Tag Archives: chaos walking

March 31, 2021 · 11:52 pm

Monsters of Men

Young adult science fiction novel about fascism, colonialism, sexism and war

Content warning: fascism, colonialism, slavery, violence and sexism

I started reading this series a couple of years ago and spaced out the first and second books like I often do with a series. It hadn’t quite been a year since I read the second book, and I probably would have waited a little longer, but then a film adaptation of the first book in the series was released earlier this year, and I thought I had better wrap up the series before I saw the film.

Image is of “Monsters of Men” by Patrick Ness. The cover is orange text and circles against a black background, and the book is superimposed against a background from the Mars Perseverance Photo Booth, which was released around the same time to promote the current NASA mission to Mars.

“Monsters of Men” by Patrick Ness is the final book in the “Chaos Walking” series. The story picks up immediately after the events of the preceding book where a scout ship from another wave of settlers has landed near the fraught city of New Prentisstown. A three-way war is afoot between Mayor Prentiss’ men, the secret organisation the Answer and the native species of the planet known as the Spackle. Todd and Viola find themselves separated again: Todd trying to persuade the Mayor into negotiating peace and Viola trying to warn the new settlers of the unrest that awaits them if they land.

This is a challenging finale to a compelling series. Ness distinguishes this book from the other two by finally giving voice to one of the Spackle, previously only referred to by the number 1017. Renamed The Return in this book, he struggles with his own hatred towards the humans who enslaved and tortured his people which makes it difficult to truly return to the fold and ways of his people. I really enjoyed The Return’s chapters, and felt that through his perspective, the book’s commentary on colonisation became much more well-rounded. A key theme in this book is redemption, and the extent to which we can overwrite past decisions with new ones. I felt that Viola’s worsening health and her difficulty in meeting with Todd created a sense of tension that really helped to propel the book along. I also really liked how Ness tackled the issue of literacy, and despite being denied an education, Todd’s feelings of personal inadequacy.

Having read this book as a finale to the “Chaos Walking” series, I do think I need to comment briefly on the film adaptation. Despite how much I enjoyed the series, the film was pretty lacklustre. It suffered from having so many writers involved, and sacrificed depth for awkward moments and rushed storytelling interspersed with prolonged chased scenes.

If by chance you went to see the film, I can assure you that the series is much better.

The Ask and the Answer

Young adult science fiction novel about fascism, colonialism and sexism

Content warning: fascism, colonialism, slavery and sexism

This author is one of my favourite young adult authors, and I was thrilled to meet him some time ago at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. After the event, he signed a copy of my book and was quite excited to see my name. He told me that he had a talking horse with this name in his series “Chaos Walking”, which at the time I hadn’t read yet but was thrilled to hear. Angharad isn’t exactly a common name in books. Since then I read the first book, but had yet to meet Angharrad the talking horse who it turns out is introduced in the second. If you haven’t read the first book yet, I recommend you read my review of “The Knife of Never Letting Go” instead. Like the previous book, this 10 year anniversary edition has striking black tinted edges and very subtle embossing of slightly shiny black text on the matte cover. It has been sitting on my shelf for far too long.

“The Ask and the Answer” by Patrick Ness is the second book in the young adult science fiction series “Chaos Walking”. After discovering the truth about what happened to the women of Prentisstown, and meeting Viola, the girl who came from offworld, Todd and Viola arrive in Haven to find that it has been surrendered Mayor Prentiss, who now refers to himself as President of New Prentisstown. Todd and Viola are quickly separated, and Viola is placed in a healing clinic with women healers while Todd is locked up with the former Mayor of Haven. While recovering from her gunshot wound, Viola discovers that there is an underground resistance movement. Meanwhile, Todd is put to work supervising enslaved individuals of the planet’s native species, the Spackle. Unable to contact one another, Viola and Todd start to question their trust in one another.

