Grimsdon

Deborah Abela (author)

Random House, Australia: 2010; 278pp

ISBN: 978174663723

Genres: adventure, science-fiction

Issues: climate change, community, environment, ethics, greed

Isabelle Charm, her inventive friend, Griffin, and three other children live in the top of a now-empty mansion. When Grimsdon town was flooded three years earlier due to climate change, many were killed, some were saved and others, like these orphans, were left behind and chose to find their own life. How long can they survive on their own?

Life in the ruins is dangerous – bounty hunters pursue survivors; greedy adults seek to use the children to accumulate unusable treasures; strange new creatures swim in the flooded streets. Isabella's steely determination and Griffin's astonishing mechanical wizardry have kept the group safe and healthy – until now. The arrival of Xavier and his flying machine changes all that. Is Griffin is the only one to see the danger beneath his charm? Who is Xavier? And why is he willing to risk everything they have – including their lives?

Deborah Abela is a talented writer with a great capacity to make the apparently impossible very believable. In Grimsdon, given what is already known about climate change and possible future weather events, Abela has created a disturbing adventure set in all too possible future: a future that holds grief-stricken, traumatized children trying to survive in a world ruined for them by adults who refused to act because it was politically difficult. Although Grimsdon is, on the surface, an exciting, page-turning drama, there is a deep underlying sadness and cynicism about human nature and society's refusal to change. This dark current beneath the narrative is both disturbing and thought-provoking.

An interesting read.

Same author: The Remarkable Secret of Aurelie Bonhoffen