I am adding another country to my list of those that I have read a translation of a book and I returned to my most favorite genre, Science Fiction. This book was written in 2004 in China. It is a speculative book, asking the question: What kind of a world would children make if all the adults and teens over 13 years old were gone? The author suggests it would, at the start, be a world based on playing and games. I am too far from my childhood to say otherwise. I remember liking to play. I still do, although now my games are different.
There was a pretty supernova only 8 light years away. It bathed the planet with radiation that would slowly prove fatal to everyone over the age of 13. During their long dying, the adults tried to store food and other supplies to keep the children alive until they grew up. They tried to teach those children how to run the technology they were leaving behind. They thought the children would become little adults in their absence. In this story, they were wrong. The desire to play overcame all the training and the discipline they thought to instill.
Children don't have as much life experience as adults do. That can result in unfortunate and/or unintended results from impulsive actions. But enough children survive the games because the book is purported to be a history written some 30 years after the supernova caused chaos.
This book can make you think about the nature of unsupervised children. While they are not necessarily blood thirsty savages, neither are they sweet angels. I liked it. I wasn't too fond of the amount of time spent on the war games. Otherwise, I thought it was an interesting story.
I received the copy of the book I read for this review from BookishFirst.
There was a pretty supernova only 8 light years away. It bathed the planet with radiation that would slowly prove fatal to everyone over the age of 13. During their long dying, the adults tried to store food and other supplies to keep the children alive until they grew up. They tried to teach those children how to run the technology they were leaving behind. They thought the children would become little adults in their absence. In this story, they were wrong. The desire to play overcame all the training and the discipline they thought to instill.
Children don't have as much life experience as adults do. That can result in unfortunate and/or unintended results from impulsive actions. But enough children survive the games because the book is purported to be a history written some 30 years after the supernova caused chaos.
This book can make you think about the nature of unsupervised children. While they are not necessarily blood thirsty savages, neither are they sweet angels. I liked it. I wasn't too fond of the amount of time spent on the war games. Otherwise, I thought it was an interesting story.
I received the copy of the book I read for this review from BookishFirst.