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.

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North is about a utopian society built from the ashes of a burning world. Scholars and archivists of the Temple have long searched and collected artifacts from our present age, preserving the knowledge so it may not fall into the wrong hands. The world has been at peace, keeping these spirits (“kakuy”) at bay. But man is bound to get greedy and want more. There will always be people for whom equality and equity are not enough, people who need praise and power, and that will be the downfall of utopia. Thoughts on Notes from the Burning Age This was my first Claire North book, though I've always been drawn to her books conceptually. After my positive experience with this one, I am bumping some of her others up on my TBR list. Catherine Webb (born 1986) is a British author. She also writes fantasy novels for adults under the name Kate Griffin, [1] and she writes science fiction as Claire North. [2] Life [ edit ] North, Claire (11 May 2019), The Pursuit of William Abbey, ISBN 9780356507439 , retrieved 1 December 2019 Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North is about a utopian society built from the ashes of a burning world. Scholars and archivists of the Temple have long searched and collected artifacts from our present age, preserving the knowledge so it may not fall into the wrong hands. The world has been at peace, keeping these spirits (“kakuy”) at bay. But man is bound to get greedy and want more. There will always be people for whom equality and equity are not enough, people who need praise and power, and that will be the downfall of utopia.

Customer reviews

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. Prayers are for gifts.They are for blessed things, bestowed with mercy, compassion. They are raised up in exaltation...and cry out for special attention, for the world to be something other than what it is....p214 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.

Review: I so much wanted to like this. A book spy! Magical Futurism! My home river, the Danube! Many places where I’ve been like Vienna, or Budapest! Green-grey eyes looked down upon the city as if waiting at any moment for a fire to start. When her face was neutral, it was an almost formless thing, with thin pale lips and small flat nose seeming to blend into each other. On those occasions when she frowned — or, more rarely, smiled — contours of fibre and tendon emerged from cheek and chin, as if she existed in only two states: animated, or corpse-like, with no middle ground between them. Notes from the Burning Age, Kindle edition, chapter 16, location 3675 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.Ven came from the Temple, and spends years in dialogue with a mastermind of the Brotherhood. Their discussions veer from practicalities to philosophies, with Ven’s acerbic voice taking us through them and a world very different from ours, but sadly the same, as the Brotherhood eagerly takes advantage of unearthed information about old tech. It was about the time of the great migrations, when all the nations began to splinter like the burning bough and the wars of water and grain came upon the lands, that the kakuy woke. First they rose from the skeletons of the ocean reefs, glistening bone and acid breath. Then they climbed from the shattered mines, and their eyes were embers of coal and their feet broke the towns beneath their feet. Then they came from the sky itself, upon thunder and lightning they blazed, tearing down the monuments of man and bidding the earth swallow whole the sacrileges of the Burning Age.