Synopsis:
On an Earth devastated by The Scorching climate event, the Drathken land their giant plantships with the promise of healing the planet. Joshua Nkosi vlogs and jokes his way through an easy life guarding a deep-sea mining operation while watching old vids. That is until, he and his modded octopus partner, Marc, get caught up in a plot to steal radiation rich materials from the seabed, fuelling the terrorists’ plan to destroy a Drathken plantship, and ultimately put an end to the alien/human alliance.
Nkosi and his sarcastic tentacled buddy are forced to enter the Burnout Zone, only to come face to face with humanity’s stark future when the hunt for the terrorist’s lab takes a devastating twist. As conspiracies deepen and the jokes fly, Nkosi and Marc enter a dark journey of discovery—one they decide humanity desperately needs to listen to.
Review:
The scorching, as you might imagine, is set on a world still convulsing after it’s death throws. There are forces in play who’s job it is to help the recovery of the scorched, then slowly drowning world but they do so with cold duty and violent apathy.
Our main protagonist and his cephalopod partner delivers the gory details of the broken world in insidious and sarcastic tones as they navigate this action packed story at a pace akin to a veteran sliding down a metallic ladder to the depths of a 1980’s action sub. The charisma and interplay between these characters is a wonderful and nutritious injection amid the bleak and often reality-based suggestions of human greed and failure that Snape throws in so well without over-preaching.
“I do wonder, at times, whether we spend so much time watching our backs, that we fail to see what is in front of us.”
Josh Nkosi has hidden depth. His world view and his life’s experience hiss angrily from his broken pipework and his relationship with the pure genius that is MARC are not only fun but are such a vital voice in this story. The story itself is also a multifaceted beast. Like a crumbled post-apocalyptic high rise, each floor reveals another detail that paints a dramatic backdrop for the main narrative without ever dumping info or flattening the action packed groove of this book.
Snape also has a certain mastery in hiding his true characters within plain sight. He will literally tell you about a coming twist with such matter-of-fact charm that you will still feel the blow when it finally lands.
“We don’t discuss the dreams. However light my conversation, you don’t need the darkness that shrouds my slumbering mind.”
The same reverence can be given to the environments in this book. It is easy to say the world has been mostly destroyed but crawls along still, but Nick Snape manages to drape flesh onto it’s decaying bones. Each setting is a vivid and scientifically researched snapshot replete with a commentary on how it came to be (or ceased to be) as it flies past the window on our journey.
I have never experienced such bleak world building being drip fed through humour and sardonic charisma in this way and it is truly intravenous, never so much as tripping the reader on their desperate charge towards its conclusion.
A conclusion, I might add, that brings yet another layer to this unique and fascinating package. Snape’s way of introducing emotion, social conscience, the human condition and love for all creatures great and small is mesmerising and will live on in any reader’s mind.
I look eagerly towards the roiling skies for the next book in this awesome series.
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