Reviews and Comments

A beautiful travelogue that manages to convey some of the challenges and insights of a year-long wilderness trek without ever over-digressing into hiker obsessions with food, gear, and miles. The environment gets center stage, perhaps leaving some curiosity about the inner lives of the adventurers, but at least one big change is gradually revealed.

Also notable for the absence of cellphones, which now gives a new depth to the peace and simplicity the couple experiences.

Had a young-adult noir feel with some science thrown in here and there. I felt the need for a little escape and this did the job.

McDougall influenced me like many others with Born to Run and this book landed in my lap, so I went for it. Probably won't be as life-changing a read for me, but you never know. Taking a donkey's perspective for a while was a relief, and the portrayal of Sherman's community is rich and admirable.

Well-researched vignettes and story lines portray some of the likelyhoods and possibilities the changing climate could dish out. The thorough research doesn't always equal plausibility for me, but I found it educating and probably a much healthier rumination than I can manage on my own. Don't mistake hopeful for utopian, there is no denial that if there going to be hope humanity is going to get it's ass kicked on the way.

Might be timing, but I was ready to receive this. Love the message and the practice so far, though I have limited access to the cold at the moment.

I usually drop fiction that hits me with too much magic up front, but this was so foreign, irreverent, and unpredictable that it kept me curious. Having finished it I really feel like I've spent time in an alien world. I'm not sure I like or understand all of it, but the exposure forced my mind to broaden somehow.

Lots of themes here appeal to me with deserts, tech giants, and misfits in a Nigerian future I'm not equipped to imagine. There were bits here and there I couldn't swallow, but overall I'm thankful for the journey.

We might not have quite reached this level of dystopia but having nearly reached 2024 nothing seems too farfetched. Butler shows that she needs nothing supernatural to power a story. This one will stick with me should I manage to live through the time period it is set in.

I'm endlessly impressed with Octavia Butler. Fantasy enticements heavily balanced with terrifying entailments, laden with keen observations of psychology, biology, sex, culture, and ethics. In a story that doesn't quit. Wow.

Guessing how the stories connect to their predecessors is part of the appreciation, and the new elements are no less incisive. Impressive.

More dead-on 80's nostalgia packaged in an entertaining story that pays homage by name to darker predecessors like Strange Days and Brainstorm.

Butler's way of introducing a superhuman premise up front in a matter-of-fact way then getting right to the implications for human characters and works well. You can feel strong undercurrents while engaging with a good story. Looking forward to continuing the series.

True to its title, a compendium of desert weirdness and beauty for the merely curious and irretrievably lost alike.