Generation Snow by Robert Wildwood
234 pages, paperback $12
reviewed by EOH
other titles by this author: “Alive with Vigor! Surviving your Adventurous Lifestyle”, “Hobo Fires”, “Unsinkable”, “shut up & love the rain”
R.W. has been working at re-programming human culture for more than 25 years, published numerous zines and books under the name Robert Earl Sutter III, Robert Rowboat, and Robnoxious.
In “Generation Snow” the earth has been thrown into perpetual summer, sea levels are at peak, all ice has melted.
Diving into the story (I had to jump over the first chapters that seemed very slow developing and didn’t catch my curiosity) I find myself in a different society, different social structure, where everyone lives in some sort of similar, equitable housing, block by block different tribes, that are all part of a huge collective, cooperatively owned cafes on every block to feed the workers, equal work opportunities, centrally organized synthesized food, a society served by ‘robo-cooks’, ‘robo-servers’, and ‘robo-docs’.
Human interaction seems to be rare and unwanted, everyone under a cloud of suspicion as the numbers of southern climate refugees (that are controlled by the black dressed officers of the tribal police) increases.
Different society?…social structure??
The main character, Duffy, has dream visions of a distant planet named Gaeiou where the climate grows steadily colder. Deep winter will soon become the permanent season. He ‘sees’ two young students there, Pagnellopy and Xippix, desperately fighting to bring the balance back, because they realize they could be the last generation with a chance to save their planet.
The “real”(?) life of Duffy entangles more and more with the fights on planet Gaeiou.
Under mysterious circumstances Duffy meets famous action artist Starblaze Sturgeon who drops the word of planet Gaeiou.
Feeling in the middle of a fight himself, but not knowing against whom or for what, and drifting apart from his once convenient life, the questions in Duffy’s head rising and swirling without a single answer: Is there a shared vision and friend(s) to trust? Is trust even possible? Is reality a staged creation in a mysterious drama? Is there a way to re-balance the planet? Is there a wisdom or older knowledge existing?
A lot more good questions are spread throughout the story, each worth of exploring my own visions, re-questioning so called beliefs and given (?) positions…..
I didn’t make it to the end of the book yet.. But don’t necessarily want to come to an end, finish ‘the chapter’, discover an answer, close the book!
I’d rather go back, re-read, experience even more questions while I re-turn the pages and STAND STILL, hang out with these questions.
Maybe when I can see we’re making some significant changes in our society, that we’re addressing our eminent demise, I will read the last few pages of “Generation Snow”.
Until then I will share the book with everyone who has a serious interest or action calling concern about climate change and the involved social structures and psychology!
Teachers, put this book on your fiction reading list!!