THE BROKEN LAND by Ian McDonald is a story of a strange future world set around a community whose technology is organic based, it revolves around the trouble caused by the imposition of a new social order by the Emperor Across the River. With his forces, in their foul pollution producing vehicles, imposing their rules and even altering the local language, the people realise that dissent will be brutally and often arbitrarily punished.
Interspersed with descriptions of the unorthodox (to our eyes) technology e.g. houses that break into parts and run away when frightened or The Grove of the Ancestors where families come to communicate with the family tree (where dead family members have their heads and knowledge absorbed), it is also an allegory of the troubles in Northern Ireland. With very telling insights on both those troubles, and how intervening can cause its own problems, it also makes very good comparisons between male macho posturing and female practicality. It all makes for an absolutely fascinating read.
In an instant, Mathembe Fileli's life was burned away . . . Now, in search of answers, she must traverse a divided nation
Life in the village of Chepsenyt is idyllic. Despite the empire's growing religious tensions, the people of Chepsenyt live together peacefully and ply their trades, growing useful objects through the manipulation of DNA. It was here that Mathembe Fileli grew up, with her father creating tools used in construction and her mother spinning clothes and food.
That all changed in an instant.
The Broken Land mirrors Belfast resident Ian McDonald's upbringing in Northern Ireland by depicting a nation cut in two by a violent religious divide. On one side are the Proclaimers, the ruling group that doesn't believe in life after death, and on the other side are the Confessors, the opposing group whose thoughts are uploaded in the afterlife. When two Confessors take shelter in Chepsenyt, the Emperor's soldiers burn the village to the ground, throwing the whole country into civil war. In this newly perilous world, Mathembe must draw on her resourcefulness and inner strength to find her family and bridge the nation's gaping rift.
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