Book Review: The Death of Grass by John Christopher

Pros: well-developed characters, thought provoking, realistic, tense

Cons: several disturbing scenes implied

Not only do John and David Custance lead very different lives, one as a farmer in a remote valley in the British countryside, the other an architect in London, they also have very different views on most things.  But they love each other dearly.  

When the Chung-Li virus that attacked rice in China spreads and mutates, no one is prepared for how quickly things deteriorate.  Given short notice to leave London, John takes his family and, with others, tries to get to his brother's farm.  The group is not only horrified by how far society has crumbled in such a short time, they're forced to make difficult moral choices that change them forever.

This is a story that could come true.  There are diseases that attack specific plants and the reactions of the countries - to give aid as long as they've got plenty of food stores and then to hoard their food when things threaten to get bad for them - is entirely realistic.

The characters themselves all act in realistic ways.  Rodger, John's best friend, whose family accompanies that of the Custances', starts out as a thoroughly unlikable, though extremely practical, man.  He understands how humans act in a crisis.  And the book bears him out as the simple motivation of get their families to safety eventually requires acts that at any other time would seem reprehensible to these same people.  On the other hand, Ann, John's wife, begins as the voice of reason and charity, but as the world falls down even she becomes both a victim and perpetrator of the violence around them.  

The novel's tension surrounds both whether they will find safety and whether they'll digress into animals like so many around them.  And it is a very tense read, with actions and questions that will make you think long after you've put the book down.

Several things take place in the course of the story that are, without being detailed in the text, still disturbing in their implications.

This novel proves that sometimes the scariest possible futures are caused by natural disasters rather than war. 

New Author Spotlight: Darin Bradley

New Author Spotlight is a series designed to introduce authors with 3 books or less in the different SF/F subgenres.

 Today's spotlight shines on Darin Bradley!  His debut novel is Noise published by Random House.
 Here's the cover copy...

This haunting debut from a brilliant new voice is sure to be as captivating as it is controversial, a shocking look at the imminent collapse of American civilization-and what will succeed it.   In the aftermath of the switch from analog to digital TV, an anarchic movement known as Salvage hijacks the unused airwaves. Mixed in with the static's random noise are dire warnings of the imminent economic, political, and social collapse of civilization-and cold-blooded lessons on how to survive the fall and prosper in the harsh new order that will inevitably arise from the ashes of the old.

Hiram and Levi are two young men, former Scouts and veterans of countless Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Now, on the blood-drenched battlefields of university campuses, shopping malls, and gated communities, they will find themselves taking on new identities and new moralities as they lead a ragtag band of hackers and misfits to an all-but-mythical place called Amaranth, where a fragile future waits to be born.

Check out these other books if you're a fan of soft apocalypses:

• Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh (Night Shade Books)
• The Unit by Terry DeHart (Orbit)
• Death of Grass by John Christopher (Penguin)