Notes from the Burning Age

Product Information

The book description speaks of Notes From The Burning Age being a post apocalyptic story of humanity trying to find itself, but more than that this is a spy novel. It is first and foremost a spy novel worthy of comparison to the work of John Le Carré as opposed to any post apocalyptic novel I've read. But typical of North that doesn't summarise what the story is either.

Notes from the Burning Age is a captivating and visionary new novel from Claire North, author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and 84K. Set in an age after the world has fallen, this masterfully imaginative story asks whether humankind can change the paths we seem fated to follow. The novel follows Middle-European Ven who is one of a few people of his time to have spotted a Kakuy. He becomes a priest, learns dead languages like English or German to translate the Notes of the Burning Age. Many are forgeries, most contain silly content like WhatsApp conversations, or porn. But here and there are valuable “heretical” information about technology. Ven goes rogue and sells the information outside of his monastery, ends up disgraced. He works as a bartender in the city of Vien at the beautiful river Ube.I loved reading about the relationship between Ven and Georg. They are bound together by destiny and even when they separate, they continue to cross paths. For me, a good political thriller has contrasting people and continuous tension. The political landscape and struggles set up in Notes from the Burning Age is fascinating to observe, and the interplay between Ven and Georg is very well written. On the Burning Age (our present)

a b "Telegraph Family book club: Exploits of a Teen Queen". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 16 June 2008 . Retrieved 17 December 2014. People survived and reestablished towns and cities, and developed new technologies that were less damaging to world. Along with the rebuilding, people developed a stronger sense of the interdependence of everything, personified by the planet’s earth, sky and water spirits, who had become fed up with our heedless destruction of the very things keeping us and every other thing alive and poisoned us, drowned us and burnt us to teach us a lesson. Those left behind became more careful of their use of planetary resources and of cautious of repeating old, climate destroying mistakes, and gave thanks to the kakuy.This conflict fuels the action of the book, of those feeling only a few deserve the best of technologies, comforts and opportunities, as exemplified by the Brotherhood, and many others have a strong belief in community, of being mindful of one’s affect on the land and on others. One of my observations was that for a utopia to function, there still has to be a hierarchy and structure. Everyone had agreed that the Temple had the power to limit the circulation of material. People cannot just live happily and in harmony without standards and law to abide by. While this does not come off as an imbalance of power to someone who has always lived in that world by those very rules, Georg and the Brotherhood saw it as such and are willing to do anything to get a hold of the information being kept from them. On the other hand, Georg is a powerful entity in and of himself. He is resourceful, secretive and manipulative. He is a puppet master and most people don’t even know what he is making them do. He is the perfect mafia warlord. The clash of belief systems is absolute. The Temple preaches humility in the face of nature, the need to forswear the old technologies that can disrupt the earth, and the need to live in a humble way that will not cause the spirits of nature (the kakuy) to destroy human civilization again as they did in the Burning Age. The surviving peoples of Europe for the most part set aside their differences amid the the ruins of their countries and submitted to the rule of a Temple-inspired Council.

This is a complex, complicated book dealing in ideas and beliefs. It’s absorbing and thought provoking, and very good.

Customer reviews

But what we've got here is spycraft, a tightly plotted novel, characters that are quite memorable, and enough twists and turns and harrowing situations that amount to all-out war to fill any kind of cold-war thriller. Only this one revolves around old technologies plummed from the old internet, making a wild combination of translation issues, research espionage, and knowledge-is-power inquisition versus humanist revolutionary thugs... all during a post-climate disaster where most people have died. Webb was educated at the Godolphin and Latymer School, London, and the London School of Economics. [ citation needed]

North has an amazing imagination and this is certainly fully displayed in this dystopian tale of our world in the distant future after it has been ruined by the way we treat it. Most technology has been discarded and even reading about its history is heresy. Energy sources are renewable and unreliable. Of course politics are just the same and are really the basis for the whole story. Why didn’t it work for me? I nearly DNFed it after 20% in, because it dragged on and on. I soldiered through, because I loved other works from the author. And indeed, the middle-part was a breathless action plot. Only, that it was too much: Too many recurring situations where I thought “yet another XYZ”. Half of it would have perfectly well transported the needs and situation without giving up anything. The plot really wasn’t driven forward by yet another flight to yet another station.The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August (as Claire North) nominated for the BSFA Award for Best Novel