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jaceyThe Devil's Children
Heartsease
The Weathermonger
The big dilemma in reading The Changes is whether to tackle the books in publication order or in internal chronological order. The three books are all snapshots in time and don't feature the same characters. Wisely the omnibus version goes for internal chronology, beginning with The Devil's Children in which we are introduced to a post apocalyptic Britain in which everyone has suddenly developed a horror and hatred of machines. Society has broken down. Even simple machines such as locks have suddenly become ineffable and working machines engender a murderous rage that doesn't stop until the machines have been destroyed. Even the language of machines
We see events through the eyes of Nicky Gore who has sensibly returned home to her house in London to await her parents--parents who never come. After a wait of 28 days, devastated by her abandonment, she takes refuge with a party of Sikhs, strangers and strange to her in their culture. Here she believes she can find succour without the danger of emotional involvement. These people are unfamiliar enough that she will be able to remain aloof.
But the Sikhs haven't been affected by the anti-machine madness as Nicky herself has, so Nicky becomes their canary, able to warn them if they are in danger of drawing attention by acting against what has become the new norm. They travel through the English countryside and eventually find a farm to settle on. The exploration of Sikh culture through Nicky, who seems to have forgotten what she knew about a lot of things (a symptom of the machine-madness), is fascinating and for its time (first published in 1970) made it unusual amongst its contemporaries. It explores xenophobia and the descent into feudalism in a fairly simplistic way
There follows Heartsease, which is set in the 'witch hunt' era of the Changes, and finally The Weathermonger, which sees the solution to the original problem
I was impressed by these books when they were first published and I think they've stood the test of time reasonably well. I note that reviewers are talking about them as YA novels, but their original publication dates them to the timer when YA was barely developing as a concept. Originally these were just classed as children's books and as such I think they are accessible to a wide age range. This is a re-read courtesy of the electronic version from Netgalley, though I still have the original paperbacks on my bookshelf.
Heartsease
The Weathermonger
The big dilemma in reading The Changes is whether to tackle the books in publication order or in internal chronological order. The three books are all snapshots in time and don't feature the same characters. Wisely the omnibus version goes for internal chronology, beginning with The Devil's Children in which we are introduced to a post apocalyptic Britain in which everyone has suddenly developed a horror and hatred of machines. Society has broken down. Even simple machines such as locks have suddenly become ineffable and working machines engender a murderous rage that doesn't stop until the machines have been destroyed. Even the language of machinesWe see events through the eyes of Nicky Gore who has sensibly returned home to her house in London to await her parents--parents who never come. After a wait of 28 days, devastated by her abandonment, she takes refuge with a party of Sikhs, strangers and strange to her in their culture. Here she believes she can find succour without the danger of emotional involvement. These people are unfamiliar enough that she will be able to remain aloof.
But the Sikhs haven't been affected by the anti-machine madness as Nicky herself has, so Nicky becomes their canary, able to warn them if they are in danger of drawing attention by acting against what has become the new norm. They travel through the English countryside and eventually find a farm to settle on. The exploration of Sikh culture through Nicky, who seems to have forgotten what she knew about a lot of things (a symptom of the machine-madness), is fascinating and for its time (first published in 1970) made it unusual amongst its contemporaries. It explores xenophobia and the descent into feudalism in a fairly simplistic way
There follows Heartsease, which is set in the 'witch hunt' era of the Changes, and finally The Weathermonger, which sees the solution to the original problem
I was impressed by these books when they were first published and I think they've stood the test of time reasonably well. I note that reviewers are talking about them as YA novels, but their original publication dates them to the timer when YA was barely developing as a concept. Originally these were just classed as children's books and as such I think they are accessible to a wide age range. This is a re-read courtesy of the electronic version from Netgalley, though I still have the original paperbacks on my bookshelf.
