For the past few weeks, a man has been following Angel and her family around. They live in the town of Bayfield, on the banks of Lake Superior, in a dystopian successor nation to the United States known as the Protectorate, governed by the authoritarian Galt Corporation. When Angel finally confronts the man, he tells her he\u2019s a pathfinder, \u201clookin\u2019 to find a way to remake the world.\u201d Path, as she comes to know him, wants Angel\u2019s \u201cvox\u201d\u2014her voice\u2014for use on a voxcast, a kind of pirate radio show that broadcasts anti-corporate messages into the night. (The previous speaker, known as Word, has lost his voice.) It\u2019s a serendipitous meeting, since Angel and her companion, Kuba, have been listening to Word\u2019s voxcast for months. Angel (who, with Kuba, is raising her daughter, Lark) has a history of rebellious activity, though she attempts to conceal her true sympathies from the watchful eyes of the Corporation. She agrees to join the voxcast, which is issued from a hidden room in a safe house occupied by two decoy mannequins, which give the impression the house is occupied by an elderly couple. At first, she plans to read a vague script written by Word, but she soon realizes that she has a very specific political goal she\u2019d like to see realized: \u201cIn her waking dreams, it\u2019s clear, easy, straightforward. Free the ovas, the fems of the Breeder Islands. To honor her mother. To remove that cog from the reproductive wheel of Galt.\u201d Can Angel, in her new role as the Night Prophet, inspire the change she wishes to see in the Protectorate? Or will she merely bring down the wrath of the Galt Corporation, risking the fragile life she\u2019s built for her daughter?<\/p>\n
Zienty has a knack for fashioning original futurespeak that doesn\u2019t call too much attention to itself, as here, where she describes a typical Bayfield \u201cfem\u201d: \u201cShe\u2019s twisting her sleek tail of ice gold hair while she waits for her dark-haired companion to open the security lock that prevents her sweet, swag top-of-the-line fat-tire ride from being pedaled away by an enterprising Bartertown rat.\u201d That said, some elements are perhaps a bit too cute; the rebels refer to one another as \u201cguevaras\u201d and still celebrate Martin Luther King Day, which, according to Path, \u201cmarks the birthdate of an ancient prophet of the Old Republic. A man who knew the beauty and power of words\u2026Although a bit too pacifist for my taste.\u201d The book\u2019s highly immersive quality, and its deep interest in the inner lives of its characters, sets it apart from more plot-driven and derivative dystopian fare. This second installment of the series may prove difficult to get into for those unfamiliar with the previous volume\u2014it starts slowly, and Angel\u2019s motivations take some time to reveal themselves\u2014but those who are continuing with the story will undoubtedly enjoy this new entry.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the past few weeks, a man has been following Angel and her family around. They live in the town of Bayfield, on the banks of Lake Superior, in a dystopian successor nation to the United States known as the Protectorate, governed by the authoritarian Galt Corporation. When Angel finally confronts the man, he tells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}