A criticism of a book

[conuly]

Name withheld to protect the guilty.

I would say that the worldbuilding of this book leaves a little something to be desired, but that would suggest that I thought the author spent any time on worldbuilding at all. She really should have.

Instead, I'm left with questions such as: "When the evil technology hating cultists were taking over, was this one dude the ONLY guy with a plan?" and "Wow, this one dude's plan really lasted well despite the evil cult being the only worldwide power for the past several hundred years" and "Okay, so as near as I can tell the heroes have only been to a tiny corner of the world, and there's no mass communication because there's no technology. They've only overthrown this small portion of the cult, right? But everybody is dragging their centuries old tech out of hiding like they've won the whole war?" and "Seriously, I've heard of medieval stasis, but this is ridiculous! There is NO redeeming factor to the evil cult, they're deliberately cultivating dung ages motifs all over the place, and they have no dangerous weapons or mass communications. HOW are they staying in power worldwide? A corner of the world, maybe, but all of it!?" and "Good thing oral tradition is 100% and nobody ever changes the words or forgets the tune" and "How did they even take over if most people weren't evil tech hating cultists and, therefore, the existing power structures were the ones with all the people AND all the guns?" and "Seriously, nobody else had a plan? There are so many moving parts to this one, and it doesn't at all conflict with anybody else's plan?"

Honestly, a few minutes of thought would've made this all work together. But no. Instead it's NO WORLDBUILDING AT ALL! FULL SPEED AHEAD!

Bonus points for forgetting eclipses. Again, this is supposedly a worldwide evil cult. Even if there hasn't been an eclipse in this tiny corner of the world for several hundred years (and wow, that old pocketwatch works really well after all this time! those folks took good care of it!) don't they rule the whole world? There have been other eclipses in other places!

*********

Monocles Were Never Cool

Your Brain Chooses What to Let You See

How Much Commuting is Too Much?

From delicate teens to fierce women: Simone Biles’ athleticism and advocacy have changed gymnastics forever

How Photos of Your Kids Are Powering Surveillance Technology

How technology sabotaged public safety without us even noticing

When Medical Debt Collectors Decide Who Gets Arrested

‘I Know the Struggle’: Why a Pizza Mogul Left Pies at Memorials to 4 Homeless Men

The Catholic Church and Boy Scouts are lobbying against child abuse statutes. This is their playbook

How the Secretive “Discipline” Process for Federal Prosecutors Buries Misconduct Cases

A flimsy raft, more than 100 souls, and three teenage heroes—or are they pirates?

Inside the search for Africa’s carbon time bomb

Preying on Children: The Emerging Psychology of Pedophiles

Comments

[nodrog]

Sounds like an Author Tract.

[conuly]

I can see where you get that impression from my complaints, and you're not wrong exactly, but I think the bigger issue is that neither the writer nor the editor thought that the audience - this is a middle grade book, so we're talking the under-13 group - deserved better.

Re: “One Nation, Under Surveillance”

[nodrog]

That “Kids Photos” article is fascinating.  Who could predict the present, when it was still the future?

If you recall “bras” on cars, they were made of radar-baffling material, intended to reduce the car’s radar cross-section (RCS) to where it would not be admissible in court.  “Fuzzbusters,” too, were a response to that technology. +  I have already seen “stealth,” or “drone-proof” fashion, outerwear that blocks your infrared signature.  It will be interesting to see what response, if any, Americans make to this.  We may see Guy Fawkes masks make a comeback, or some equivalent to the old nylon-stocking-over-the-head trick, which was indeed meant to accomplish this very thing - to distort the wearer’s face beyond recognition.


p.s.  Fritz Leiber’s 1950 SF story “Coming Attraction” answers my question in its own way; one of the aftereffects of the Big Atomic War was a fashion for wearing masks.


        [T]he actual origins of the trend are to be found in the anti-radiation
        clothing of World War III…  and that in turn led to the current female
        fashion.  Only a wild style at first, masks quickly became as necessary as
        brassieres and lipsticks had been earlier in the century.
       
        I finally realized that I was not speculating about masks in general, but
        about what lay behind one in particular.  That's the devil of the things;
        you're never sure whether a girl is heightening loveliness or hiding
        ugliness…



+  When traffic radar first came out, the Pennsylvania State Police couldn’t afford it yet, so they faked it:  They posted warning signs [“Enforced by Radar”] then on selected highway overpasses they put mannequins in uniform standing overlooking oncoming traffic, holding cereal-boxes wrapped in black tape tricorder-fashion.  Warning signs posted, then a cop actually standing there holding a black box on you:  People drove very nicely.  It worked for quite a while!

[wendelah1]

That article about the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts was shocking. Maybe it shouldn't have been.