2020-01-15 - Review: The Wild Dead
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Title: The Wild Dead
Author: Carrie Vaughn
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Hopepunk
Vaughn's "Bannerless" was an unexpected reading pleasure for me
back in 2018. Like Emily St.John Mandel's "Station Eleven", it
posited a post-apocalyptic society where things were, well, not
entirely shit.
In place of the usual marauding rape gangs, societal breakdown and
child murder, Vaughn sketched a community which had managed to hold
onto some particular scientific progress and where people just
tried to look out for each other. It wasn't perfect, not by a long
distance, but it offered something hopeful, hence "hopepunk".
"The Wild Dead" explores many of the same themes surfaced in the
first book, most particularly how the society of "The Coast Road"
interacts with and deals with those who will not pay the price of
membership of their community. Once again, our protaganist is Enid
the Investigator, a group apart from the usual society who act as
an amalgam of police, judges, mediators and counsellors.
While the primary narrative of the book is (again) a murder
investigation, this is just the building block on which Vaughn
creates a beautiful and contemplative look at this imperfect, but
striving, society. There's a lot here on the nature of what level
of interaction and supervision might be neccessary in a collective
syndicalist type society, on how that society would deal with those
who are distinct, or odd, or who break the society's primary rules.
In the absence of a carceral or murdering state, how can these
people be dealt with?
There are elements of Solarpunk here too - but this is not the
focus of the books.
I enjoyed returning to the Coast Road, and will happily read
anything else which returns there. I happily recommend it to those
looking for a more subdued, almost mournful post-apocalypse.
