It's the end of the world as weknow it
May. 10th, 2010 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vampyreranger posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
littleknownbooksOne of the most influential book of my childhood and one that set me on the path to a great love of post-apocalyptic novels is Rodman Philbrick's The Last Book in the Universe. It is a disturbing, thought-provoking, intricately woven tale about a future in which a great earthquake destroyed civilization as we know it and gave way to the urban control of violent gangs and addictive mind-probes which send images and videos directly to the brain (analogous to heavy drugs such as heroin in our society).
The main character is a 14 year old named Spaz who is "allergic" to the mind-probes and longs for the escape they provide others from their harsh reality. The city is divided into "latches" each ruled over by a boss. Spaz goes to rob an old man on the orders of his boss Billy Bizmo. The old man is Ryter, the sole heir of the lost arts of reading and writing. Spaz and Ryter also meet an orphan named Little Face and go on a journey through the latches to find Spaz's adoptive sister Bean, who is very ill. Along the way, they become friends and reach an understanding. There are interesting meditations on the ideas of civilization, family, class, and escapism. It's also heavily implied that Spaz is epileptic, which is why his brain cannot handle the mind-probes.
I've always been a big fan of the post-apocalyptic wasteland and interested in the psychology of the decay of civilization. Philbrick gives the reader an inventive and thought-provoking world in which the dregs live in the Urb and the higher class, the proovs, live in Eden. It's a fantastic commentary on people and society as a whole. I would highly recommend it to anyone.
The main character is a 14 year old named Spaz who is "allergic" to the mind-probes and longs for the escape they provide others from their harsh reality. The city is divided into "latches" each ruled over by a boss. Spaz goes to rob an old man on the orders of his boss Billy Bizmo. The old man is Ryter, the sole heir of the lost arts of reading and writing. Spaz and Ryter also meet an orphan named Little Face and go on a journey through the latches to find Spaz's adoptive sister Bean, who is very ill. Along the way, they become friends and reach an understanding. There are interesting meditations on the ideas of civilization, family, class, and escapism. It's also heavily implied that Spaz is epileptic, which is why his brain cannot handle the mind-probes.
I've always been a big fan of the post-apocalyptic wasteland and interested in the psychology of the decay of civilization. Philbrick gives the reader an inventive and thought-provoking world in which the dregs live in the Urb and the higher class, the proovs, live in Eden. It's a fantastic commentary on people and society as a whole. I would highly recommend it to anyone.