AutoChef and hovering cars and every other technological transformation of half a century into the future. It really felt like one integrated story to me, and I couldn’t get enough. Now, after a few more years and almost ten more books in the series, I still feel compelled to check in with Eve and Roarke and New York circa 2060. But whether it’s the months between books or the circumstances of any long series, my enthusiasm shifts back and forth with each new book. With Strangers in Death, my experience was mixed: I loved reading about the investigation but was not so enraptured by the relationship aspects of the novel.

This …

REVIEW: How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Dear Ms. Rosoff,

rosoff-hiln.jpgWhen a book has won a slew of awards including ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2005 and Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year, and has even been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, it hardly needs more accolades from me.

Here I am regardless, writing this open letter mainly to say that I think the folks who hand out these prizes were on to something, and readers with a taste for young adult fiction with a touch of romance, or who like their dystopias served up with a scoop of wry humor on the side, might enjoy this book as much as I did.

Whether How I Live Now takes place in an alternate present or in the very near future isn’t clear, but it doesn’t matter, because the world it is set in feels so familiar that when things start to go wrong they’re disturbingly convincing. The book begins when Daisy, its fifteen year old American narrator, arrives in England. Daisy tells her story in long sentences and a wry tone.

Anyway, I'm looking and looking and everyone's leaving and there's no signal on my …