This is an incredibly hard-hitting novel that picks up immediately where the previous one left off. Ness had already begun to explore the inequality between men and women caused by men developing Noise – the unchecked ability to project their thoughts to everyone around them – as a consequence of colonising the planet in the previous book. However, in this book he explores this issue far deeper and makes vivid connections between the way the Spackle are enslaved and controlled, and the way the women of New Prentisstown are enslaved and controlled. Towards the end of the book, Todd asks men who have been complicit in detaining, assaulting and marking women who they believe is going to be next.

Ness does an excellent job of character development in this book, really exploring what it means to be a man in Todd’s world. Juxtaposing Todd against Davey, Mayor Prentiss’ son, he examines how the two boys react to being made to brand Spackle and direct them to engage in slave labour. He also explores how Mayor Prentiss introduces Todd to control and violence so gradually in a way that is reminiscent of the progression of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and little by little Todd becomes complicit himself in the very things he condemned. I also found Mayor Prentiss’ use of information as a means of control equally chilling, and Ness draws all these themes together, driving the story towards an explosive conclusion.

One thing that always stands out to me about Ness’ writing is its sophistication, and his ability to reckon with complex themes in a way that doesn’t speak down to young adults but converses with them. A frequent complaint I have of second books in trilogies is that they are often a bit of a sagging bridge between the first book and the last. However, similar to “The Secret Commonwealth“, I actually thought this book was stronger than the first.

A compelling and insightful book that weaves in themes of politics and history while still being a fast-paced and exciting story. I would highly recommend this, and all of Ness’ books, to young adults.

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Filed under Book Reviews, Pretty Books, Science Fiction, Tinted Edges, Young Adult

Tagged as #startonyourshelfathon, book reviews, books, chaos walking, patrick ness, science fiction, The Ask and the Answer, tinted edges, Young Adult

April 7, 2019 · 8:00 pm

The Knife of Never Letting Go

Dystopian young adult science fiction with a gender twist

I have been reading this author for a while, and I was so excited to meet him in person at the Sydney Writers’ Festival last year. I think that he really is the cutting edge of young adult fiction right now, and when he told me last year that he had a character in one of his series with the same name as me, I knew I was going to have to give it a go. To celebrate 10 years of publication, the series was recently released in these very striking editions with black-edged pages and I absolutely had to have them. It has been a while since I’ve reviewed a book with tinted edges, and there is also a film adaptation currently in production, so I thought I’d better get moving.

“The Knife of Never Letting Go” by Patrick Ness is a dystopian young adult science fiction novel about a boy called Todd Hewitt who lives in a place called Prentisstown. In a town inhabited solely by men, where everyone can hear everyone else’s unfiltered thoughts at all times, Todd is the youngest. Spending most of his time alone with his dog Manchee, Todd is waiting for his 13th birthday, the day he will become a man, which is just a month away. However, when Todd stumbles across an impossible silence, everything he thought he knew about his town is thrown upside down.

Sorry, my dog was just being too cute not to include this one

When I picked up this book, what I was expecting the satire of “The Rest of Us Just Live Here” or the poignancy of “Release“. However, this is a very different story. One thing I love about Ness’ writing is that he is not afraid to commit completely to exploring a difficult, nuanced issue. In this story, Ness creates a world where there truly is a difference between men and women. He uses what he knows about gender in society and throughout history to take this difference to its horrifying extreme. When I read “The Power“, this was the book I was hoping for and finally I got it. I also really liked that Ness constantly placed Todd in difficult moral situations and did not always let him choose the right way. Todd struggles with feelings of guilt and conflicting interests, and is by no means the perfect protagonist. Ness is also an incredibly versatile writer and there are a lot of subtleties in the language he uses in this book.

As much as I was hooked by this story, I can’t give it a perfect review. There were some things that happened in the narrative that I wasn’t quite sure about. Also, because we learn about the world as Todd learns about the world, there are some big knowledge gaps that we as the readers can identify but where Todd (somewhat maddeningly) doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. I do appreciate that this is a trilogy, so there is still a lot yet to happen, but it is a very ambitious story and I wasn’t always completely on board with the way the story was unfolding.

Nevertheless, Ness is an excellent and relevant storyteller and if I had teenagers, I would be giving them his books.