#drowned cities

[thelasthippie]

What about those small submerged villages that emerge from time to time?

[literaryestella]

Happy Birthday Paolo Bacigalupi! You wrote this amazing novel (now one of my favorites) with Mahlia, my khaleesi, and Tool. I didn’t want to stop reading and that feeling is amazing. Thanks, man! ❤️❤️❤️

[nicksbookreviews]

The Drowned Cities

Book Title: The Drowned Cities

Author: Paolo Bacigalupi

Subject: Post-Apocalyptic

Pages: 434

Type of Read: Moderate

Age: 11-14 Boys

Rating: 6 out of 10

Times Read: 1 times

Overall Impressions:

This book was very boring at the beginning. It got better as the story went on, but the beginning was so boring I had to force myself to read. Usually I can just get into the book and read but this book was had to get into.

  Summary:

In the future the world is in disarray. The U.S is in ruins. There are 3 armies trying to take control. Mahlia lives in a small town away from the danger, and she has always wanted to too leave the U.S and go to a different country. When she and her friend Mouse happen to find a “Half Man” (A genetically modified, super powerful, and strong killing machine), Mahlia nurses it back to life. The monsters name is Tool. The soldiers capture Mahlia and Mouse. Mahlia escapes, but Mouse stays in custody. Mahlia convinces Tool to help he free Mouse and then they would escape together. Mahlia’s plan fails and Tool and her are both captured. They make friends with one of the captains and Mahlia actually becomes a friend of t the army. The soldiers also ant to get out of the cities, and will Mahlia help them get out?

[ajmcgeewrites]

Drowned Cities

I recently finished the book Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi. For those unfamiliar with his work, Paolo has three books published based in the world of the Drowned Cities: his well-known and Hugo Award winning Windup Girl and Shipbreaker are the other two. Windup Girl takes place across the globe in a futuristic Far East, and is a more adult piece. Shipbreaker, however, takes place on the remnants of the Gulf Coast, in what remains of the United States, and Drowned Cities follows it.

At first, based on the descriptions of the geography and climate presented, I thought that Mahlia and her companion Mouse were further south, closer to the place where Shipbreaker was set. However, I soon realized that they were much farther north, in the remnants of the capitol itself. The commentary that Paolo effortlessly interweaves into the narrative addresses our modern day political environment with uncanny accuracy, so this setting is a perfect choice by the author.

Much of our discourse today, whether it be country songs or speeches by key political pundits, is about the so-called destruction of "America" or the "American way of life," and Paolo refers to this obliquely at several points during the text. Most pointed, perhaps, is when a character observes to another "I'm sure whoever first started questioning their political opponents' patriotism thought they were being quite clever." Why so clever, you ask? The world of this America looks more like a scene from Sub-Saharan Africa than anything we might recognize as our own fine country. The residents of the Drowned Cities don't even remember what they're fighting for, and the use of child soldiers is common. Armies battle over control of the city in order to gut the infrastructure that remains for basic resources to sell to foreign nationals - copper, marble, or relics of the nation's once great history. Anyone who is not part of one's own army is a traitor to the nation. Anyone who looks too foreign, like the main character Mahlia, a half-Chinese girl fathered by a Chinese soldier sent to try to rebuild and keep peace, is tortured to death and killed.

All of this set in a too-warm world, where winter never freezes the once familiar Potomac, now filled with boa constrictors and alligators; where K Street, artery of downtown DC, is now K Canal. It is an eerily believable future Paolo Bacigalupi weaves, and a heartbreaking one, but I thank him for it.

[chaosismysafety]

You live in a barbarous place. You cannout be blamed for trying to survive. If there were Gods who would have judged you, they have long ago fled the drowned cities....

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi