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A review by dsnake1
The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed
3.0
NetGalley and the publisher, ECW Press Audio, provided me a review copy of the audiobook.
The Annual Migration of Clouds is a YA cli-fi post-apocalyptic hopepunk novella centered on a teen who may have the opportunity of a lifetime -- but it would mean leaving her family and community behind.
Earth is no longer what it used to be, wracked by not only climate-change-amplified disasters but also a generically-transmitted neurological fungal parasite that eventually kills its host after keeping the host from making dangerous decisions until such a time as the host can no longer go on.
Reid, a young girl who carries this parasite, is invited to a University, one of the few places that still resembles the society of old, but in order to go, she'd leave behind her sick mother, her friends, and her community that relies upon everyone to contribute. If the university is real, that is. She is faced with all kinds of decisions in the leadup to deciding if she'll leave or not, and she makes some choices that place her in the kinds of danger she's never seen.
The novella is incredibly literary in feel, almost to its detriment. It follows the literary trope (I'm sure that's not the right word, but it gets the point across) of not being overly concerned with a self-contained story. Really, the parts we see are the least interesting in this story. It's more concerned with symbolic questions the prose proposes. What is community? What risks are worth taking? Is 'just surviving' acceptable when there's a possibility for unknown greatness?
The Annual Migration of Clouds is much more concerned with those questions than "What kind of adventures will Reid have on the way to the university?". Honestly? That's fine with me, although due to it's heavily speculative setting, I think a number of readers may push back, especially because the setting is fairly creative and could tell its own story.
I do think there's a case for the novella being too long, honestly. If it's going to tackle external questions more than internal ones, there's at least one entire sequence that could be cut or done much more quickly, leaving this a novelette that more clearly punches at the big questions without actually worrying about telling a strong narrative.
The Annual Migration of Clouds is a YA cli-fi post-apocalyptic hopepunk novella centered on a teen who may have the opportunity of a lifetime -- but it would mean leaving her family and community behind.
Earth is no longer what it used to be, wracked by not only climate-change-amplified disasters but also a generically-transmitted neurological fungal parasite that eventually kills its host after keeping the host from making dangerous decisions until such a time as the host can no longer go on.
Reid, a young girl who carries this parasite, is invited to a University, one of the few places that still resembles the society of old, but in order to go, she'd leave behind her sick mother, her friends, and her community that relies upon everyone to contribute. If the university is real, that is. She is faced with all kinds of decisions in the leadup to deciding if she'll leave or not, and she makes some choices that place her in the kinds of danger she's never seen.
The novella is incredibly literary in feel, almost to its detriment. It follows the literary trope (I'm sure that's not the right word, but it gets the point across) of not being overly concerned with a self-contained story. Really, the parts we see are the least interesting in this story. It's more concerned with symbolic questions the prose proposes. What is community? What risks are worth taking? Is 'just surviving' acceptable when there's a possibility for unknown greatness?
The Annual Migration of Clouds is much more concerned with those questions than "What kind of adventures will Reid have on the way to the university?". Honestly? That's fine with me, although due to it's heavily speculative setting, I think a number of readers may push back, especially because the setting is fairly creative and could tell its own story.
I do think there's a case for the novella being too long, honestly. If it's going to tackle external questions more than internal ones, there's at least one entire sequence that could be cut or done much more quickly, leaving this a novelette that more clearly punches at the big questions without actually worrying about telling a strong narrative.