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Hi everybody. Josh Corman here from bookriot.com to talk with you once more about the Read
Harder Challenge for 2016. The task that I'm gonna tackle in this video is the read a post-apocalyptic
or dystopian book. It seems to me like everywhere you turn today there is a new, hot dystopian
or post-apocalyptic book. It seems to kind of be the genre of the moment, which is awesome
for me because there may be no book that I enjoy quite as much as the dystopian future/post-apocalyptic
novel. Some of my very favorite books could be described that way. And in fact the book
that I'm reading right now that I've checked out from the library, The Passage by Justin
Cronin, uh, is supposed to fir that bill. It was described to me as a cross between
Stephen King's The Stand and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, both phenomenal books in their own
right. Both very different. This so far is more in line with The Stand, uh, than it is
with The Road, but then again, I'm just a very short way into what is a very long book.
But the point is, I love this kind of writing, love these kind of books. And I'm excited
to share with you a few recommendations that are excellent. First up, a comic. Alan Moore
and David Lloyd's V For Vendetta. Now you may have seen the Wachowskis' movie, which
came out starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, uh, 2005 I'd say, about 10 years
ago. That made me feel really old for just a minute. OK. Um. Back to the comic. It is
a book that explores an Orwellian kind of future in England where borders have closed,
where racism and xenophobia kind of run rampant, facilitated as it almost always is in these
kinds of books by a consolidated power block who wants to keep power and who is flexing
their muscle to ensure that they can do so. The lesson there: be careful who you put in
positions in power. One of the things that makes V for Vendetta so different is that
the character at the center of it, V here in the mask, is weirdly unsympathetic. Very
often in books like this you have one straggling either person or group of figures who are
kind of fighting against the odds to stay alive and navigate the difficulties of the
particularly harsh world that they find themselves in. But V is a revolutionary who's lashing
out against the evil government that's in charge. But in doing so he does some terrible
things and justifies his actions through his claims that ultimately this will lead to the
overthrow of this unquestionably corporate set of overloads. He recruits a young woman
named Evey to be his protege who at the beginning of the book has resorted to prostitution to
make enough money to survive. V rescues her from a situation that's probably going to
see her murdered and from there he slowly begins to cultivate in her a revolutionary
spirit. And some of things I said before that were so terrible that he does, he actually
does to Evey as part of the process. You know, there's almost this military break her down
and build her back up, uh, kind of mentality to his methods. And the more that she discovers
about who he is and what he's doing, the more it calls into question whether or not she
really wants to follow through with some of the things that he's asking her to do that
he's putting her in a position to. So there's a degree of moral ambiguity, which is really
interesting, which I really like and which is kind of a trademark of Alan Moore's work.
There's always characters who one moment you sympathize with and the next moment you're
repulsed by. So the cool thing about this as a comic, too, is it's not a superhero book.
So if you're not into that sort of thing it still gives you a chance to dive into that
medium and read a really good Orwellian dystopian fantasy book. If you're into Orwell, if you're
into Aldous Huxley, if you read some of those books in high school and enjoyed that part
of them, or any book where there's kind of a tyrannical government at the center of power
and characters trying to fight against that, then you should definitely check out V for
Vendetta. I think you'll enjoy it a whole lot. All right the next book I want to share
with you is one of my favorites from the past few years. And I'm in a weird spot because
the book is so dependent on a couple of key pieces of information being revealed to you
only when the author wants you to have them that I feel kind of terrified to say too much.
I definitely don't want to ruin even the slightest bit of this book for you. And that is M.R.
Carey's The Girl With All The Gifts. This is a book like V for Vendetta that is a set
in a version of England in the near future and it centers around a young teacher and
her classroom of precocious and very interesting students who are, as the novel opens, kept
in a secure location, transported to and from class, individually by armed soldiers. And
in keeping with what I said before about not spoiling anything, the reasons for all that
stuff become apparent as the novel goes along. One of the things that The Girl With All The
Gifts does so well is it only gives you as much information as you need to keep pulling
you along, but it never feels like you're being unnecessarily teased or just dragged
around by the author for the sake of messing with the audience. And the novel also takes
the post apocalyptic genre, which is a genre that seems like it has these tropes that kind
of can't be broken and that they're present in almost every version of this kind of story,
uh, but it really turns a lot of that stuff on its head. It keeps you guessing. The characters
are incredibly well crafted. And I think honestly as great as the story is and as pulse pounding
as the book is, it's really exciting, I think the best thing about it is the characters
that Carey creates in writing this story. They feel totally lived in, even characters
that you only get to see for a short period of time feel really fleshed out. Their interactions
with each other are so loaded with emotional complexity that sometimes its easy to kind
of miss the action because you're so involved and wrapped up in some sort of personal interaction
that when things get crazy it can feel kind of like you've just been *** out of the
conversation that your'e having with someone that you care deeply about. So great action,
great characters, and a story that really keeps you ripping through the pages. I don't
know what more you could want in a post-apocalyptic novel. I don't know what more you could want
in a novel period. The world is totally convincing, the reasons behind all of the stuff that's
going on with the kids, their protection, the way that they're being guarded, the base
that they're a part of, why everything is set the way that it is as the novel opens
is I think brought to life in such a way that you just accept it. You buy into that world
fully and that is something that is hard sometimes for post-apocalyptic novels to do. They have
a lot of world building to accomplish, really gain the reader's trust and let them be lost
in the world and in the story, and The Girl With All The Gifts absolutely does that. One
of the best books I've ever read in the last several years. Check that one out for sure.
Last recommendation for the dystopian book task is Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death.
Now Who Fears Death is set in a futuristic version of the Sudan where things as you might
imagine given the topic of the task here have gone terribly wrong. One thing that's a little
different about Who Fears Death is that there is a kind of fantasy element to it where the
writer's not necessarily trying to ground it totally in the reality of the day and just
build in explanations for why things are the way that they are. There's a fantasy element
to it. Uh. Who Fears Death actually won the World Fantasy Award I think in 2011, so it
fits kind of firmly within that genre as well. If you have a fantasy interest then this might
be one that kind of pulls you in a little bit more. The main character, Onyesonwu, which
is actually where the book's title comes from because in Igbo that name means "who fears
death". And a little bit of a warning here about this book, Onyesonwu is born after her
mother is *** by a member of the powerful class. He's also literally powerful. He also
has some magical powers, as does the main character. And once she becomes mature she
sets off on a quest to track him down, confront him, and ultimately fight him after everything
that he did to her mother and to her as well. One other warning for this book, the main
character undergoes forced genital mutilation, which obviously is a horrific subject but
something that is very real in a lot of cultures around the world. Okorafor was actually kind
of challenged about this when she wrote the book. She is Nigerian and she said after the
book was published that obviously the act is horrible, she's proud of her culture and
its traditions, but she also recognizes that it's not that simple, right? The culture is
an amorphous thing, it's not set in stone. And she said that she wanted to kind of go
down this road and open up some of these doors and have difficult conversations and use this
novel as a way to do it. So if you think reading about that would be a problem, then best to
avoid this one. Picking three for this one was really, really difficult cause as I said,
so many books that I've loved over the years that I've used as recommendations for anything,
even when people aren't looking for post-apocalyptic or dystopian novels. Let us know which book
you found which checks off this task of the Read Harder challenge for 2016. Tell us about
those in the comments below the video here. Or let us know on social media. Tag your social
media post with the hashtag #readharder so that we at Book Riot and everybody else who's
participating in the challenge can check out some of those great recommendations and find
a great book to keep their progress on the challenge moving along. As always, thank you
so much for watching and we'll see you next time.