In a dystopian future world, a giant metal tower known as
"The City" looms at the edge of a deep canyon. The City is a
caste system divided into thirteen tiers, each of which
houses a different class of the tower's inhabitants. The
very bottom floor is made up of the extremely poor, sick,
downtrodden, and dregs of society. Most are criminals or
the drug-addicted. As you rise, each floor becomes a
more-privileged class. The Twelfth Tier is where Alania, the
ward of a high-ranking officer, lives. Alania struggles with
her pampered existence and yearns to find out what exists in
the floors below her tier. She gets her wish but not in the
way she'd hoped as a failed ambush forces her to flee from
her protected tier and head down into the unknown. Along the
way, she meets a Midden resident named Danyl. Danyl has
exactly the opposite desires as he wishes beyond anything to
elevate himself somehow to the upper levels. The City is
ruled by an iron-fisted government, however, and he soon
realizes that Middens are Middens and that's exactly how
the authoritarians in power wish it to continue.
THE CITYBORN details the struggles of the unfortunate
population of The City and how even under the most
oppressive form of segregation and oppression, the human
spirit always yearns for something better and nothing can
quell that desire, especially for those like Alania and
Danyl. Eventually, these two unlikely companions must force
themselves to accept and try to understand each other if
either of them wishes to survive what is coming. For even
if they manage to escape the authorities who are trying to
capture them and maintain order in The City, they still face
even worse dangers from the inhabitants of the mysterious
lower levels. The horrors that await them from above and
below may crush them like a vice if they cannot find a way
to break the chains of prejudice and ignorance.
So much to say about THE CITYBORN by Edward Willett. It was
very reminiscent of another one of my favorite dystopian
books -- WOOL by Hugh Howey. The idea of a population of
people forced to live in a metal building divided by class
floors is quite interesting. I thought the author did such
an amazing job of describing the different types of people
who lived in those levels. Another aspect that the author
did well was to effectively show a parallel to our society
today. We have never been more divided as a people with
prejudice and racism threatening to tear us apart. I
couldn't help but think as I was reading THE CITYBORN that
there were a lot of lessons to be learned from what the
author was conveying.
The book is written in such a way that you can really feel
the hatred of the upper class toward those living below and
whom they see as inferior. THE CITYBORN was a very topical
read and a scary one at that but in the end, it was also an
entertaining story. Yes it is dark at times, but there's
never a sense of overwhelming hopelessness and you feel like
the main characters are constantly working to make things
better for themselves and their respective tiers. A great
book that I highly recommend.
Two young individuals must uncover the dark secrets of
their stratified city in this suspenseful sci-fi standalone
The metal City towers at the center of the mountain-ringed
Heartland, standing astride the deep
chasm of the Canyon like a malevolent giant, ruled with an
iron fist by the First Officer and his Provosts in the name
of the semi-mythical Captain. Within its corroding walls
lies a stratified society, where the Officers dwell in
luxury on the Twelfth Tier while the poor struggle to
survive on the First and Second, and outcasts scrabble and
fight for whatever they can find in the Middens, the City’s
rubbish heap, filling the Canyon beneath its dripping
underbelly.
Alania, ward of an Officer, lives on Twelfth. Raised among
the privileged class, Alania feels as
though she is some sort of pampered prisoner, never
permitted to explore the many levels of the City. And
certainly not allowed to leave the confines of the City for
any reason. She has everything a young woman could want
except a loving family and personal freedom.
Danyl, raised by a scavenger, knows no home but the Middens. His
day-to-day responsibility is to stay alive. His sole
ambition is to escape from this subsistence existence and
gain entrance to the City—so near and yet so far out of
reach—in hopes of a better life.
Their two very different worlds collide when Alania, fleeing
from an
unexpected ambush, plunges from the heights of the City down
to the Middens, and into Danyl’s life.
Almost immediately, both of them find themselves pursued by the
First Officer’s Provosts, for reasons they cannot fathom—but
which they must uncover if they are to survive. The secrets
they unlock, as they flee the Canyon and crisscross the
Heartland from the City’s farmlands to the mountains of the
north and back again, will determine not only their fate,
but the fate of the City…and everyone who lives there.
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