Hardcover, 304 pages
English language
Published Jan. 18, 2022 by William Morrow.
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.
Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a …
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.
Once unleashed, the Arctic Plague will reshape life on earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.
From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resiliency of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.
A series of bleak, gritty glimpses of what's in store for us over the next few decades.
The tone is lightened a bit here and there with injections of optimism, but I think it works against itself a little when the optimism feels unwarranted.
The way that the characters from the different stories are linked reminds me a bit of Cloud Atlas (although I only saw the movie (sorry)).
How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. It will make you weep; it will give you hope and destroy you at the same time. 5 stars.
I meant to read at least ten other books before this one, but when I sat down to check out the first few pages, I just kept reading straight through to the end. The world building style reminded me of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas in that it brought seemingly unrelated stories together woven through with finely connected threads. Each segment has an expertly introduced setting and characters of its own, and the writer brings us into harmony with them all, as well as with the work as a whole.
The ending may not appeal to everyone, and did not quite fully appeal to me, but it works in the context of the book, and I enjoyed the skill with which Nagamatsu …
How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. It will make you weep; it will give you hope and destroy you at the same time. 5 stars.
I meant to read at least ten other books before this one, but when I sat down to check out the first few pages, I just kept reading straight through to the end. The world building style reminded me of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas in that it brought seemingly unrelated stories together woven through with finely connected threads. Each segment has an expertly introduced setting and characters of its own, and the writer brings us into harmony with them all, as well as with the work as a whole.
The ending may not appeal to everyone, and did not quite fully appeal to me, but it works in the context of the book, and I enjoyed the skill with which Nagamatsu delivered it despite being a little alienated by the direction it went.
This book is worth every minute.
