Wrought with admirable skill-the emptiness and menace underlying this Utopia emerge step by inexorable step: a richly provocative novel.Ī dystopic thriller joins the crowded shelves but doesn't distinguish itself. Ill-equipped, Jonas sets out with the baby on a desperate journey whose enigmatic conclusion resonates with allegory: Jonas may be a Christ figure, but the contrasts here with Christian symbols are also intriguing. Horrified, Jonas plots escape to "Elsewhere," a step he believes will return the memories to all the people, but his timing is upset by a decision to release a newchild he has come to love. The process is deeply disturbing for the first time, Jonas learns about ordinary things like color, the sun, snow, and mountains, as well as love, war, and death: the ceremony known as "release" is revealed to be murder. In the event, he is named "Receiver," to replace an Elder with a unique function: holding the community's memories-painful, troubling, or prone to lead (like love) to disorder the Elder ("The Giver") now begins to transfer these memories to Jonas. Father, a "Nurturer," cares for "newchildren" Mother works in the "Department of Justice" but Jonas's admitted talents suggest no particular calling. In a radical departure from her realistic fiction and comic chronicles of Anastasia, Lowry creates a chilling, tightly controlled future society where all controversy, pain, and choice have been expunged, each childhood year has its privileges and responsibilities, and family members are selected for compatibility.Īs Jonas approaches the "Ceremony of Twelve," he wonders what his adult "Assignment" will be. Fantasy readers will enjoy this excursion over rich if well-trodden ground. In the end, Collun foils the invaders by recovering part of a magic stone, and he and Brie go off happily together to plan a garden several dangling storylines promise sequels. The monsters are vividly rendered, especially the noxious Firewurme that Collun must kill in order to rescue Nessa.
The action here frequently stops for detailed history lessons, and Pattou doesn't take many chances with either plot or characters-though it's refreshing to see a hero who prefers to garden, and who would rather heal wounds than inflict them.
He's pursued by Morgs and sundry other unsavory creatures and has several narrow squeaks when his country is invaded by the forces of an evil queen. On the way, he picks up some familiar types as companions-Crann, a powerful old wizard Brie, a woman warrior disguised as a lad the elflike Silien etc. In a long, earnest fantasy with a Celtic flavor, young Collun leaves his beloved farm to search for his missing sister, Nessa.
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